NYT: Now on the Campaign Trail, a Reined-In Bill Clinton

By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: February 27, 2008

LANCASTER, Ohio — The long campaign has taken some of the fight out of the Big Dog. Bill Clinton is dutifully traveling from state to state and small town to small town on behalf of his wife’s presidential candidacy. But the growling and snapping Bill Clinton the nation saw before the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries has been muzzled and leashed. He is being kept as far from the news media as possible to prevent any more of the red-faced, finger-wagging tirades and freelance political commentary that polls say cost Hillary Rodham Clinton a lot of support, particularly among black voters.

So what audiences in places like Lancaster, a working-class town of 33,000 about 30 miles southeast of Columbus, are seeing is a subdued and substantive former president going on at length about Iraq, health care, education, job creation and what he portrays as the multiple sins of the Bush administration. What he lacks in passion he makes up for in sheer volume of words.

In the Lancaster High School gymnasium on Monday, Mr. Clinton spoke for an hour to about 2,000 people. The room could have held 1,000 more, but the rest of the gym was curtained off. Earlier in the day, at a college campus in Chillicothe, he spoke in a gym that was two-thirds empty.

Instead of waxing nostalgic about his years in power or highlighting his own accomplishments, Mr. Clinton now peppers his remarks with phrases like “Hillary wanted me to tell you” and “Hillary has a plan for that.” He is as humble as he is capable of being about his own role.



About 2,000 people listened to Bill Clinton campaign on his wife’s behalf on Monday night at Lancaster High School in Ohio.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/us/politics/27clinton.html

I think it may be beginning to dawn on the Clintons that there's lack of enthusiasm about seeing them back in the White House. It's simply time to move on.

both the Clintons these days. Bill Clinton was referred to as a "rock star" in his day, but Obama has swept in and usurped that title, and they're not taking it well.

Bill Clinton could have & should have become a great statesman on the level of a Jimmy Carter, but when he once again became the Campaigner-In-Chief, his true colors emerged, and it wasn't pretty.

too bad she has so many idiots running her campaign like Wolfson and Penn-the surrogattes turn me off 10 times more than Mrs. Clinton ever does