Clinton advisers grapple with best role for Bill

Former President Bill Clinton’s role in his wife’s political campaign, if she runs for president, is seen as a tricky situation.
Former President Bill Clinton’s role in his wife’s political campaign, if she runs for president, is seen as a tricky situation.

Bill Clinton is hungering once again to play a central role in his wife's presidential campaign. And Hillary Rodham Clinton's advisers are once again grappling with how to deploy Bill Clinton, a strategic imperative executed so poorly in 2008 that it resulted in some of the worst moments of her campaign.

In that race, the former president was at times an unpredictable presence, operating on his own, calling up some of his wife's aides to second-guess strategy and shifting the news media's focus from her to him with stray remarks, such as when he set off blacks' anger by diminishing Barack Obama's success in South Carolina.

This time, advisers and political associates say both Clintons understand how critical it is to harness both the gifts and impulses of a former president on behalf of a potential one.

Some plans are already forming, the couple's advisers say. Hillary Clinton, who has been said will announce her candidacy next month, will shoulder most retail campaign events without him this year. Putting her in close-in settings with voters at house parties and diners will allow her to avoid Bill Clinton's shadow.

Bill Clinton has talked to friends about courting a demographic group that he sees as crucial in the next election -- Hispanics -- as well as reaching out to other key constituencies like blacks, to elected officials and to high-dollar donors.

In hopes of collaborating with Bill Clinton better than in 2008, advisers to Hillary Clinton are involving him more closely in early campaign planning, and they are discussing whether to deploy a senior aide to travel with him to keep him focused on his wife's central message. The strategy would channel his political talents, such as synthesizing polling data with ground operations in key states like Florida, which he is preoccupied with winning in 2016.

But the terrain is tricky: Bill Clinton is never as angry or unpredictable as when his wife comes under attack.

He runs the risk of reinforcing a Republican argument that the Clintons are America's baby boomer past and do not represent a generational change in leadership.

"I can't think of anything tougher than being him in Secretary Clinton's presidential campaign, because no matter what he does, people will take exception to it," said Jerry Crawford, who was Hillary Clinton's Midwest co-chairman in 2008 and Bill Clinton's Iowa state director in 1992 and 1996.

"But at the same time, who would you rather have as a messenger and a strategist?" added Crawford, who speaks to the Clintons regularly. "And he learned a lot in 2008. First and foremost, he found out the last time how hard it is to be objective when it's your spouse running."

In the years since the 2008 primary campaign, Clinton has regained his image as a Democratic stalwart. Fifty-six percent of Americans have a positive opinion of Clinton, making him more popular than both Obama and Hillary Clinton, according to a Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll released this month.

But Bill Clinton's tendency to analyze out loud turned into a liability when he saw his wife's shot at the presidency in 2008 begin to slip away. After it became apparent that Obama won the South Carolina primary that year, Bill Clinton compared the victory to the Rev. Jesse Jackson's two victories in the state. He also called Obama's anti-war position "the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen," a comment that angered blacks, who interpreted the comment to mean that Obama's candidacy was a fantasy.

"He had some bumps in the road down here," said state Sen. John Matthews Jr., who was a co-chairman of Hillary Clinton's South Carolina operation. "I don't think those bumps were all self-inflicted, but the campaign would be smart to plan and invest more wisely next time."

His outsize personality can at times eclipse his less gregarious wife.

In September, Hillary Clinton took the step of returning to Iowa for the first time since she lost in 2008, reintroducing herself to the state at the annual steak fry hosted by former U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin.

Bill Clinton held a 15-minute impromptu powwow with reporters and delivered a 30-minute speech about topics as varied as development in Haiti and the conservative megadonors Charles and David Koch.

"We saved the best for last, didn't we, folks?" Harkin said when he introduced Bill Clinton, who spoke after Hillary Clinton. A Yahoo News headline read: "Hillary Clinton Returns to Iowa, and Bill Clinton Almost Steals the Show."

Hillary Clinton's advisers are taking steps to avoid 2008-style dysfunction, when Bill Clinton's team functioned apart from her campaign.

The two operations were so independent that questions arose at times about whether some aides to the Clintons were more loyal to one or the other and whose marching orders they were following.

This time, the staffs are more intertwined. John Podesta, the likely campaign chairman, has known the former president since the McGovern campaign of 1972. Bill Clinton's chief of staff, Tina Flournoy, is in regular contact with the expected campaign team.

A Section on 03/29/2015

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