Bill Clinton helping or hurting?

GREENVILLE, S.C. - Former President Bill Clinton muzzled his inner attack dog yesterday in the service of his wife's presidential campaign, but it was not always easy.

For instance, Clinton clenched his jaw and reddened when a man at a town-hall meeting asked if he was comfortable standing in the way of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's becoming the first African American president. "Do you think that will affect your legacy amongst the blacks in South Carolina?" the man asked.

"No one has a right to be president, including Hillary," Bill Clinton told a mostly white crowd of about 300 at the Allen A.M.E. Church here, adding that he was advocating for New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, not standing in anyone's way.

"I think it would be just as much a change, some people think more, to have the first woman president than to have the first African American president," he said.

The former president has become a focal point in the Democratic race for president in the last two weeks with his aggressive challenges to Obama's record. In New Hampshire he called Obama's stated opposition to the Iraq war a "fairy tale."

Some have wondered whether Bill Clinton's role as surrogate-in-chief helps or hinders his wife.

Obama, in a nationally televised debate Monday night in Myrtle Beach, S.C., said, "I can't tell who I'm running against sometimes."

Yesterday, Bill Clinton was at the beginning of an intensive five-day campaign trip across South Carolina, which holds a Democratic primary Saturday. Hillary Clinton traveled to California, one of the 22 states holding primaries and caucuses Feb. 5, where she received the endorsement of the United Farm Workers union.

African American voters made up 47 percent of the electorate in South Carolina's 2004 Democratic presidential primary, and analysts believe that the same will hold true this time.

Polls show Obama ahead in the state, but Bill Clinton has always enjoyed high approval ratings among black voters, and his wife's strategists are counting on that bond to help her surmount Obama's appeal.

"You're

my

first African American president," a middle-aged black woman in the church crowd called out to Bill Clinton.

In fact, though the former president has said some controversial things about Obama, drawing tut-tutting from pundits, his wife is 2-0 in balloting since the former president began throwing his elbows - winning the New Hampshire primary and the Nevada caucuses, after losing the Iowa caucuses to Obama.

Bill Clinton is hugely popular with Democratic primary voters. Exit polls in New Hampshire, for instance, found that 83 percent had a favorable opinion of him.

"I think it's very clear that Sen. Clinton . . . and the president have been spending the last month attacking me in ways that are not accurate," Obama told reporters in a conference call yesterday.

He recalled that Hillary Clinton called scrutinizing his record the "fun" part of campaigning while in Iowa. "You know, I don't think it's the fun part of campaigning to fudge the truth," he said.

In Washington before leaving to campaign in California, Hillary Clinton repeated her criticism of Obama from the debate, saying he was unwilling to answer hard questions about his record, including his opposition to the Iraq war juxtaposed with his support for funding it, and his hundreds of "present" votes as a member of the Illinois legislature.

"He clearly came [Monday] night looking for a fight," Hillary Clinton said, according to the Associated Press. "He was determined and launched right in. And I thought it was important to set the record straight."

Earlier in the day, Bill Clinton ate a vegetable omelet and grits at Columbia's Lizard's Thicket restaurant and told reporters he was "chilled out."

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D., S.C.), the highest ranking African American in Congress, had chided Bill Clinton for divisive comments and said that the former president should "chill out" with his attacks. Clyburn is officially neutral.

Here in Greenville, Clinton said a little conflict was fine.

"I liked seeing Barack and Hillary fight" in the debate, the former president said. "They're flesh-and-blood people and they have their differences - let them have it."

He said it was a sign of progress that an African American man and a woman were scrapping in a presidential race and that one would likely get the Democratic nomination.

"I've been waiting all my life to see this sort of thing," he said.

Then Clinton said he would take Obama up on his joking challenge in the debate to a dance contest to determine if he really was, as writer Toni Morrison has said, "the first black president."

"I would be willing to engage in a dancing competition with him, even though he's much younger and thinner than I am," Clinton said, to appreciative laughter. He said he wanted an "age allowance," though.