When Bill Clinton takes the stage on the second night of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, it will be his most high-profile appearance to date on behalf of his wife, a former first lady who spent years filling the supporting role he now occupies.
Hillary Clinton marched to the Democratic nomination with the help of the party’s old guard, with one glaring exception: its most popular living former president. While Bill Clinton surfaced at a handful of fundraisers and stump speeches, he rarely joined his wife on the trail and spent most of the primary season hunkered down at his eponymous foundation.
“There’s a lot of uncharted territory ahead of us here with this cycle,” said Mark Alderman, a Democratic strategist and former member of the Obama-Biden transition team. “You’ve got the first former president in American history running as the spouse of the candidate, and no one has ever done that before. So he gets to invent the role for himself.”
Bill Clinton is slated to speak in the traditional Tuesday-night slot reserved for candidates’ spouses at the convention, where he will deliver an address on Hillary Clinton’s dedication to children and families.
In keeping with the theme of that evening, other speakers include the “Mothers of the Movement,” women who have lost children to gun violence. The group will include Lezley McSpadden, the mother of Michael Brown, who was shot by police in Ferguson, and Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin.
Alderman said he does not expect to see Bill Clinton anywhere at the convention other than at the podium Tuesday night and behind Hillary Clinton onstage after her acceptance speech on Thursday.
“He’ll know half the people here and I’m sure he’ll be circulating,” Alderman said. “I don’t think he’s going to be highly visible.”
Hillary Clinton’s campaign has avoided parading the former president out on the trail for many of the same reasons that make Bill Clinton an asset: his trademark charisma and his ability to command every room he enters.
“It’s a delicate balance. Bill Clinton is a really good spokesman for Hillary, if you use him correctly,” said Brad Bannon, a Democratic strategist. “The downside is he overshadows Hillary, and so with Bill out there prominently on the stump, you know, there’s always that concern that he’s going to be the center of attention, not Hillary, and I think that’s why they’re careful about how they use him.”
Bill Clinton also brings to the table more baggage than even the scandal-plagued presumptive nominee carries. His record of infidelity and impeachment, as well as the political toxicity of the Clinton Foundation, could hurt Hillary Clinton’s efforts to convince voters she is not as ethically challenged as she appears.
But the former president remains popular with key demographic groups, Bannon said, and could become a crucial part of Hillary Clinton’s strategy in the weeks after the convention.
“He is very, very popular with African-American and Latino voters,” Bannon said. “So I think one of the things he’s going to be doing is going to big cities in battleground states like Cleveland, Philadelphia, Miami, and essentially help galvanize the Latino and black vote for Hillary.”
“The other thing I think you see him doing is, they will send him to areas in battleground states where they have southern accents, like southside Virginia, southern Ohio, North Carolina and Georgia, too, because I think the Clinton people feel they have a chance in Georgia,” he added.
Whatever his role beyond the convention, Bill Clinton’s speech Tuesday will remind voters how they were first introduced to Hillary Clinton: as his wife, not the powerful politician she has since become.
