CE Week #12: “Bill’s role a dominant issue”
November 15, 2007
As the Democratic presidential race finally gets down to brass tacks, two issues are becoming paramount. But only one of them is clearly on the table.
That is the issue of illegal immigration. A very smart Democrat, a veteran of the Clinton administration, told me he expects it to be a key part of any Republican campaign and is worried about his own party’s ability to respond.
I think he has good reason. The failure of the Democratic Congress, like its Republican predecessor, to enact comprehensive immigration reform, including improved border security, has left individual states and local communities struggling with the problem. Some are showing a high degree of tolerance and flexibility. Others are being more punitive. But all of them are running into controversy.
I noticed a new Siena College Research Institute poll of registered voters in New York. It found heavy opposition to Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s proposal to permit undocumented aliens to obtain driver’s licenses; nearly two-thirds opposed the latest version.
Moreover, the issue is part of a weakening of support for Spitzer, who now has a 2-to-1 negative job rating and, for the first time, an overall unfavorable image. Asked if they are inclined to support him for re-election in 2010, only 25 percent say yes, while 49 percent say they would prefer an anonymous “someone else.” It was just last year that Spitzer was elected in a landslide. On Wednesday, Spitzer announced that he was abandoning the driver’s license idea.
That is New York, home state of both Hillary Clinton and Rudolph Giuliani. And the driver’s license question is the one that tripped up Sen. Clinton when she was asked about it at the Philadelphia debate and gave answers that were indecisive – and nearly indecipherable.
The other candidates had more time to compose an answer, so were spared the embarrassment. It was the pummeling she received from Barack Obama and John Edwards during and after that debate (and from moderator Tim Russert) that brought her husband, former President Bill Clinton, into the campaign, with the charge, as he put it, that “those boys have been getting tough on her lately.”
The former president’s intervention – volunteered during a campaign appearance on her behalf in South Carolina – raised the second, and largely unspoken, issue identified by my friend from the Clinton administration: the two-headed campaign and the prospect of a dual presidency.
In his view, which I share, this is a prospect that will test the tolerance of the American people far more severely than the possibility of the first woman president – or, for that mater, the first black president.
As my friend says, “there is nothing in American constitutional or political theory to account for the role of a former president, still energetic and active and full of ideas, occupying the White House with the current president.”
No precedent exists for such an arrangement and no ground rules have been – or likely can be – written. When Bill Clinton was president, the large policy enterprise that was entrusted to the first lady – health care reform – crashed in ruins.
The causes were complex, and some of the burden falls on other people – Republicans and Democrats in Congress, the interest groups and, yes, the press. But as one who reported and wrote in excessive detail and length about that whole enterprise, I can also tell you that the awkwardness of having an unelected but uniquely influential partner of the president in charge affected every step of the process, from the gestation of the plan to its final demise. She was never again asked to take on such a project.
And this was simply the confusion sown by having the first lady in charge. Put the former president into the picture – however “sanitized” or insulated his role is supposed to be – and the dimensions of the problem loom even larger.
No one who has read or studied the large literature of memoirs and biographies of the Clintons and their circle can doubt the intimacy and the mutual dependency of their political and personal partnership.
No one can reasonably expect that partnership to end, should she be elected president. But the country must decide whether it is comfortable with such a sharing of the power and authority of the highest office in the land.
It is a difficult question for any of the Democratic rivals to raise.
But it lingers, even if unasked.
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I never thought about the prospect of Hilary being elected and the U.S. having a dual presidency. I don’t think that that will happen at all.
Hilary strikes me as the type of president to not let her 1st husband to have any say in the presidency officially. I think she wants to prove she is strong and can do it without his help, but also needs his help to win the canidacy.
I think that Hilary will hog the power against her husband who’s natural instinct will be to take over. I also think that if their relationship isn’t as good as what this article states it might fall apart after she wins the presidency or if she does win president then after reelection. If she held some grudge for Bills mischief then she would be about to spit it at him then. She needs the marrage to hold until she wins. No single woman could win the presidency, if indeed any woman can win it. I think that the dual presidency won’t be an issue, and if people don’t vote for Hilary it won’t be because of that. It’ll be because they hate her. Hilary you either like or hate much like her husband.
Her husband didn’t have a bad presidency though, he just made some moral mistakes. That has nothing to do with his rating of how he governed the country. Besides being impeached I thought he was a very productive president dispite the split-ticket voting he had to deal with during his presidency. That’s one hope I have for this time is I hope that congress is democratic and we have a democratic president because that would indicate a Bush backlash and maybe our economy, and our war problems would be solved.
“A very smart Democrat, a veteran of the Clinton administration, told me he expects it to be a key part of any Republican campaign and is worried about his own party’s ability to respond.”
I always hate to hear this. If you want to say something has the balls to let them publish your name. It seems to me a form of the logical fallacy of “anonymous authority.” It just bugs me that we have no idea who this man is. Why is he so afraid to say the truth maybe it’s a lie. Maybe he is a fabrication of the writer. Regardless he raises a important and interesting question.
Will Hillary as President mean that Bill will have an impact on how the country is run for another eight years? And if so is this good? I think the answer is yes to both issues. So I have to differ with you Vanessa. I have had a girlfriend for nine months now and what each of us does and says impacts the other one greatly. A husband and a wife is the closest knit partnership that exists. Bill will influence Hillary. Hillary influenced Bill no doubt while they were in the white house together just like every first lady takes some important role in politics. Laura’s is literacy Hillary’s was health care. What will Bill’s be? But assume he has an even bigger role. Is this bad?
I do not think it is bad at all,
Having Bill Clinton in the white house again would be great for our country, because Bill was a great President for our country. There exists a reason why Bill’s approval rating was twice as strong as Bush’s. That reason is he kept us out of any serious foreign policy entanglements. He was great with the economy. He presented a middle ground during social issues. He did a great job.
Having him in the white house again means that Hillary has by far the most experienced adviser to ever exist. Not only that but one of the most influential person in the country waiting to do anything he can to help her. It is tradition for first ladies to take on one important issue to combat. Hillary had health care, what will Bill have? I can’t really think of any issue that would be his specialty. But a good one could possibly be immigration reform. I could see her sending him over to access the situation in Iraq. It would not surprise me if she had him address the U.N, nor if she had him hold a cabinet position. He would be an amazing secretary of state. Or even a secretary of treasury. Whatever he does it will be great for America.
I think that the idea of a dual presidency is a fairly important issue. Although I don’t think that it would ever truly be a “dual” Presidency, I do believe that Bill would have some power. This really isn’t a problem politically because Bill was a very good president. The problem lies in the fact that if HillBill was elected President that would mean that there has been either a Bush or Clinton in the white house from 1989 to 2013..thats practically a dynasty even though the two families are very different..most people I believe are ready for a change and are sick of having that kind of dynasty in the WHite House.