The Other Clinton

Urbanites in North Carolina prefer Barack Obama, while rural voters side with Hillary Clinton—which is why she spent all weekend trying to sway mixed regions like small cities and far-out suburbs. Obama, meanwhile, is counting on a hidden strength with country folk and his far-reaching publicity machine to win tomorrow's primary, the Charlotte Observer reports More »

With an assist from a pesky, unforgiving press, Bill Clinton has turned into a faux pas machine—making him seem more a liability than an asset for his wife. But the former president is in truth the most convincing person on the campaign trail, and is animated by a deep-seated anger at Barack Obama’s attacks on the Clinton legacy, Ryan Lizza writes in the New Yorker . More »

Despite controversial remarks on more than one occasion, Bill Clinton has moved to the forefront of his wife’s campaign, the Wall Street Journal reports. In what some insiders call the “Billification” of Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid, the ex-President is pushing for sharper attacks on Barack Obama amid an aggressive stumping schedule. “We’re not quitters,” he reportedly tells his wife. More »

South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn slammed Bill Clinton’s “bizarre” campaign-trail conduct in an interview yesterday with the New York Times , saying that “black people are incensed” over Clinton’s remarks about Barack Obama. Clinton earlier compared Obama’s win in South Carolina to Jesse Jackson’s 1988 success there, then Monday claimed the Obama campaign had “played the race card on me” by making an issue of it.  More »

As more longtime Clintonites succumb to Obamania and Hillary Clinton's superdelegate lead gradually diminishes, the former first couple is left to sift their friendships into past and present. But while the Clinton camp sees shifts toward Barack Obama as acts of betrayal, others consider them comeuppance for the Clintons' habit of collecting political allies and taking them for granted, reports the New York Times . More »

Hillary Clinton's strong public stance against the crackdown in Tibet flies in the face of her husband's past fundraising ties in China, reports the LA Times . At the crux is a 2005 speech the former president gave for which he received an undisclosed donation to his charitable foundation—from Internet giant Alibaba. More »

Just when you thought the controversy surrounding Hillary Clinton's trip to Bosnia had died down, Bill Clinton resuscitated it with an impassioned defense of his wife's claims. During a rally at an Indiana high school, the former president lashed out at the media for treating Hillary as if "she'd robbed a bank" for suggesting that she dodged sniper fire in 1996. More »

Bill Clinton is costing taxpayers significantly more in publicly funded perks than the two other surviving former presidents, reports Politico. From 2001 through the end of this year, $8 million will be spent on Bill Clinton, compared with $5.5 million for George H. W. Bush and $4 million for Jimmy Carter during the same period. A big chunk goes to lifelong secret service protection, pension, staff and travel expenses. More »

While Hillary Clinton stands accused of exaggerating her part in the 1998 Irish peace process, the answer might lie in an unlikely 150-page document—Chelsea Clinton's senior thesis from Stanford. Only problem? No one seems to know where it's gone, Newsweek reports, and a Clinton spokesman warns it was "written to satisfy an academic requirement—not media curiosity." More »

Of the $109 million the Clintons pulled in the past seven years, Bill pulled in the lion’s share: That’s the news in tax files released today, Ben Smith reports on Politico. The long-awaited documents reveal that, with Bill bringing in $80 million from books and speeches, the couple paid $33 million in taxes and gave $10 million to charity. More »

“Presumably, the question had to come at some point,” write the LA Times ’ Andrew Malcolm and Mark Silva, but Chelsea Clinton dealt with an audience query on Monica Lewinsky “quite neatly” yesterday. The question came at the end of an Indiana college appearance when a man asked if Bill’s notorious affair had hurt Hillary’s credibility. More »

A retired Air Force general yesterday compared Bill Clinton to red-baiting Sen. Joe McCarthy, after Clinton made comments that seemed to question Barack Obama's patriotism. The former president said at a North Carolina rally, "I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country, and people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude." More »

Barack Obama’s controversial former pastor was twice invited to the Clinton White House with groups of influential clergy, Politico reports, demonstrating that he is not the fringe figure he's been made out to be in the recent flap over his views. A photograph of Jeremiah Wright with Bill Clinton was posted by an anonymous blog supporting his church and has been distributed elsewhere, including the New York Times , courtesy of the Obama campaign. More »

Schedules from Hillary Clinton’s time as first lady don’t reveal much, Newsweek reports. The mound of documents consists only of her public engagements, rather than her private calendar, meaning many potentially revealing details are left out. The thousands of pages don’t, for example, mention her four-hour Whitewater testimony—but do note her appearance on Oprah the same month. More »

Six weeks after Bill Clinton’s aggressive role in his wife’s campaign jeopardized her African-American support and helped drive Ted Kennedy to endorse Barack Obama, the potential First Gentleman is taking a more subdued tack, working far from the media eye to shore up rural voters, bring in the money, and woo superdelegates, the AP reports. More »

Chelsea Clinton has come into her own on the campaign trail, “self-assured, soothing … at once affable and urbane,” even “the ideal amalgam of her parents’ political talents,” glows Lloyd Grove in a New York profile. Bill and Hillary have adroitly managed their daughter's public persona, obsessively keeping the press away from her—even making comedians sorry for Chelsea jokes—but she is now orchestrating her own political coming-out, Grove says. More »

As Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama battle for votes in Ohio, each pushes a simple theme: NAFTA is bad. Ohio has been hit hard by free trade, which is why Obama reminds voters that Bill Clinton backed NAFTA. And both hopefuls have mined each other's comments for anything that favors global trade, the Christian Science Monitor reports. More »

Hillary Clinton’s hold on poorer Democratic voters can be attributed to “unquestionable” leftward progress on the economy during her husband’s presidency, David Greenberg writes in Slate. Her campaign may downplay the first Clinton years, but that era produced a progressive budget that included “the most significant anti-poverty measure” since LBJ. That's contrary to revisionist spin, especially from Obama supporters, that calls Clintonism “a betrayal of liberalism." More »

Readers looking for a crash course in everything Hillary can try the index of Carl Bernstein's A Woman in Charge, and find a laundry list of moody traits: "bossiness," "aloofness," "anger, temper and hurt" are only the A's and B's. But New York Times blogger David Kelly uncovers just one problem: the bio doesn't live up to its index. More »

Bill Clinton said yesterday he took the wrong approach in defending his wife before the South Carolina primary. “The mistake that I made is to think that I was a spouse like any other spouse," he said in an interview with a TV reporter in Maine. "I can promote Hillary but not defend her, because I was president." More »