Clintons Raise Visibility, Promote ... Clintons

WASHINGTON — Americans turning on the television the last couple of days could be forgiven if they thought the calendars had been turned back: On every channel, it seemed, were the Clintons.

President and Senator Clinton have conducted at least 10 separate television interviews since Monday morning, with most focused on their recommendations for handling the financial crisis that has rocked the markets and taken center stage in Congress.

The former president offered long discourses on the current economic turmoil during appearances Monday on ABC's "The View" and CBS's "The Late Show with David Letterman," while Mrs. Clinton touted her plans for aiding homeowners in interviews on four morning talk shows yesterday and three cable news shows the previous day.

The nation's most prominent power couple has been even more visible than the Democratic presidential nominee, Senator Obama, and at times, they spoke as if Mrs. Clinton's presidential run had never ended.

"I've advocated this throughout my campaign now for nearly two years and have come forth with very specific proposals about how we need to have the authority to rewrite mortgages," Mrs. Clinton said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," lapsing briefly into the present tense as she discussed her long-standing call for a moratorium on home foreclosures and for the federal government to have more flexibility in modifying the terms of mortgages.

"I talked about this for 18 months," the New York senator said on CBS's "The Early Show." "I said, 'This is coming, we've got a big problem, we've got to figure out what to do about these mortgages, we've got to rein in these banks.'"

Mrs. Clinton did do her part to tout Mr. Obama's candidacy, and she deflected questions about whether he should have picked her instead of Senator Biden as his running mate. She didn't hesitate when asked who she thought was going to win in November. "Barack Obama is going to win. No doubt," she said on CBS.

The Clintons ostensibly had reasons other than the presidential campaign for taking on a higher profile this week. The former president is promoting the annual conference of his Clinton Global Initiative, while Mrs. Clinton is speaking out in her capacity as a senator of New York, which is bearing the brunt of the fallout from the financial crisis.

The round of interviews come as a new poll released by the Associated Press and Yahoo News shows that a full 42% of voters who supported Mrs. Clinton during the primary campaign have yet to get behind Mr. Obama. The percentage is the same as in a survey conducted in June, suggesting that the demonstration of party unity at the Democratic National Convention last month has not changed many minds among die-hard Clinton loyalists.

"I'm working hard to close that gap," Mrs. Clinton said on MSNBC when asked about the poll. She cited her campaign appearances around the country for Mr. Obama and reiterated that her supporters should vote for him, not Senator McCain.

Her husband offered a more lukewarm show of support for Mr. Obama in his interviews on Monday, despite his enthusiastic endorsement of the Democratic nominee at the party's convention last month in Denver.

Sounding more like more as detached observer than surrogate, Mr. Clinton praised both Messrs. Obama and McCain before predicting to David Letterman that the election would "break Obama's way" based on the nation's deteriorating economy and the electorate's desire for change.

In speaking about the financial crisis, the former president repeatedly cited Mrs. Clinton's proposals for stabilizing the housing market and helping homeowners, rather than those offered by Mr. Obama.

Mr. Clinton's focus on his wife prompted a biting response from the comedian Chris Rock, who appeared with Mr. Letterman after the former president left the stage. "Is it me, or did he not want to say the words 'Barack Obama'?" Mr. Rock quipped to laughs from the studio audience.

Mr. Clinton, he suggested, needs a reality check. "Hillary ain't running! Hillary's not running," he said. "What the hell? One of those guys needs to tell him. I love Hillary, but you know, she lost. She got a lot of votes. She did. The Patriots got a lot of points, too, but they lost to the Giants."

A professor of public affairs at Baruch College, Douglas Muzzio, said that while the Clintons were engaging in a bit of self-promotion, it wasn't all bad news for Mr. Obama. "It's the Clintons being the Clintons, but reminding voters that there is a party difference between Democrats and the Republicans has to benefit Obama," he said. At the same time, he added: "There's clearly an element of not letting go here."