The criticism of Bill Clinton's behavior is growing.

And if he doesn't stop acting as he were a VP candidate, it will continue to grow.

Some think ex-president stooping on campaign trail
Globe Staff / January 24, 2008

AIKEN, S.C. - Bill Clinton was already working the crowd with a vociferous appeal to vote for his wife when the dozens of people jostling to get inside the auditorium provoked a campaign worker to cry out, "Adults should not be acting this way!"

Coincidentally, Clinton's sharp- elbowed advocacy leading up to Saturday's South Carolina primary is prompting some pundits and fellow Democrats to voice a similar sentiment: Should a former president be acting this way?

Several prominent Democrats say no. In recent days, they have publicly warned that he is hurting his party and his own status as elder statesman by taking on the highly charged role of critic-in-chief of Hillary Clinton's main Democratic rival, Barack Obama.


<snip>


http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/24/some_think_ex_president_stooping_on_campaign_trail/

He modulates well ... no wonder HRC keeps him around.

I know many Clinton supporters who are disgusted by this behavior, he IS hurting the party.

and smell to the candidate who surely is spewing it. AND gets a pass from the press.

hands by alienating and dividing the party.

I am an Edwards supporter but Obama is correct in stating he would win over Clinton supporter but Clinton will not get all the Obama supporters. I am one of those who WOULD NEVER VOTE FOR CLINTON. I am also embarrassed of my past votes for Bill Clinton. I was unfamiliar with details of his policies (THINK- NAFTA, TELECOM ACT OF '96, CORPORATE INTEREST SUPPORT). Had I known then what I know now, I would have never cast a vote for him.

they are gearing up hillary to appeal to the racist right wingers in the general. We're all appalled...but you know the clintons are political operatives to the max. NOTHING they're doing is well thought through.

You have to wonder why she chose the likes of Mark Penn, whose firm gave 57% of donations to GOP in 2006:

"In '06, with Penn at the helm, the company gave 57% of Campaign Contrib to GOP"



Polling Czar



After the 1994 election, Democrats had just lost both houses of Congress, and President Clinton was floundering in the polls. At the urging of his wife, he turned to Dick Morris, a friend from their time in Arkansas. Morris brought in two pollsters from New York, Doug Schoen and his partner, Mark Penn, a portly, combative workaholic. Morris decided what to poll and Penn polled it. They immediately pushed Clinton to the right, enacting the now-infamous strategy of "triangulation," which co-opted Republican policies like welfare reform and tax cuts and emphasized small-bore issues that supposedly cut across the ideological divide. "They were the ones who said, 'Make the '96 election about nothing except V-chips and school uniforms,'" says a former adviser to Bill. When Morris got caught with a call girl, Penn became the most important adviser in Clinton's second term. "In a White House where polling is virtually a religion," the Washington Post reported in 1996, "Penn is the high priest."

Penn, who had previously worked in the business world for companies like Texaco and Eli Lilly, brought his corporate ideology to the White House. After moving to Washington he aggressively expanded his polling firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland (PSB). It was said that Penn was the only person who could get Bill Clinton and Bill Gates on the same line. Penn's largest client was Microsoft, and he saw no contradiction between working for both the plaintiff and the defense in what was at the time the country's largest antitrust case. A variety of controversial clients enlisted PSB. The firm defended Procter & Gamble's Olestra from charges that the food additive caused anal leakage, blamed Texaco's bankruptcy on greedy jurors and market-tested genetically modified foods for Monsanto. PSB introduced to consulting the concept of "inoculation": shielding corporations from scandal through clever advertising and marketing.

In 2000 Penn became the chief architect of Hillary's Senate victory in New York, persuading her, in a rerun of '96, to eschew big themes and relentlessly focus on poll-tested pothole politics, such as suburban transit lines and dairy farming upstate. Following that election, Penn became a very rich man--and an even more valued commodity in the business world (Hillary paid him $1 million for her re-election campaign in '06 and $277,000 in the first quarter of this year). The massive PR empire WPP Group acquired Penn's polling firm for an undisclosed sum in 2001 and four years later named him worldwide CEO of one of its most prized properties, the PR firm Burson-Marsteller (B-M). A key player in the decision to hire Penn was Howard Paster, President Clinton's chief lobbyist to Capitol Hill and an influential presence inside WPP. "Clients of stature come to Mark constantly for counsel," says Paster, who informally advises Hillary, explaining the hire. The press release announcing Penn's promotion noted his work "developing and implementing deregulation informational programs for the electric utilities industry and in the financial services sector." The release blithely ignored how utility deregulation contributed to the California electricity crisis manipulated by Enron and the blackout of 2003, which darkened much of the Northeast and upper Midwest.

Burson-Marsteller is hardly a natural fit for a prominent Democrat. The firm has represented everyone from the Argentine military junta to Union Carbide after the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India, in which thousands were killed when toxic fumes were released by one of its plants, to Royal Dutch Shell, which has been accused of colluding with the Nigerian government in committing major human rights violations. B-M pioneered the use of pseudo-grassroots front groups, known as "astroturfing," to wage stealth corporate attacks against environmental and consumer groups. It set up the National Smokers Alliance on behalf of Philip Morris to fight tobacco regulation in the early 1990s. Its current clients include major players in the finance, pharmaceutical and energy industries. In 2006, with Penn at the helm, the company gave 57 percent of its campaign contributions to Republican candidates.

-snip
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070604/berman

PROBABLY BECAUSE IF SHE IS THE CANDIDATE, HIS FIRM WINS EITHER WAY IF EITHER SHE OR THE GOP WIN IN '08.

and shut up! Not going to happen. We're not going to tolerate another Gore-Kerry LOSS!

Clinton crony McCauliffe certainly did NOTHING to combat the systematic and ever more sophisticated Election Fraud.

And that was his job.

And it was the very Clinton machine that you support that WANTED LIEBERMAN as Gore's VP.

It always nice to theorize.. but if you want someone to take you seriously, you have to make your case supported by evidence.

well isn't this the pot calling the kettle black...

unless they are to His44, and who believes anything from that swill hole?

I'll bet you're a faithful subscriber to the National Enquirer..

Your contributions are totally without substance. You can only blame yourself when you get answered in kind.

thanks for the stimulating tabloid response..

but to bring down the Dem party this way by his actions...didn't he already do that?
Bill, just go away! :grr:

nt

you get taken to school. I don't think they'll send Obama a bill for his tutelage.

hopefully they won't be successful.

Obama's camp is turning this election into a racial issue, no one else. In turn, the result of this desperate move, he is dividing the Dem Party. So aim your anger at the neophyte in the race thats not ready for Prime Time. I've never ever heard such whining coming from a Presidential candidate ever. Do you know why? Because they CAN take the heat a campaign dishes out. Obama proves he is too thin skinned for 'taking the heat in the kitchen'. He's a wimp!

Obama just proves time and time again, he's a crybaby and really has NO concrete plans for America. He'd rather whine then talk the serious talk people are interested in.. We're wise to his schoolboy tricks!

put forth by Democrats and is supported by Democrats. She's supposed to fight to win.

FYI, Hillary has the Dem base firmly in her camp.. I'm not at all worried.

nt.

this kind of nasty, double-teaming competition, he needed to.

Clinton bad!

Obama good!

The Clintons are evil, evil people because I say so, and I'm a good person!

:eyes:

--p!

here's the obligatory eyes. :eyes:

Sure, cutting out the people and just getting what you want might satisfy you.

I'd be embarrassed by such a sentiment.

Nevermind... he kind of is.

her speakers - including Bill - don't vote for her.

of the insanity that was also a part of the Clinton years, and a BAD part.

He would have been better of continuing his charitable work than to come out as a rabid attack dog for his wife.

A divide between those who want a candidate that transcends the rovial political model and a power hungry administration and those who want a return to a presidency that is truly for the people, not egocentric and destructive.

John Edwards or Obama have the capacity to heal this country. The Clintons will be more of the same crap.

It seems to me you're unhappy that someone is running a hard campaign against your candidate rather than anointing him.

He is in over his head, as it is... and is behaving very Un-Presidential like!

You're a Hillary supporter. Nevermind.

Funny too.

he is more divisive than Bush..and just as incompetent...doesn't even know how to push 1 outta 3 buttons to vote! lame !! Ever here "Freedom Of Speech!??" What are you sayin..BS? tell me are you really a DEM??

Napalm Bill.

'96.

This makes me wonder what being an FOB means.

I was trying to help.

thats the way we want it..

And it will ABSOLUTELY bring out the far right (in droves) against us in Nov.

Bill is tripping over his ego at this point and that is damned sad. He is acting more like Ralph Hello Again Every Four Years Nader all the time and it is damaging to him, to us and to America at this point. He is throwing away the incredible gifts he still had to offer as elder statesman at a time America could really use the good will such elder statesmen can garner in the world at a time we SO need to repair damage to America's reputation and standing.

Let me tell ya, Bill is sounding shrill. And yeah, that term CAN and sometimes DOES apply to the male of the species too. It is not necessarily sexist. Bill is shrill and it is not becoming on him any more than it is on anyone else.

edited for typo

who needs to be seasoned before he steps into the ring with Pros!

This ain't Chicago. This ain't a race for the State Senate. This ain't a race for the US Senate.

I laughed when I read Michelle Obama's quote about proving people wrong when they were told Illinois would never vote for a black man named Barack when he was running for the Senate. I felt like screaming, there were TWO black men running and one was a batshit cuckoo bananas resident of Maryland!

Parroting the Clinton lines is not necessarily the way to reach Independents and we need them.

at the end of it all. Hillary's base of support are the Democrats and even Indys can figure out she know what she's talking about as opposed to 'Obama Pie in the Sky' 'Hope and empty Promises.'

Independents will come out for Clinton, huh?

Likely too many will stay home in Nov if that is the choice. Bill is pissing off lots of people I hear. Many weren't crazy about Hillary before Bill got shrill.

because he's trying to spin this election into a racist issue.

I hear alot of people are happy to see Bill calling Obama out on his, ahem... "inconsistencies" :eyes:

Check one:

{} Damned if he does.

{} Damned if he doesn't.

--p!

It just tells me hes selfish. Of course he didn't campaign for Gore or Kerry for that matter b/c hes only fixated on himself getting back to the whitehouse. Thats what it tells me. He doesn't give a damn about anyone else but himself, Hes just using Hillary to get there. It would be nice if he showed the same type of passion for anyone besides the Clintons, it would be nice if he showed it for the democratic party.

:hi:

pick up a history book before you type anything else..

:rofl:

Are you speaking of complaints here on DU after bush was sworn in? Cuz during that campaign, there was no DU.

And lots of us understood that Clinton backing off in 2000 was probably a help to the party. Too bad Bill doesn't see that what was a liability then is STILL a liability.

... we complained about it after the fact, for a long time, but there were other lefty online communities where Clinton was damned for "not doing enough" -- in spite of several offers (and apologies) to Mr. Gore.

Well, that's all history now. But the assumption that "Clinton" is a synonym for "evil" is still unsustainable. Cognoscenti of the left and right alike hate the Clintons because they can't easily push them around -- but the Clintons have also never extracted a pound of flesh like Bush or Reagan did. And worse, they are popular with the "common people". It's a grudge that thousands of on-line political wonks have carried since the days of Usenet.

If the Clintons were really evil, the press would adore them; cynics say that all the pretty girls swoon over the thugs. But we shouldn't get pulled into those habits.

--p!

As I've said before, having Bill on the trail is a built-in advantage for Hillary; this is what we usually see in the general election when the candidates let their VPs be the attack dogs while they give the air of staying above the fray. Obama has no real way to counter it, other than to complain. Michelle's a nice lady, but she ain't no Bubba.

Michelle's a nice lady, but she ain't no ex-president. She's a candidate's spouse. If only Bubba knew his proper place in a Democratic primary.

it should reflect in their votes.

of votes, to our detriment, I fear.

Whether my preferred candidate wins or loses.

If you have an advantage, you utilize it. Hillary would be a fool not to do so.

He has no business running against her opponents in a Democratic Primary. Support her, her record, her accomplishments, her policies, her abilities, yes. But she is the candidate in this race; he is not the candidate. He is a former Democratic president and has obligations to all Democrats. Including me.

in a campaign.

Just reading through all the news stories about President Clinton's campaign tactics today leaves one wondering just where this goes?

Who is at the head of the Clinton for President organization?

Who is making decisions about positions on the issues?

This two-person candidacy does seem to be entering a rather weird area for politics.

And, if Hillary Clinton(s) is the nominee, you can count on this duo-candidacy being a major turn-off for many average voters.

that he is more anxious to return to the WH than his wife and his wife is not nearly the campaigner that he is, so, he is pushing and IMO he is looking petty and selfish in doing so. He also seems to be lacking many of the facts of the debate and only is interested in the head-line grabbing Jabs that he learned from the repbublicants.

If you're going to help people to see what is going on... write a note to self with these few words:

"Hillary is the most qualified candidate for the presidency."

Thanks..

get points for being first lady. I look at her time on the Senate Armed Services committee where she did not do enough to curtail our Presidents abuse of the Military.

If you want to contrast and compare. Begin here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton

And when the media call him on his routine or question the honesty of one of his remarks, his goes into his oh-so-sincere routine of squinting one eye, staring into the camera, and making his stern pronouncements and denials. You know the routine: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

Yeah, the act is wearing thin.

While Bill's lying about a personal matter had nothing to do with his policies as president, it certainly spoke to his character and his propensity to blatantly lie to protect himself or get something that he wants. His character flaws are evident in his recent behavior and have been brought to the fore once again.

I don't want anymore of this type of distraction in an administration when we are faced with so many problems that must be dealt with.

Unless, of course, gaining office and assuming power is one's singular priority.

You're doing nothing but tossing out silly platitudes. Surely you can bring more to the discussion than "Oh, yeah?".

On it's face...all you've posted is a complaint based on your opinion. We're in the throws of a heated contest. Each side has to make and defend their candidate. So far all we're heard from the Obama campaign are lies, distortions and whining.. nothing of substance. If Obama continues to dish it out, we're going to respond in kind. You can take that to the Bank!

The ignore button. Yep. There it is. Goodbye.

is using to try to start a scandal. Watch the shitty vid clips without the spin and see for yourself. It’s nothing but s cheap smear that only a fool would fall for..

Kennedy, Emanuel and Clyburn have all expressed their disapproval of Bill's behavior directly to him.

Rightly or wrongly, Americans expect ex-presidents to hew to a certaln kind of conduct. He's not, and he's going to get criticized for it.

What a bunch of crybaby wimps.

election scenario?

All spouses campaign for their spouse. The US has a long history of it.

campaigning for somebody and attacking a competitor

Nobody would mind that Bill campaigns for Hillary since as you said, thats basically a traditon

What spouses does not tend to be tho is an attack dog against another candidate, specially not in such mud slinging and lying manner.

Especially when that spouse is also the nominal head of the Democratic party.

Nobody could object to his supporting his wife. But it's inappropriate for him to be shoving his big face in front of the cameras all the time, attacking a fellow Democrat. The important thing--as Hillary herself said--is to get a Democrat in the White House. And he seems to be driven by the idea of getting himself and his wife back in the White House and the hell with the party if that doesn't happen.

I was a huge fan of Bill until recently. I am sick sick sick of him and his ego. It's all about what he wants, not what's best for 1) the party and 2) the country. :puke:

posted here......The criticism of Obama's behavior is growing....

Barack Obama was already working the crowd with a vociferous appeal to vote for him when the dozens of people jostling to get inside the auditorium where crying out, " NO ADULT SAYS OOPS! " NO ADULT SAYS OOPS! " NO ADULT SAYS OOPS!

can't take a pounding from the Clinton's superior political apparatus, then they should get the hell outta Dodge and leave the presidential stuff to the experts.