Good, let him give his "uber advice"
This opens up each and every demonrat to the question "Are you also seeking Clinton's advice on National Security?"
Posted on 05/30/2003 4:37:40 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Clinton Casts Long Shadow Over Candidates 2 hours, 54 minutes ago
By RON FOURNIER, AP Political Writer
WASHINGTON - Faster than you can say Monica Lewinsky, Democratic presidential candidates are embracing former President Clinton (news - web sites) and his economic record. They are just as quick to second-guess Al Gore (news - web sites) for running from his sex scandal-plagued boss in 2000.
AP Photo
"I don't know why he did that because I never ran away from Clinton," former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean said in a telephone interview Thursday between campaign stops in Concord, N.H. "Despite Clinton's problems in the second term, he was the best strategist the White House has seen since Franklin Roosevelt."
Once shunned by his vice president and some Democrats for lying about his affair with Lewinsky, who was a White House intern, the nation's 42nd president has transformed himself into a youthful party elder: adviser, mediator and uber-strategist urging tough stands against the White House.
He is the man for all candidates, a living example of how to defeat a president named Bush with a weak economy.
"I worked with the president to reduce the deficit ... and I respect the choices he made to help create 23 million jobs and low inflation and low unemployment. The president did a terrific job and the country has a sense of that," Sen. John Kerry (news, bio, voting record) of Massachusetts said while campaigning in Iowa.
"He's an asset to this party."
An asset sought by nearly every candidate.
Along with Kerry and Dean, Rep. Dick Gephardt (news - web sites) and Sens. John Edwards, Joe Lieberman (news - web sites) and Bob Graham talk about once a month with the former president.
In the conversations, as related by the candidates and their aides, Clinton has:
_ Told Edwards to spend less time on TV if he needs more time to study issues.
_ Complained to Edwards about President Bush (news - web sites)'s plans for rebuilding Iraq (news - web sites), and suggested that Democrats press the issue. "It's not going right," the former president said.
"I totally agree," Edwards replied. "I'm already doing that."
_ Urged Lieberman to be tougher on Bush. In March, after delivering a speech to 16,000 students in Iowa that was mildly critical of Bush's approach to Iraq, Clinton called the cell phone of a Lieberman aide. He was returning the senator's call from earlier in the day. "Is he there?" Clinton asked.
Yes, sir.
Lieberman, who was campaigning in Clinton's home state of New York, took the telephone — and for the next several minutes, he listened to Clinton dissect the speech.
His impact is already being felt.
When Dean and Kerry tangled during a South Carolina debate, Clinton publicly urged Democratic candidates to stop bickering. In the next multicandidate forum, the Democratic field laid off the infighting, and attacked Bush's anti-terrorism policies.
Clinton has complained to at least one candidate that the Democratic nomination process threatens to "diminish our nominee" by forcing candidates through a wringer of special interest demands and litmus tests.
One candidate, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that kind of thinking is behind the Democratic Party's fledgling effort to limit and coordinate debates being sought by dozens of constituency groups.
Clinton declined to comment on his role in the campaign.
The former president isn't the only Clinton being courted. Dean said he has talked to New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (news - web sites) about health care. Edwards slipped her an advanced copy of his education address.
The Clintons' high public profile could hurt the Democratic field, if only by stealing attention from the campaign. She will soon release a long-awaited memoir, and he may to publish a book shortly before the election.
The loquacious Clinton raised eyebrows Wednesday when he called for a constitutional amendment allowing the next two-term president to reclaim his office.
Republicans welcome the distraction.
"It's very difficult for (Democratic candidates) to ignore him, because he's attempting to make himself a presence," said Rep. Christopher Cox (news, bio, voting record) of California, a member of the House GOP leadership.
Associates say Clinton has no intention of taking sides in the primary campaigns — at least until there is a presumptive nominee, when he might urge any die-hard rivals to quit the race and unite against Bush.
For now, Clinton must be happy with what he hears because nearly every candidate mentions his presidency on the stump. The context is almost exclusively the economy — his record vs. Bush's.
"It's a real contrast. It's a natural story to tell," Gephardt said in an interview from Los Angeles. "There's also a contrast in the way he did foreign policy; he was very engaged in the world, solving problems in Northern Ireland, Kosovo, Bosnia, the Middle East and North Korea (news - web sites). "
The candidates pledge to embrace Clinton, even in the general election. "I think somebody should have had (Clinton) speaking up in 2000," Kerry said.
In fairness to Gore, Democrats say Clinton's political baggage has lightened.
"When Gore was running, the Clinton administration was clouded by the Lewinsky trouble," said Ken Cheuvront, a moderate state senator from Arizona. "Three years later, people remember the Clinton years as being a time of prosperity and peace. A bit more pleasant."
Good, let him give his "uber advice"
This opens up each and every demonrat to the question "Are you also seeking Clinton's advice on National Security?"
Gotta love it!!!!!!
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:
There are, of course, what I consider my "most damaging" set of hard-core links:
The Cost of Life (Clinton/Gore Sellout of Security for Campaign Contributions) **FR EXCLUSIVE** #2
CIA Officials Reveal What Went Wrong – Clinton to Blame
Is Bill Clinton Responsible for September 11?
Catastrophic intelligence Failure - Clinton's Bin Laden GATE
-The number of "suicides" for people linked to this and other Clinton-related cases--
-Women in the Clinton Era: Abuse,Intimidation and Smears--
-SEND JUANITA BROADDRICK VIDEO TO THOSE WHO WANT CLINTON TO SPEAK--
Nothing phony about response to Hillary at fete
Hillary's delegates spit on and taunt Police Honor Guard at her Convention
-Hillary Clinton-What America Needs to Know--
Sub Title: "Whistling Past the Graveyard"
If that's good strategy, Hitler must have been a genius at Stalingrad.
These people are incapable of getting the REALITY that Bush is running rings around them.
Yep, he and his malevolent mate are the authors and masters of the "politics of personal destruction". Any decent person would be ashamed to so blatantly attack a good man and a good president faced with what must be a record number of major crises for any president. Any respectable person would either support the president or at least have the decency to shut the h*ll up. These RATs care about nothing but power and how they can wrest it away from the president and return to the "glory days" of wallowing in decadence with the full approval of their leader. Alas, they know no shame, as plainly evidenced by that which they consider "good" and "great".
I believe that 9/11 changed things forever and made a lot of otherwise complacent Americans sit up and pay attention. Democrats make deals with the devil, and this is something our nation cannot afford. I hope the next election will see them slapped down so hard that they will still be trying to figure out how they failed to "get their message out" by the time MY grandchildren have grandchildren. Perhaps that's a little ambitious, but they deserve no better. They are hateful and dangerous and would sell this country to the highest bidder to advance their agenda no matter what the cost. They are NOT patriots OR statesmen. They care nothing for the sovreignity of our country or the well-being of our people. They are an enemy as surely as Islamic terrorists and despotic regimes. We desperately need to recognize that fact and deal with them accordingly.
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It was always all about him, Clinton. His vanity, his appetites.
If a Dem candidate kicked his butt, that'd make him distinctive. But none has the guts.
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