Bill Clinton Comes Off the Campaign Sidelines (Hillary Group)
Hillary Clinton was standing in her holding room in the Longworth House Office Building, exhausted, hoarse and relieved after her Benghazi testimony, when the phone rang. It was Bill Clinton.
He had been glued to the television watching her performance, and he had a message that would boost her spirits. You did a great job, the former president said.
Hillary had executed a strategy that Bill helped put together for one of the biggest tests of his wife's campaign to date. In closed-door prep sessions leading up to the high-stakes, 11-hour testimony, he had pushed his wife to do what came so hard to him: focus on your demeanor as much as any individual answer, stay calm, keep smiling, be as focused in hour 11 as hour one and, above all, don’t let them get to you, according to insiders.
Eight months into Hillary Clinton’s second presidential run, Bill Clinton is already occupying a more significant private role as a strategic adviser than he did in 2008, when his deployment was as a public surrogate — a role that effectively ended with his angry, politically damaging diatribes in a catastrophic South Carolina primary loss to Barack Obama.
This year, his biggest influence so far has been behind the scenes, a veteran voice who can carry the day during decisive moments in the race, even if he's removed — by design — from the nitty-gritty of directing the daily operation.
As always, it's hard to figure out exactly what Clinton is doing — he doesn't make a habit of reading out his conversations with his wife to anyone. But people close to the Clintons tell POLITICO it's not unusual for him to sit in on big meetings or even participate in conference calls with senior staff from time to time. He's motivated by his belief that Hillary belongs in the Oval Office, but he's also eager to undo any negative impact he had on the campaign last time around.
And unlike 2008 — when the campaign's top staff were loyalists to his wife — his new role is enhanced by strong personal ties with campaign chairman John Podesta, his former chief of staff at the White House, and campaign manager Robby Mook, with whom he developed a personal bond when Mook ran the campaign of his good friend, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
"His mood is that it’s still hers to lose,” said hedge fund billionaire Marc Lasry, a major Clinton donor who has traveled extensively with the former president. “If she continues to do what she’s doing, which is talking about the issues, she’ll be the next president.”...
Politico: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/bill-clinton-hillary-support-campaign-president-215573#ixzz3qftiG2eg
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