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Newsweek: Bill Becomes Hillary's 'Surrogate'
While Hillary Clinton spoke in Selma, Ala., to commemorate "Bloody Sunday," her husband was on a plane practicing politics all the same with Malcolm Smith, the Democratic minority leader of New York's state Senate who, a few days earlier, had publicly criticized the Clinton campaign. "He sat right in front of me," Smith later gushed to a Newsweek reporter. "We shared the food." Two months later, Smith endorsed Hillary instead of Barack Obama. He says a variety of factors influenced his decision but admits the flight with the former president didn't hurt. "He's going to go down as one of the best presidents we ever had," Smith says. "You would get two [presidents] for one, and that's a good thing." Whether America will agree is to be decided. Political Correspondent Jonathan Darman reports on the role Bill Clinton is playing in his wife's 2008 presidential campaign and the effect he's having on it, in the May 28 Newsweek cover "The Bill Factor" (on newsstands Monday, May 21). For Hillary's campaign, "The Bill Factor" is a complex one. To some he's a shrewd politician, a clear thinker, a brilliant explicator who was president during an era of relative peace and indisputable prosperity. To others he's "Slick Willie," an undisciplined man who let his private appetites cloud that clear thinking, distracting the country for much of his second term. President Clinton is more careful to stay largely in the shadows of his wife's campaign, confining his strategic advice to conversations with Senator Clinton and a few close aides at the top of her staff. He knows it's Hillary's moment, aides say, and he's tried hard not to meddle too much, Darman reports. Although some in Senator Clinton's circle shrugged off the potential threat of a Barack Obama campaign, the former president, say several knowledgeable Democrats, was among the first to see Obama as a real threat. It was time for Bill to get involved. A few days after Hillary's announcement, John Catsimatidis, the New York supermarket magnate and Democratic fund- raiser, received a call from her campaign. President Clinton had some time open that coming Saturday; could Catsimatidis pull together a fund-raiser? Catsimatidis accepted but was taken aback, Darman reports. He'd hosted Bill "probably 30 times" at various functions. But he usually had two weeks' notice to get a crowd together. Hillary's people were giving him four days. Feeling the pressure-his reputation would suffer if he failed to deliver-Catsimatidis hit the phones and managed to gather 50 to 60 guests, each contributing a maximum $2,300 to Senator Clinton's primary campaign, at his home. Working the room in a black suit and light blue tie, Bill eventually gave a short speech touching on Iraq, the economy and, finally, Senator Clinton's strengths. "He's become the surrogate campaigner," Catsimatidis tells Newsweek. "People would love to see him
Story Continues Below versus anyone else." Also in the cover package Senior Editor and Columnist Jonathan Alter writes that for Hillary Clinton, the threshold question for voters is less about putting the first woman in the White House than the second Clinton. "A Clinton victory would offer the hope of restoring the 1990s, a fat and relatively happy time in America ... Voters might be exhausted by the present and ready to recapture the past with more Clintonism. By this logic, the worse President Bush does, the better the Clintons look," Alter writes. And in a guest essay, Author Carl Sferrazza Anthony, who has written 10 books on First Ladies and first families, writes what Bill Clinton's life may be like as "First Gentleman," which is what he would likely be called if Hillary wins the White House. "But he would be addressed directly by his other, loftier title: Mr. President. Likewise, when he walks into a room, with or without Hillary, he'll still have the option of being greeted with the sweet strains of 'Hail to the Chief.' As for the rest of the details, they are, at this point, still up in the air. The Constitution is silent about the role of a president's spouse. The position has traditionally been more symbolic than substantive," Anthony writes. He continues, "Don't expect Bill Clinton -- a formidable political strategist and policy wonk -- to hover quietly in the background. Some in D.C. have speculated that he might take on a powerful post, perhaps secretary of State. But he can't," Anthony writes. "Ever since John F. Kennedy appointed his brother Bobby to be his attorney general, nepotism laws have forbidden the president to hire relatives." Editor's note:
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