When Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign was launched. her supporters feared that Bill would overshadow her. Now the constant fear is that he will embarrass her. But, as Clinton campaigned in Pennsylvania, he was rarely the cartoon politician portrayed in the press. He still connects better with voters than his wife or Obama. “Hillary is in this race today because of people like you,” he told one white working-class audience. “She’s in it for you and she’s in it because of you. People like you have voted for her in every single state in the country.” People like you. The phrase hung in the air and the room quieted. Clinton didn’t say what the people who voted for Obama were like, but the suggestion was that they were somehow different.While Obama downplays wonkiness and Hillary presents her plans as tedious laundry lists, Bill makes connections and translates abstractions into folksy humour. To underscore the relationship between America’s budget deficit, paid for by loans from countries like China, and lax enforcement of the trade violations of those countries, he asked voters to imagine barging into the local bank president’s office and smacking him. “Say, ‘I can’t take it anymore!’ Bam!” he told the Lock Haven audience as he pantomimed a punch and then paused for comic effect. “Do you think you could get a loan tomorrow afternoon?” People laughed and shook their heads.In the closing days of the campaign, Obama gave at least three speeches criticizing the former President, who, ever vigilant of his legacy, defended himself at every stop. Few paid attention; Barack and Bill were like two boxers trying to have a fight but both getting pelted by a mysterious third force — the saturation gaffe coverage. The day before the primary, Bill Clinton lost his temper with a radio host who asked about the Jesse Jackson comments. Clinton went on a three-minute rant in which he posited the mysterious theory that Obama had played the race card against him. Then, not realizing that he was still on the air, he could be heard saying, “I don’t think I should take any shit from anybody on that, do you?” You can hear the whole thing in the Bill Clinton archive at YouTube. It’s already been listened to about three hundred thousand times. Excerpted from Ryan Lizza’s ‘Bill vs Barack’ in the latest issue of The New Yorker
