Despite Missteps, Bill Clinton's Legacy Will Emerge Intact

Hillary Clinton has said she's willing to take her broke and nearly extinguished battle for the Democratic presidential nomination all the way to the party's August convention. But her campaign's post-mortems are already being written and the fingers of blame pointed.

Some of those fingers are aimed directly at her husband, former President Bill Clinton. And among Democrats who have singled out the former president as contributing towhat is expected to be the failure of his wife's historic run for the White House are those who served in his administration—loyalists who wrote his speeches, pitched his policies, and stuck with him through historically turbulent times.

In interviews over the past week, many former Clintonistas say they don't recognize the man they've watched on the hustings. They say they have been surprised that a campaigner considered among the best of his generation not only misread the revolted-by-politics mood of the country but also stoked (intentionally or not) the country's racial divide with his comments comparing Barack Obama's win in the South Carolina Democratic primary to the Rev. Jesse Jackson's 1980s successes there. And they ponder how the past year will affect the long-term legacy of a man who was well on his way to becoming a respected elder statesman.

"Most political brilliance is partly coincidental and pertains to the moment in which the politician looks brilliant," says Bill Curry, who served as a close adviser to Clinton in the mid-1990s. "In Bill Clinton's case, that moment was the 1990s." So as the primary season winds down and Bill Clinton continues to battle, taking on the media and reportedly agitating for a vice presidential offer for his wife, these loyalists—some now in the former category, others still firmly in the Clinton camp—are taking stock and wondering how history will treat their former boss.

When he left office nearly eight years ago, there was little argument that the country was suffering from Clinton fatigue. Though he governed through peace and prosperity, his term was marred by scandal—from Monica Lewinsky and impeachment to the final-days pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich and reports of a help-yourself attitude toward White House furniture. People were tired of him, says Matt Bennett, who served as an adviser to Clinton during his second term. But post-administration, Bennett says, the former president managed to change their minds, and quickly—as he often had done in the past after he had stumbled.

"In the immediate aftermath of his administration, he had some recovery to do, and he did it brilliantly," Bennett says. "He rejuvenated himself in less than a year through political skill and emotional intelligence." Clinton wrote a book, gave speeches, got rich, opened an office in Harlem, started a foundation, and refrained from criticizing President Bush. And, perhaps most important, he forged nonpartisan relationships with people like former President George H. W. Bush, with whom he worked as a high-profile international do-gooder. Even his most ardent critics found things to like as the former president capitalized on his enduring popularity overseas.

Then came January 26 and the South Carolina primary. Race and gender were bound to be issues during the historic Democratic contest that has pitted a well-known former first lady against an up-and-coming African-American. But what stunned Clintonistas like Bennett is that it was the former president, who long enjoyed deep support in the black community, who put race front and center in what turned out to be a durably divisive way. "I don't know what he intended to do, but what he did is raise the notion of Obama as a token candidate," says Bennett, who considers Clinton the formative person in his political life. "I was mad. He's just too damn smart to do that." Bennett, who helped found the Washington-based progressive strategy center Third Way, is among those who say that each of Clinton's statements about South Carolina can be defended individually, but that the cumulative effect went over the line.

An African-American lawyer who served in the Clinton administration said that many loyalists of color had been inspired early on by Obama's candidacy, particularly after he gained legitimacy with his January win in the Iowa caucuses. But they had stayed on the fence out of fealty to the Clintons. That changed after South Carolina, says the attorney, who, like a number of former administration officials, asked not to be identified out of fear of angering the Clintons. In his comment about Jackson, says the lawyer, Clinton "was trying to get into people's minds that Barack wasn't that different than Jesse Jackson—knowing that Jackson, an old guard, civil rights guy, wasn't taken seriously by much of the country."

"Saying that in the South - that you're going to get someone like Jesse? He knew it wasn't true, and he knew it was going to be an insult," the lawyer says. Many on-the-fencers who had admired the president's record on minority issues decided to support Obama, some quietly, and black voters turned on the Clintons and went toward Obama in massive numbers.

It's Curry's theory that the former president's missteps began well before South Carolina. The "racial stuff," he says was "of a piece with lots of other remarks they made." The former president was out early this year defending negative politics as essential to democracy—"not just the price you pay, but that you really need it. And [Hillary Clinton] was doing the same thing defending lobbyists," says Curry, a writer and commentator who twice ran unsuccessfully for governor of Connecticut.

"This, at a time when people have never recoiled so deeply from the coarseness and corruption of our politics," says Curry. "It's as if no one had told the Clintons." He says it has long been a habit of the Clintons to make political shoptalk part of the public discussion, a practice that is "ill-suited" for the country right now.

Was Clinton angered that Obama as early as last fall had begun criticizing the Clinton White House years as divisive? Or that the new charismatic campaigner was stealing the former president's rock star status? Or were his missteps a function of his deep desire to get his wife's faltering campaign on track—and disbelief that it wasn't going better?

Most former aides interviewed suggest it was all of the above. Clinton can take criticism from the right, but it infuriates him when it comes from his own party, advisers say. Another aide who remains loyal to the Clintons says that it will take more than a nomination for Obama to surpass the former president's stature in the party. "Getting the nomination is one thing," he says. "Governing mostly successfully for eight years is another thing."

So, long term, where does this leave Bill Clinton and his legacy? Barry Toiv, a former Clinton White House spokesman who has campaigned for Hillary Clinton, says that the former president's "extraordinary track record" in the African-American community has not disappeared. It will become clear, he says, that the current characterizations of him are not fair.

"The work of his post-presidency has not been about partisanship—it has been about deliberate bipartisanship," says Toiv. "I think that when tempers cool a little bit, when this is over, the same forces that will enable Democrats to unite will enable those who are angry at him to get over some of that anger."

And if Bill Clinton is anything, he's a "recoverer," says Bennett, who predicts that the former president will make an eloquent, uniting speech at the convention and go down in history as a very, very good, if not great, president. Likewise, Sidney Blumenthal, a former Clinton adviser who is a strategist for Hillary Clinton's campaign, says the former president will ultimately "be admired for this campaign—for his indefatigable work for and loyalty to his wife and the cause."

"I'm not really worried about Bill Clinton's legacy," Blumenthal says.

Curry, who admires Hillary Clinton's continued and dogged pursuit of the nomination and sees it as a sign of strong character, perhaps put it best: "This is the most forgiving country in the world, and when it isn't forgiving, it's forgetting." That bodes very well for Clinton.

Bottom line, his former advisers say, Bill Clinton's legacy will need a little repairing—and a great convention speech and hard campaigning for Obama if he's the nominee will go a long way toward that. His reputation, they predict, will emerge largely intact.

But what about his wife? Has he ultimately helped or hurt her attempt to become the first woman to occupy the Oval Office?

"Yes," says Bennett. And that case may never be closed.