Posted on 01/05/2004 11:17:52 AM PST by zing ding
He left office nearly three years ago as one of the most successful Presidents ever, and Bill Clinton, the youngest ex-president in modern times, is still the go-to guy in Democratic politics.
All of the party's major candidates for president say they call on Mr. Clinton for advice. They say the former president always seems eager to talk politics, and one says the former president sometimes seems to relish the calls as an excuse not to work on his memoirs.
"He said to me once, `I shouldn't be spending this much time, I've got to be writing my book,' " this candidate said. "But if you get him at home or in the office and he's not traveling, he has the time. And he loves it."
The candidates said they were seeking advice on tactical and substantive matters. As they tussle over the direction of the party, they are also consulting former Clinton aides to help flesh out their policy proposals. Robert E. Rubin, Mr. Clinton's treasury secretary, and Gene Sperling, a senior economic adviser in the Clinton White House, are particularly popular.
Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, who calls himself the former president's ideological heir, said, "He's brilliant, both on policy and politics."
"We'll talk about where we are on some issue, and maybe this is the way to deal with it," Mr. Lieberman said.
Representative Richard A. Gephardt said Mr. Clinton had helped with "the whole construct" of his campaign.
Mr. Gephardt added: "He always said to me, `One of your advantages is your experience,' and he said, `That's something you obviously need to talk about and make an asset, not a negative.' "
When Gen. Wesley K. Clark, a fellow Arkansan, entered the campaign in September, the re-emergence of Clinton loyalists like Bruce Lindsey fueled speculation that Mr. Clinton and his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, were backing General Clark as a way to stop another candidate, Howard Dean. General Clark said the Clintons had encouraged him to run, but the Clintons have said they would not endorse anyone in the primaries.
Moreover, the Clintons have said positive things about many of the candidates, leaving General Clark to compete for a public blessing. His campaign did some elaborate planning last month to have Mr. Clinton issue a one-sentence tribute to General Clark to rebut Slobodan Milosevic at the former Yugoslav president's war-crimes trial in the Hague.
General Clark said that Mr. Clinton had helped him make the transition from the military to politics. "The biggest thing is in terms of dealing with people who question you," General Clark said.
He said Mr. Clinton had also advised him that "you have to have positive energy in the campaign, you have to fight hard but you don't want to get negative."
A Clinton friend, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, the television producer who with her husband, Harry Thomason, made the campaign video "The Man From Hope" for Mr. Clinton in 1992, has made the similar "American Son" for General Clark.
Last week, the Clark campaign became the first with a commercial that included a picture of Mr. Clinton, though Mr. Gephardt noted that he was the first to refer to Mr. Clinton in a commercial, in September.
When Mr. Lieberman heard about the Clark commercial, he sounded a bit miffed that he had been beaten to the punch.
"Has President Clinton now become public property so that we can do it without his permission?" Mr. Lieberman asked reporters in a conference call.
Even Dr. Dean, who has made statements perceived as critical of Mr. Clinton, mentioned the former president and his wife in an interview: "I talk to both him and the senator fairly frequently."
Dr. Dean added: "Sometimes they call me, but it's usually me calling them. Sometimes I ask Hillary for advice on how she would respond to some stuff. He and I talk about strategy and the campaign."
Three of the candidates, Dr. Dean, General Clark and Carol Moseley Braun, followed in Mr. Clinton's footsteps last week, going to South Carolina for the New Year's retreat of movers and shakers known as the Renaissance Weekend.
"Clinton remains a protean force in the Democratic Party," said Thomas Mann, an expert on politics at the Brookings Institution.
"All of the candidates would like to emulate his success and to contrast the economic success of the 90's with what Bush has done," Mr. Mann said.
| Rank | Location | Receipts | Donors/Avg | Freepers/Avg | Monthlies | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 34 | Colorado | 115.00 |
4 |
28.75 |
293 |
0.39 |
125.00 |
9 |
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The disgraced/impeached one? ROTF. This person lives an alternate reality! He's got a 23% approval rating! No one likes this guy but the twisted freaks who can "relate".
-How to not only ignore a growing terrorist threat, but to actually aid and abet it
-How to facilitate the export of nuclear technology
-How to release terrorists onto the street to aid political campaigns (this will be very tough to pull off in a post-9/11 world without Clinton's consultation)
-How to routinely commit and suborn perjury and obstruct justice before federal grand juries/depositions
-How to remove barriers in abtaining security clearances so the sleazeballs you've surrounded yourself with can come to work every day
-How to cut a deal being suspended for five years doesn't sound as bad as being disbarred.
-How to discuss troop deployment while one's pants are around one's ankles.
Yeah...the rapist advised gray davis.
A lot of good that did him.
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