New York Times
February 13, 2007
Political Memo
By PATRICK HEALY
As she made her first outing to New Hampshire as a presidential candidate last weekend, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton left her husband at home, yet she tried to tap his old political magic at nearly every turn.
Mrs. Clinton, Democrat of New York, mentioned Mr. Clinton at least eight times on Saturday — at one point talking about “Bill’s heart surgery” to illuminate her own travails with health care bureaucracy — and a few times on Sunday, most memorably when she said of Republicans, “Bill and I have beaten them before, and we will again.”
For the first time in her bid for the White House, Mrs. Clinton directly laid claim to the legacy and popularity of former President Bill Clinton — and did so in a crucial primary state where her husband showed his resiliency in 1992, when he finished second despite weeks of troubles.
“It helps her because we know Bill Clinton and we love Bill Clinton. We know him and his foibles. We know he loves his Dunkin’ Donuts; we know his love for burgers,” said State Representative Patricia M. McMahon, a longtime ally of both Clintons. “It shows that she’s human, too, and appreciates her husband and likes him as much as we do.”
This latest chapter in the Clinton political relationship is still a work in progress. Twice as a candidate for the Senate, and during her six-year term, Mrs. Clinton has kept a measure of professional distance from her husband, partly to keep the spotlight on “the politician in the family,” as he has called her. Where the two have appeared together — for example, at the funeral of Coretta Scott King last year — his skills as a speaker have overshadowed hers.
Now that Mrs. Clinton is a presidential candidate, however, her advisers say it would be folly to minimize Mr. Clinton’s role in her life: as a potential first gentleman, as her “full-time political counselor” (as she called him on Saturday) and as a source of emotional support.
Mr. Clinton is an asset in particular with his fan base, which was obvious as Mrs. Clinton drew smiles and laughter by recalling their White House days, “what Bill did” with the government in the 1990s (which she said she would try to replicate) and his famous tardiness, which, she noted with humor, she has endured with everyone else.
“The way she talked about him gave me a better feeling for her warmth,” said Karen Ryan of Concord, who attended a question-and-answer forum with the senator there on Saturday. “And the Clinton administration is a much better memory than the one we have now.”
Yet Mr. Clinton is also a potential liability because of the questions he provokes, as both a polarizing former president who could return to the White House and as a husband whose behavior in the Monica Lewinsky affair lingers in the some minds.
“It’s nice that she stayed with him, but as strong as she is, I think she should’ve dumped him after Monica,” said Karla Frasse, a dental assistant in Concord. “I want to see her in her own right and not really be reminded of the two of them together.”
Mr. Clinton stepped in for Mrs. Clinton on Sunday for the first time since she announced her candidacy, speaking at a breakfast of Westchester County Democrats in New York. It was not an official campaign event, though he did say that her huge re-election victory in November helped catapult her to New Hampshire. It was a reminder that Mr. Clinton will be a chief surrogate at fund-raisers and political events through November 2008, Mrs. Clinton’s advisers said.
There are no plans for Mr. Clinton to campaign on his own or to appear with his wife at events right now, though they will eventually campaign together, said Howard Wolfson, a senior campaign adviser.
Mr. Wolfson said that Mrs. Clinton’s references to her husband were not scripted, and that he did not know whether the couple had cooked up a Dunkin’ Donuts joke — in which she said, a few times, that Mr. Clinton had gained 20 pounds from his pit stops there, and that she would need voters’ help to keep off the pounds.
“I think it’s hard for her to think about New Hampshire without thinking about him,” Mr. Wolfson said.
Mr. Clinton finished second in the New Hampshire primary in February 1992 despite a winter of controversy over his draft record and other problems, and he declared himself “the comeback kid.”
Today he is exceptionally popular among Democrats in the state; in interviews this past weekend, several New Hampshire Democrats recalled their first conversations with him in 1992 as if they had just happened.
Mrs. Clinton’s informal references to “Bill” turned off a few Democrats, who said they found it distracting or informal. Yet political analysts said her casual references showed a certain assuredness, since many politicians, particularly women, are careful about saying or doing anything to suggest they are under the sway of their spouses.
“I think the way she was teasing about him, and not shying away from their years together, projected a nice confidence,” said Dante Scala, an associate professor of politics at Saint Anselm College in Manchester. “It helps engender early good will that can help build a candidacy.”
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