NYT: In ’08 Race, the Other Clinton Steps Up Publicly
By PATRICK HEALY
Published: December 17, 2007
DUNLAP, Iowa — When Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign advisers laid out their new political strategy in a private conference call with allies last Tuesday, Bill Clinton was not on the line. He did not need to be. The message being delivered was his. A day earlier, Mr. Clinton had unveiled the campaign’s new talking points at rallies in Iowa. His wife was “a change agent,” “a proven agent of positive change” and “a lifetime advocate of a change agenda.” The “change, change, change” phrase, as some advisers call it, was coined by Mr. Clinton after he told campaign officials that the old strategy of running like an incumbent front-runner was not enough, advisers said. The Clintons had to wrest the message of change from Senator Barack Obama....
Mr. Clinton is not running his wife’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. But less than three weeks before the Iowa caucuses, and with polls showing a tight race, he has become the most powerful force in her political operation besides the candidate herself. He is shaping strategy, challenging advisers on their assumptions and acting like a vice-presidential candidate in a general election — attacking rivals so Mrs. Clinton can stay positive much of the time.
Yet as the Clinton campaign has struggled over the last six weeks, Mr. Clinton has at times been part of the problem. His remark last month that he had opposed the Iraq war “from the beginning” — a statement at variance with his earlier comments — fueled unwelcome stories about Clintonian parsing, especially since Mrs. Clinton was already under fire for straddling the issue of driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants. More generally, his higher profile in the campaign is again focusing attention on his mixed history in office, encompassing his skills as a campaigner and the economic boom of the 1990s but also his personal indiscretions and the hostility and derision aimed at him and his wife by much of the Republican Party....
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More than anything, Mr. Clinton is increasingly angry with the news media over what he sees as overly critical coverage of Mrs. Clinton and kinder treatment of Mr. Obama, advisers said. They say he allowed that frustration to spill over on “The Charlie Rose Show” on Friday night, when he criticized the news media as forgoing tough scrutiny of Mr. Obama. The advisers said he also believed that the Obama camp was persuading the reporters to focus on gaffes by his wife and her campaign, like the recent Clinton campaign statement that Mr. Obama harbored presidential ambitions even in kindergarten, and a campaign official’s remark last week about Mr. Obama’s past drug use.
Mr. Clinton’s role in his wife’s campaign has grown in intensity because of several factors, advisers said. They include his belief that victory or defeat in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary could have a slingshot effect on her performance in other states; and a competitive zeal that has not been this electrified since his bid for the presidency in 1992, advisers said. From now until the nomination is settled, Mr. Clinton is going to be campaigning, raising money or calling supporters and high-profile holdouts every day, advisers said....
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/us/politics/17bill.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
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