FORMER US President Bill Clinton addresses a campaign rally for his wife, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in Nashua, New Hampshire.—Reuters KEENE: Bill Clinton promised voters in 1992 that they’d be getting “two for the price of one” if they elected him to the White House — a presidential duo of the young Arkansas governor and his Yale Law-educated wife.
Nearly a quarter century later, the duo is back — but not quite the same.
As 2016 Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton fends off a rising challenge from challenger Bernie Sanders, a Vermont senator, her campaign aides are grappling with how best to deploy what she has described as her “not-so-secret weapon”.
During campaign swings through early voting states Iowa and New Hampshire, Bill Clinton treaded fastidiously through tightly controlled campaign events. A natural-born chit-chatter, he was not giving interviews. When he stopped to talk with reporters after one recent event, campaign aides turned up the music, making a conversation all but impossible.
His remarks to voters have been relatively subdued: long on history, statistics and nostalgia. He’s dodged questions about Sanders and Republican front-runner Donald Trump, who’s been baiting the Clinton family with comments about the former president’s past sexual improprieties “I’m not going there,” Bill Clinton said on Wednesday, when asked about Sanders at a campaign event in New Hampshire. “I came here to tell people why I thought Hillary should be president and her ideas are better.”
While Bill Clinton remains a popular figure among Democrats, some of the key achievements of his administration form the basis of Sanders’ critique against his wife — that she’s too willing to compromise liberal ideals for political gain.
Sanders has denounced his rival’s policies on trade, same-sex marriage, crime and welfare cuts. He’s made reinstating Glass-Stegall, a Depression-era banking law repealed under Bill Clinton’s administration, a central attack line of his campaign.