Barack and Bill: Not a Good Match

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal-Pioneer

Now that the American general election campaign is underway, Barack Obama has begun making overtures to Bill as well as to Hillary Clinton. At the end of June, Obama spoke to the former president, asking Bill to campaign with him this fall. They also discussed making a public appearance together later this month.

Obama has told his advisers that he is eager to bury any animosity and seek advice from Clinton.

“Senator Obama had a terrific conversation with President Clinton and is honored to have his support in this campaign,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton told the Washington Post.

“He has always believed that Bill Clinton is one of this nation’s great leaders and most brilliant minds, and looks forward to seeing him on the campaign trail and receiving his counsel in the months to come.”

Actually, Obama would be wise to keep as far away from the former president as possible.

In recent years, Americans have begun to treat past presidents like retired grandees – allowing them to build mausoleums (“presidential libraries”) as monuments to themselves, as Egyptian pharaohs once did, referring to them by the honorific “president,” as if they were still in office, and so forth.

But the trade-off was that these ex-presidents would become “elder statesmen” who did not get involved in partisan politics.

Bill Clinton this past spring broke all these unwritten rules by engaging in a vicious political war against Obama. He has also been involved in all sorts of questionable business practices since leaving the White House. He is in effect the first *former* “former president.”

In any case, Obama’s attempts to mend fences have so far been unreciprocated. According to the London Telegraph, a senior Democrat who worked for Clinton has revealed that the forty-second president recently told friends that Obama could “kiss my [posterior]” in return for his support.

“You can't talk like that about Obama,” added the source. “He’s the nominee of your party, not some house boy you can order around.”

A second source said that Clinton still does not believe Obama can win the election. “He is telling people he doesn’t believe Obama can win round voting groups, especially working-class whites, in the swing states,” remarked this strategist.

As well, many black Democratic members of Congress with large African-American constituencies who supported Hillary Clinton rather than Obama during the primaries now face anger from their supporters. Though the two former rivals have begun to put their divisions behind them, some strains remain evident. As for Bill Clinton, many blacks still accuse him of having played the “race card” against Obama on behalf of Hillary and are not at all ready to forgive him.

Maybe Obama needs to mend fences with Hillary, who still commands a large following, especially among women, but he should definitely stay away from Bill.