The race to challenge an incumbent president always begins in the shadows, but the Democrats face special problems this time. They are sandwiched between two powerful forces. One, of course, is George W. Bush, a “wartime” president willing to use all the ships at sea–or at least one aircraft carrier–to underscore his popularity as the commander in chief in the global fight against terrorism. The other is the Clintons. They remain reviled figures in some quarters. But they are admired, especially by Democrats, as architects of what, increasingly, look like the “good old days” of the American economy. Indeed, if the Democrats are going to beat Bush, they’ll have to brag about Clinton’s economic record. That, in turn, means bringing the man himself–in all his controversial dimensions–back onto the stage in 2004.
The Clinton Nostalgia Tour begins next month, with the mega-hyped arrival of Hillary’s “Living History.” Among other topics, it will discuss her husband’s infamous trysts with Monica Lewinsky. The details aren’t expected to be too juicy, but the overall effect will be clear: what one friend of the couple described as “not just a token slap.” With a first printing of 1 million copies–the kind of commitment reserved for the likes of Pope John Paul II–the book will require relentless salesmanship. The author, who prefers to keep the media at arm’s length, will handle the selling. Her husband, meanwhile, is far along on his own book, now scheduled to be published in the fall of 2004–smack in the middle of the general election campaign.
Even when he isn’t onstage, Bill Clinton is a central character. The former president has made himself the off-the-record clearinghouse of the Democratic race, phoning in unsolicited advice and vacuuming up gossip. “He knows everything that’s going on down to the last detail,” said one of his advisers. Candidates value his calls and compete with each other to sing his praises as a strategist. “He’s always got great advice,” said Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, who formally launches his campaign this week. Former Vermont governor Howard Dean went further. “We’re not going to see anybody with Clinton’s talent in our lifetime,” he said. Still, some strategists wonder privately about Clinton’s motives. “His wife wants to run for president in 2008,” said one ‘04 adviser. “If they want to get back to the White House, why help us to get there first?”
Clinton, for his part, carefully protects his neutrality–and his record on the issues. He did so last week when dragged into the ongoing catfight between prep-schooled New England Yalies Dean (‘71) and Sen. John Kerry (‘66) of Massachusetts. Dean, who likes to make his points in dramatic fashion, was quoted as saying that America “won’t always have the strongest military.” Kerry’s team, eager to sell their man’s record as a Vietnam vet, pounced. The remark, they said, showed Dean was a naif and a wuss who accepted the inevitability of military decline. In defense, Dean’s forces found–and posted on the Web–Clinton quotes that appeared to support their man’s original point: that diplomacy is crucial if the world’s only superpower is to avoid being “encircled” by resentful countries. Clinton went ballistic, sources say. Normally hard to reach when traveling, he told The Washington Post from Mexico City: “I never advocated that we not have the strongest military in the world.” (As for Dean, he hasn’t shed his antiwar skepticism. “I have not been convinced that Saddam was ever a threat to the United States,” he told NEWSWEEK.)
Clinton doesn’t mind being cited when the topic is the economy, and the candidates were obliging in South Carolina. At a Friday-night fish fry, they used the recent rise in unemployment as evidence that Bush had, in Graham’s words, “squandered the prosperity we had at the end of the Clinton years.” Party insiders predicted more of the same. “Clinton is going to become more and more of an asset,” said Jim Hunt, the ex-governor of North Carolina and a key supporter of Sen. John Edwards. “There are people in my state who voted Republican and are looking at the economy and saying, ‘You know what? You guys ought to bring that boy Clinton back’.” Given his economic record, “I wouldn’t be ashamed to campaign with him,” said Dean.
Whether the Democrats will do so in the fall of 2004 remains an open question. The Clintons’ never-ending marital soap opera–soon to be front and center again–is one reason. But so is his image on military matters. He has praised Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, but is reviled by many military men and women–at a time when they are popular. They know his history, which includes a questionable escape from the draft and a stint in the 1972 antiwar presidential campaign of George McGovern. It’s not a history that most of this year’s crop of candidates will be eager to invoke. Kerry, for example, doesn’t advertise the fact–indeed, he says he does not remember–that he had campaigned for McGovern in at least one Democratic primary that year, in Oregon. Perhaps Clinton will shed more light on the ‘72 campaign when his autobiography comes out next year. In the meantime, the reporters in South Carolina will be eager to hear what Hillary has to say–and to see which of the TV divas wins the bidding war at the baby shower.
