WP, pg1, David Maraniss: Bill Clinton, Thinking About Tomorrow; "Not about him at all"

ANALYSIS
Clinton, Thinking About Tomorrow
By David Maraniss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 28, 2008; Page A01

DENVER, Aug. 27 -- At first, it seemed, it might be all about Bill Clinton and yesteryear. The former president strode onto the stage Wednesday night to his old campaign theme song, "Don't Stop (Thinking About Tomorrow)," and bathed in the glow of a standing ovation that went on so long and loud that he had to finally confess, "I love this." But it turned out to be not about him at all, with Clinton delivering a speech that framed the case for Sen. Barack Obama and against the Republicans in a way that no one at this convention had done before.

Only a day earlier, when there was some unease among Clinton's associates about whether he was being straitjacketed in what he could say in his speech, Obama tried to defuse the situation by saying Clinton could say whatever he wanted. Good call, as it turned out. Perhaps not even Obama himself could have conjured up an oration so powerful on his behalf. Not only did Clinton utter the words "Barack Obama" 15 times, they came in his first sentence and his last, and there were long riffs about the candidate in between....

The orchestration of his speech came in four parts.

First was the unscripted ode to himself, which amounted to nothing more than him joyously trying to get the audience to sit down. He started and stopped three times before the crowd quieted enough to let him speak, and those several minutes, while eating up the time allotted to him -- which he was destined to ignore in any case -- served to remind everyone that for all of the controversy that seems to swirl around him, in and out of office, in and out of the campaigns, he still holds an uncommon place in the modern Democratic pantheon as the party's only two-term president of the postwar era.

Then came an ode to Obama, which, if not overly warm, was indisputably lengthy and strong, filling the one void of his wife's largely Obama-less speech the night before. Saying he is convinced that Obama is "the man for this job," he praised the nominee's "remarkable ability to inspire people," his "intelligence and curiosity," his "clear grasp" of foreign policy, the strength he gained from the "long, hard primary" against Hillary and the judgment he showed in choosing Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. as his running mate....

Next came the case against Sen. John McCain and the GOP....

And finally Clinton brought it all together by linking his presidency to the prospect of a "President Obama" -- and in putting those two words together, it was as though he were finally, after months of reserve and hotheadedness, giving the new kid his blessing....

It is the most repetitive theme of Clinton's political life: that he always finds a path to redemption when he is down, and in many ways he proved that again with this speech. And he might also have accomplished something larger and less self-centered -- by doing all he could to bring Obama up at the same time.

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