The much-anticipated rollout of Bill Clinton as a campaign speaker for his wife occurred Monday and it was a snooze.
In his first speech, the former president’s delivery was so flat, his tangents so boring and long-winded, that I wanted break out Pearl Jam CDs and “Seinfeld” reruns to see if everything from the 1990s was worse than I remembered it. His Monday evening remarks were better, but not by much.
It could be age, health, rust or a lack of enthusiasm for being second fiddle. But maybe we shouldn’t assume Bill Clinton will be an unalloyed benefit to Hillary on the stump.
First, for all his oratorical skills Bill does deliver the occasional clunker. His 1988 speech at the Democratic National Convention went on for so long that people were pining for Michael Dukakis to come out and speak.
Second, Clinton really didn’t do Hillary any favors in 2008. His testiness about President Obama challenging both his wife and his own progressive credentials — when Obama said things like Bill Clinton not being as transformative a president as Ronald Reagan — made the Democratic primaries uglier.
Many of the charges of race-baiting against Hillary’s campaign originated in things Bill said. The man Toni Morrison once called the first black president may have cost Hillary Ted Kennedy’s endorsement and was at the very least unable to deliver her a substantial share of the black vote. Nor was this the first time his coattails proved nonexistent.
Third, Clinton serves to remind people that Hillary is a candidate of the past. Democrats tend to focus on the positives of this, such as people remembering the 1990s economic boom. But there are downsides too. At one point Monday, Bill took time out of his pitch for Hillary to compare his economic record to Ronald Reagan’s. His lines would have been more at home in the 1992 campaign.
Democrats have enjoyed an advantage in being the fresh face in recent elections. Bill Clinton himself was 22 and 23 years younger than his Republican opponents in 1992 and 1996, respectively. That might not matter if the Republican nominee is someone like Jeb Bush. But against Marco Rubio or even Ted Cruz, the Clinton Democrat won’t be the freshest face in the presidential contest.
All this is without even taking into consideration whether Donald Trump can score any points against the Clintons by focusing on Bill’s checkered history with women. Bill Clinton was a gifted politician whose success made it possible for his wife to become a senator, secretary of state and twice a front-running Democratic presidential candidate. But there may be limits ot how much his success carries over to her.
