Leadership of the ex-Presidents Club, the secretive group of four who can influence world and domestic events, is being passed to the younger generation of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, according to the expert who literally co-wrote the book on the club.
With statesman George H.W. Bush ailing and wheelchair bound and outsider Jimmy Carter ever the loose cannon, Clinton and George W. Bush are the two presidents most likely to team up for bipartisan purposes for a re-elected Barack Obama or newly-elected Mitt Romney, said Michael Duffy, the Time Washington bureau chief who co-wrote “The Presidents Club: Inside the Worlds Most Exclusive Fraternity” with Time’s Nancy Gibbs.
“W and Bill Clinton are the two men to watch,” Duffy said at a seminar held at the Bipartisan Policy Center Thursday. “It’s a relationship that has the potential to be a model for the future,” he said, adding, “that’s where I’d be laying my chips of hope.”
Unlike any group in the world, Duffy said that ex-presidents have collective influence that sometimes rival the power they had in office. Not only do sitting presidents often call on the exes to handle crisis situations, but they also provide sometimes daily secret tips and advice to presidents about everything from family life to who to avoid.
Duffy, who conducted interviews with most of the exes, said that the George W.-Clinton relationship began while Bush was still in office and has grown in part because of the respectful way Clinton managed his friendship with Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, who he beat in the 1992 election. “They trust each other because of Clinton’s relation with 41,” said Duffy.
He added that ex-presidents from opposing parties typically mesh better than those from the same party. He said Clinton and Obama are “two rivals for who has effectively the most progressive presidency in a center-right era,” a standoff that started in the 2008 election.
One cog in the potential relationship with Clinton and Bush is the possibility that Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton could face each other in the 2016 election.
