A subdued Bill Clinton campaigns for Hillary
NASHUA, N.H. - The Big Dog was back, but his bark was subdued. Former President Bill Clinton hit the campaign trail Monday on behalf of his wife, with a discursive speech that touched on the prosperity the country enjoyed during his presidency in the 1990s, Hillary Clinton's work as Arkansas' first lady, and reminiscences of falling in love with her at Yale Law School.
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NASHUA, N.H. - The Big Dog was back, but his bark was subdued.
Former President Bill Clinton hit the campaign trail Monday on behalf of his wife, with a discursive speech that touched on the prosperity the country enjoyed during his presidency in the 1990s, Hillary Clinton's work as Arkansas' first lady, and reminiscences of falling in love with her at Yale Law School.
He spoke in a raspy voice without the joy in rhetorical combat expected of one of the most gifted speakers of his generation - which, come to think of it, may have been the point.
For all his potential to be Hillary Clinton's biggest asset, the former president also has potential liabilities that have concerned her strategists: his well-known personal baggage and his tendency to veer off message.
"I do not believe in my lifetime anybody has run for this job at a moment of great importance who was better qualified by knowledge, experience, and temperament to do what needs to be done now" than Hillary, Bill Clinton told a crowd of 720 in the Nashua Community College gym.
While Bill Clinton did say that some of the Republican presidential candidates were "kind of scary," he did not name names, nor did he address GOP front-runner Donald Trump's taunts about his history of extramarital affairs.
As he worked the rope line after the speech - for a mere 15 minutes, far less than his usual marathon hand-shaking - Clinton took a question from NBC News reporter Andrea Mitchell about Trump's campaign.
"The Republicans will have to decide on who will be nominated," Clinton said. "How I feel is only relevant once they pick a nominee. We're trying to win a primary. We've got to do that first."
Hillary Clinton is the prohibitive favorite to win the Democratic nomination, but in New Hampshire, which will hold the nation's first primary Feb. 9, most polls show her trailing Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
"She's been here a lot, worked hard. That's all you can do. These people are really fair," Clinton said before disappearing behind a curtain. "They've been good to us."
Indeed, New Hampshire has a special place in the enduring story of Clinton comebacks.
In the 1992 primary, then-Gov. Bill Clinton, beset by scandals over an extramarital affair and his efforts to avoid the Vietnam draft, asked New Hampshire voters for a second chance, vowing to "be there with you till the last dog dies." He earned a better-than-expected second-place finish and resurrected his presidential campaign, calling himself the "Comeback Kid."
Lori Backman, who was in the audience Monday, remembered standing on tiptoe on a chair straining to see Clinton on that night nearly a quarter-century ago. "It was breathtaking; I'll never forget it," said Backman, a Nashua software engineer who canvasses for Hillary Clinton with her 12-year-old son.
"The Comeback Kid has come back," she said.
Eight years ago, Hillary Clinton came from behind to win the Granite State primary over Barack Obama, who had trounced her in Iowa, and kept her campaign alive.
In making the case for his wife on Monday, Bill Clinton noted the possibility that the next president would have to appoint from one to three Supreme Court justices, and said she practiced an "inclusive" brand of politics. He also discussed the lifesaving work of his charitable foundation.
"Who's running? Her or him?" asked Gov. Christie, a Republican contender who was holding his own campaign event in nearby Manchester. He suggested it was presumptuous for a candidate's spouse to speculate on Supreme Court vacancies and call for greater U.S. foreign aid to fight tuberculosis and malaria, as Bill Clinton did.
Trump did not let up his attacks. He told CNN on Monday before Bill Clinton's first appearance that the former president was "one of the great women abusers of all time" and that Hillary Clinton was his "enabler."
Trump was referring to the Monica Lewinsky scandal, in which Clinton's extramarital affair with a White House intern led to his impeachment on charges of lying under oath in a lawsuit. The Senate acquitted Clinton.
"Hillary was an enabler, and a lot of things happened that were obviously very seedy. He was impeached, for heaven's sake," Trump said.
Speaking for just under 30 minutes in Nashua, the former president dwelled on his wife's efforts to expand preschool education for poor children and opportunities for women as a young lawyer and then as first lady of Arkansas. "She hadn't been elected to anything," he said. "She was just a change-maker. Everything she touched, she made better.
Though he has appeared at fund-raisers for Hillary Clinton, Monday was Bill Clinton's first solo public appearance for his wife in the 2016 election. He campaigned later Monday in Exeter.
He was, at times, a liability to her in the 2008 primaries, when he allowed his frustrations with attacks from Obama to boil over.
The former president joked that he feels out of place in the current political climate. "I don't fit anymore," he said. "First of all, I'm a happy grandfather. I'm not mad at anybody."
He said that the United States should remain a nation that welcomes outsiders, a veiled criticism of Republican proposals to tighten immigration and Trump's proposal to ban Muslims from entering the country.
"I think this election is about restoring broadly shared prosperity, rebuilding the middle class," Clinton said.
215-854-2718 @tomfitzgerald