Clinton Connection Causes Quandary

INSIGHT magazine ^ | June 24, 2002 | Hans S. Nichols

[Stand Watch Listen]

They're baaack! It's not surprising that alumni of the Clinton administration are jousting to return to public life, pining for the power and prestige they once enjoyed in the White House. What is surprising — and of growing interest to the 2004 Democratic presidential hopefuls — is how the Clinton alumni are talking about their former boss and his contested legacy. Or, in some cases, not talking about it.

"Is a Clinton connection a political plus or the mark of Cain?" wondered New York Times columnist William Safire recently. No less than six Clinton alumni are on the ballot in 2002 races for House, Senate and governors' seats. Former U.S. attorney general Janet Reno is running for governor in Florida, former energy secretary and U.N. ambassador Bill Richardson is the Democratic candidate for governor in New Mexico, former housing and urban development secretary Andrew Cuomo is seeking the gubernatorial nomination in New York and former Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich is trying to get the Democratic nomination for governor of Massachusetts. Clinton's loyal chief of staff during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Erskine Bowles, is competing for the Senate seat from North Carolina to be left open by the retirement of Republican conservative Jesse Helms. And former presidential adviser Rahm Emmanuel is likely to win the congressional seat once held by convicted felon Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.).

The conundrum these Clinton alumni face is similar to Al Gore's quandary in 2000: Should they stand by their man or duck the connection? Like the ongoing debate about how Gore ran his campaign, the latest round of Georgetown parlor talk is, at its core, about the country's divided and sometimes contradictory opinions of Clinton — an impeached president who presided during a period of economic prosperity and enjoyed high approval ratings despite a personal life redolent with scandal. No matter how much empirical evidence is on the table, political operatives, pollsters and candidates can't seem to agree about how voters will react to the Clinton connection.

Clinton critics are quick to point out the many intelligence and security failures that occurred during his administration. They note the deep reductions in his defense budgets and his less than vigorous response to the U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, along with the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000. And while a distracted Clinton was busy plotting his impeachment defense, a focused al-Qaeda was plotting attacks on the U.S. mainland, the former president's critics charge.

In the national-security evaluation that followed Sept. 11, Clinton's stock plummeted. A recent Gallup poll found his approval rating had dropped lower than at any point during his second term and a full 20 points below his successor.

But polls can be deceiving. "This is one area where I don't even believe my own polls; he's more popular than any polls ever show," says John Zogby of the polling firm Zogby International, a sometime-Clinton pollster who often churned up numbers that made the Clintons hot with anger. "It's safe to say Bill Clinton is not a huge fan of mine," Zogby claims to Insight, "so I say this as someone who's by no means a Clinton partisan, but I still believe that Clinton has enormous star power and that Democrats are foolish not to capitalize on it." Zogby thinks Clinton might be especially effective at getting out the black vote in Florida, for instance.

Political operatives in the field, both Democrat and Republican, aren't so sure how Clinton will play in Peoria. In North Carolina — a conservative state George W. Bush won by 13 points in 2000 — Bowles is running from his Clinton past even though he's in a tough three-way Democratic primary where a Clinton connection could help him. Republican strategists note that in Bowles' TV ads he boasts of serving "a president" as chief of staff, but doesn't mention which president. No one doubts that the Clinton connection would be an asset among hard-core Democratic voters in the primary, but there is concern it could come back to haunt Bowles in the general election. For the moment, it looks like his failure publicly to embrace Clinton might prevent him from making the main event.

If North Carolina is Bush country, New York state is, quite literally, the Clintons' back yard. Even so, Cuomo may not get a chance to avenge his father Mario's loss to Republican Gov. George Pataki. While Andrew Cuomo is flush with cash, he faces a strong challenge from State Comptroller Carl McCall, a powerful and determined candidate and an African-American who is unwilling to make way for the Clinton veteran. "Just because Hillary breezed through the state doesn't mean that the Clintonites will have their way this time," says a Democratic consultant close to the McCall camp. Even if Cuomo is the Democratic nominee, the Clinton machine may have offended enough McCall supporters to hold down black turnout in the general election. The result: a big victory for Pataki.

If Cuomo is willing to meet Clinton halfway, Emmanuel has gone the distance: He has, rather unabashedly, run on Clinton's record. Having won a nasty primary with Clinton's help (the former president raked in big bucks at a fund-raiser for his former aide), Emmanuel should coast to an easy victory in the densely Democratic environs in North Chicago. According to a national Democratic operative, "It's simple: If Clinton won the state or the [congressional] district, you campaign on his record. He's your best friend. If he lost, you don't remember his name."

But even that formula can cause some problems on the ground. Take the case of Richardson, a popular seven-term congressman before his stint in the Clinton administration. He's far from certain how to handle his Clinton relationship. Republicans note that he publicly has wavered on whether he'll invite his old friend out to raise money. But he'll need as much fund-raising help as he can get to contend with a feisty GOP opponent, John Sanchez.

Sanchez suffers from no indecision on what to do about Richardson's Clinton connection: He plans to make an issue of it. Clinton won New Mexico twice and Gore carried it by a scant 360 ballots, making it a quintessential toss-up state. While both candidates have Hispanic heritage and are fluent in Spanish, Sanchez may have the more compelling personal story. The last of eight children, he was raised in a two-bedroom house and is a successful small businessman. Richardson, by contrast, attended a tony prep school and hardly can expect empathy from people making it on their own.

Richardson's predicament is similar to that of Reno's because both their own scandals are intertwined with Clinton's. As secretary of energy, Richardson was on watch during the Wen Ho Lee security breaches at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Richardson has admitted the scandal took him out of consideration to be Gore's running mate in 2000.

"I realized this incident, this Los Alamos incident, has probably reduced my chances to whatever is less than zero," Richardson told the New York Times in July 2000. And while Richardson dithers on how he might spin the Clinton past, Sanchez is more than willing to test the anti-Clinton thesis. "Richardson's record demonstrates that he cared a lot more about Clinton's politics than improving the quality of life in New Mexico, and we intend to educate voters on that subject," says a campaign spokesman.

Reno must endure similar testing. From Waco to Elian, her own checkered past is nearly impossible to separate from Clinton. And even if Reno decides that she wants to campaign arm-in-arm with him, the former president might not embrace her. He has been lukewarm about his attorney general's candidacy, giving Reno the worst of both worlds. Republican voters are turned off by her Clinton association, while Democrats worry that it's not close enough.

If there's speculation about Clinton's relationship with Reno, there's no doubt that his feelings toward Reich are frosty. It wasn't always like that. An old pal of Clinton's from their Rhodes scholar days at Oxford University, Reich busied himself in the early nineties by floating self-fulfilling rumors that Clinton would be a candidate. But then the two had a public falling-out and in Locked in the Cabinet, a 1997 tell-all book, the former labor secretary accused Clinton of abandoning his liberal roots.

While Reich's campaign people insist the two still are chummy and that Reich "considers him a friend," the record tells a different story. When Reich began hinting that he had won Clinton's endorsement in the crowded primary, the former president went to unusual lengths to pour water on such speculation. "I like [Reich] fine, but I didn't like the implication that somehow I encouraged him into the race when you already had one guy in the race that had supported my policies, and at critical points [Reich] didn't," Clinton told the Boston Herald. "I wouldn't have done that."

Clinton may have exacted some private revenge, say Bay State Democrats. Reich is way down in the polls and isn't expected to win the primary. Clinton's machinations in Massachusetts may demonstrate that the only impact he can have on an election is a negative one, Republicans say. "He can't get anyone elected," a GOP operative says, "but he can certainly sink any Democrat's chances, especially in a primary."

Hans S. Nichols is a reporter for Insight.

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[chemainus]

Republicans are very poor at bare knuckled, fight to the finish brawling....it's time they learned the craft or suffer simpering defeat...the Clintonistas can't stand up to scrutiny unless you let them shout you down, evade the questions , spin it out or whine like a Muslim diplomat...learn to fight Republicans , to the finish. Bring it all out then bring it out again and again...punch! don't duck !

[yoe]

Clinton is the epitome of a Snake Oil Salesman...smooth but empty talk with convincing overtones; great belief in his self for himself as was demonstrated for eight years. I would not have voted for that flag burning, womanizing, lying SOB if my life depended upon it!

However the media loves the soap opera that gives Bill Clinton the “star power” he craves. The fact that Clinton never displayed the usual presidential qualifications like decency, they (the media and help from Hollywood image makers) heaped the Hunk in the Oval Office with phrase...for what?...his adolescent sexcapades like a dog going after a bitch in heat? his tawdry back ground while a state governor and later as president? a wife who could care less just as long as he didn’t get caught? he could take public property and sell it for campaign funds? he could and did accept foreign bribes for campaign funds? his traitorous sales of the national security for money for himself and the DNC? a corrupt and deceitful if not right down mendacious administration? And on and on.

Coupled with the deliberate dumbing down of American education; the eradication of true history in what is taught today; the acceptance of perverse behavior, all these things the couch potato public and young/old press loved. Holdovers from their radical past, the Clintons had a ready-made voting machine. Hillary even flew preliminary balloons to see if the American public would accept a philandering president before she let him run for the presidency.

Democrats would do well to let the Clinton years slip quietly into the obscure past it/they deserve(s). Why anyone would support Janet Reno or Richardson is beyond me; one, an out and out crook and one so inapt it staggers the imagination...they simply have come to believe their own liberal press. Reich? What a joke! A dangerous joke!

No, I would not want a Clinton standing anywhere near me were I looking for elected office. One can only hope the press/media will come of age and support a now classic president and his classy wife.

America is regaining her image of decency after too many years of a Hollywood wannabe in the White House: the office requires a statesman; a true American who understands the Constitution and all it stands for; it is not a document of laws to be bent to ones whim as the Clintons tried with some success to do. Being a Clinton conjures up the thoughts of power, greed and decadence...a Rhodes scholar he never was!

[bandleader]

Hey,come on!You're really not being fair to"BeelzeBubba"!!He also is possessed of an active imagination.Just recently the former"Whiner in Chief"claimed that the annual "Al Smith"dinner was cancelled once(during his presidency?)so The Catholics wouldn't have to sit next to him on the dais!!!What An Imagination!!!!!!!!!!

[Zack Nguyen]

Clinton remains popular only with the hopelessly depraved, the hopelessly misinformed, or the hopelessly insane. Oh, and I forgot to mention pinks, pimps, perverts, prostitutes, and the politically correct.

[cyncooper]

"This is one area where I don't even believe my own polls; he's more popular than any polls ever show," says John Zogby of the polling firm Zogby International

Really, John Zogby? Guess again.

[nutmeg]

bump

[spald]

Clinton remains popular only with the hopelessly depraved, the hopelessly misinformed, or the hopelessly insane. Oh, and I forgot to mention pinks, pimps, perverts, prostitutes, and the politically correct."

Claire Shipmann of ABC News is in love with Bill Clinton. She hits the trifecta perfectly.

[backhoe]

Like the chains on Marley's Ghost

That "clinton legacy" has been forged...
link...
by link...
by sordid link....

Madison Society - Slick Willy
... THE CLINTON TIME LINE. The Etherzone provides, in one location, all the events
of the Clinton Ongoing Corruption from 1977 through 2000. Read more. ...

CLINTON'S ROGUES GALLERY:
... And that gets to my second chart, Mr. Speaker, which is the time line.....Up until
1993, Mr. Speaker, under Democrats and Republican Presidents alike, there ...

The Cost of Life (Clinton/Gore Sellout of Security for Campaign Contributions) **FR EXCLUSIVE** #2

-DOWNSIDE LEGACY AT TWO DEGREES OF PRESIDENT CLINTON --

---

"Has that clinton "legacy" made you feel safer yet?"
Lest Americans ever forget why the clintons, and all their enablers need to be hectored, hounded, and harried into silence, until "clintonese is only spoken in Hell," look here:

The Holiday *Best* of Bill Clinton & his Friends!

Hodgepodge O' Hillary

-clintonism in one easy lesson--

-"until clintonese is spoken only in Hell!"--

Hillary! and Arafat's wife-

---

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[winodog]

So that means a minimum of 35% of america.

[Pagey]

Thanks for posting this article.I look forward (with great glee actually) to following how Reno,Reich,Bowles, Emmanuel,Richardson,Bonior actually do in all of their respective 'elective positions'.It would be a supreme smack in the face to #42,if his designated pawn in the DNC,Mr. McAWFULiffe fails to land any winners into the fracas that is USA Politics in 2002.It's funy how many were appointed by #42,now think "I can win any seat I want",and I hope they all fail to win.Thinking positively does wonders. LOL

[Pagey]

Geez, don't forget there are 2 'n's in funny.