Submitted by pjonathan, Jan 22, 2008 21:36

I am very surprised at how much my views of the Clintons have changed in the last year. I have never e-mailed the press before this month. Before I retired in 2006 I served in a nonpartisan/bipartisan capacity so contacting the press was off limits.

A year ago I thought reasonably well of Bill Clinton and felt like his administration was good. Only because of Hillary's support for the Iraq war was I looking for another candidate to support.

However, it was Hillary's claim to experience based on Bill's White House years and Bill's involvement in Hillary's campaign that turned me around and started me reviewing Bill's accomplishments. Even Bill is quoted just after he left office as saying history would judge him an average president because he governed in easy times.

I agree with that assessment. He governed during easy times and really had a more modest impact on the nation than he claims and I had remembered. And he was very polarizing. Before, I agreed with the Clintons that it was solely the right ring attack machine that created the polarization. After listening to Bill's and Hillary's campaign the last year I now think the right wing and the Clintons were about equally responsible. It has even crossed my mind that the both the right wing and the Clintons may have been pleased to have that battle and may continue to be pleased that the battle and polarization continue. Both Clinton and Giuliani were high in the polls when they were attacking each other but, when Giuliani focused only on Florida, both dropped in the polls.

I am not the only one who is thinking along these lines. Bill Clinton's campaign for a third term ala Argentina this year and in the past is to many others THE story of the 2008 campaign. Someone needs to write a book about that story.

If I am accurate in these comments, Obama is correct to be running hard against Bill and focusing less on Hillary. It reinforces the comments that feminists are saying about Hillary running the campaign as a male candidate and in a very non-feminist manner by relying so much on Bill's legacy and Bill's campaigning. Maybe Bill has been running her campaign for several years. It minimizes Hillary's main claim of experience as well by making her take the bad with the good of Bill and shows that she was more of a resident than a player in the White House. It makes all of us remember the bad and mediocre as well as the good in Bill's presidency. It makes us think that Bill's failures lead in part to Bush-Cheney-Rove, who I am starting to view as having stolen more than just a page out of Bill's playbook. Maybe Obama's message from the start indirectly called into question Bill's legacy and his polarizing manner.

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