It’s not her political views, her past, or even her inane 90s health care plan. It’s a guy named Bill.
Yes, Bill can deliver political superstardom. He’s a razor-sharp political strategist. He knows the institution of the presidency. His fundraising chops are unrivaled. All that is well and good — perhaps too good, according to a September CNN poll, which showed his favorable rating higher than hers, 60 percent to 50 percent.
But there’s the other Bill, the one who could be a massive and messy distraction. That Bill is the ex-president known for his outsize appetites and indiscipline, the Bill who still revels in the limelight, who runs with global jet-setters. He is prone to pop up in the press for even the smallest of curiosities, like being spotted at dinner with another woman — bad news for an ex-president already infamous for marital infidelity.
If she runs, will voters focus too much on him? Will they remember too much of the national trauma known as “that woman” (Monica Lewinsky) — and the presidential prevaricating, hair-splitting (what is“is,” anyway?) and impeachment that followed? Can voters look at Bill without thinking of sex? If they don’t think of sex, they’ll likely think the word: “president,” which may also not be such a good thing for the spouse who wants that title.
And even if voters can keep the two separate in their minds, there’s the legitimate question of whether Bill can bear to keep himself out of the spotlight:
There’s something unbridled about Bill’s neediness, this love of the crowd — like the story about his trip to the World Cup in Berlin this year. En route to the stadium on a bus carrying several aides and donors, Bill told the bus driver to head instead to the Brandenburg Gate, the New Yorker reported. There, hundreds of thousands of soccer fans had gathered to watch a match on giant television screens. Uninvited, the former president mounted the stage where a rock band had been performing, and just stood there waving and thanking the crowd, which responded with roaring cheers.
Could Bill’s hunger for the spotlight pose problems? You bet, says James Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University. Hillary will have to be careful not to be upstaged by him or lost in the glare of his global political stardom.
And it would be so easy for that to happen. Say what you will about him, but Bill Clinton is a masterful public speaker. Hillary, on the other hand, clearly is not. There quite simply is no comparison between the two, and Hillary risks letting her husband outshine her.
Then, of course, there are the inevitable questions about their marriage:
Earlier this year, both the U.S. and Canadian press ran stories about Bill’s periodic meetings with a Canadian auto-parts magnate turned politician, Belinda Stronach. Both have characterized themselves as just friends since they met in 2001 at a fundraiser. But tongues wagged nonetheless, because of the baggage.
Folks around the Clintons believe — or want to believe — that Bill’s indiscretions are a thing of the past, that he has faced his demons.
I don’t expect Bill Clinton to consciously do anything that will upstage his wife’s campaign, but he will be the 500-pound elephant in the room. Even if you don’t talk about him, he’ll still be there and he’ll still have some, unknown, impact on the campaign.
