He's Not the Retiring Kind
Bill Clinton is building on Jimmy Carter's example and creating a new paradigm for ex-presidents
Globe-trotter. His travel schedule is far more hectic than that of predecessors such as Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, who spent most of their time in leisurely pursuits. In fact, he may be busier than any ex-president except Theodore Roosevelt, who traveled abroad, hunting, fishing, and hiking, and who campaigned unsuccessfully for president after having served nearly two terms.
Clinton isn't an outdoorsman like TR, but he has set a strenuous pace, visiting nearly 70 countries since leaving the White House in January 2001. In July alone, he went to Mozambique, Lesotho, South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, and Rwanda. His access to world leaders remains unparalleled, which will again become clear at his CGI conference in New York (cleverly timed to coincide with a United Nations meeting in Manhattan). Last week, he met with senior officials in Kazakhstan, India, and China to drum up support for AIDS prevention, democracy, and free trade. Clinton also makes two or three speeches a month, sometimes for up to $250,000 each, and has become a millionaire.
Clinton remains a divisive figure among conservatives. Many haven't forgiven him for his affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, which was one reason for his impeachment by the House of Representatives. The Senate acquitted him, but the episode remains a blemish on his record.
Yet he has a knack for disarming his adversaries. He has cultivated George H. W. Bush to such an extent that his onetime adversary (whom he defeated in 1992) invited Clinton to stay at the Bush estate at Kennebunkport, Maine, in June. Bush took Clinton for a speedboat ride, and they played golf at Cape Arundel Golf Club.
Bush the elder tells friends he never really knew Clinton until he began traveling with him for the tsunami relief effort eight months ago after devastating floods in Asia; that initiative has raised $11 million. Clinton ingratiated himself by deferring to his 81-year-old predecessor on everything from seating on their plane to who got to speak first at joint appearances. Bush admired his range of intellectual curiosity. Both of them thought their public friendship could, in some small way, show that civility was still possible in politics.
And in this, there is resonance with Gerald Ford, now 92, who is particularly proud of how he and Carter settled old scores from their 1976 campaign after both left office. "We demonstrate that political adversaries need not be political enemies," he said in a written statement.
Clinton's political interests remain deep, which will come in handy if his wife, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, runs for president in 2008. But the former chief executive points out that she faces re-election in New York next year. "One of my rules is, 'Never look past the next election, or you may not get past the next election,' " he says. There's no doubt that if she runs for the White House, the former president will be one of her most valued political advisers. (Mrs. Clinton generally spends weekends with her husband at their home in Chappaqua, N.Y., when the Senate is not in session, aides say.)
Clinton splits his time among traveling, Chappaqua, and his office in Harlem, with periodic trips to his presidential library in Little Rock, Ark. In Chappaqua, he often strolls the town's streets and stops regularly for yogurt and juice at the local Starbucks. On one occasion, someone standing in line congratulated him for his post-tsunami effort, and Clinton began a discourse. A crowd gathered. "It became like a classroom," recalls Starbucks employee Josh Dreisacker. "And my supervisor, not knowing it was him, comes out and says, 'Who's the old man holding up the line?' " Dreisacker says Clinton "seems more like a relaxed hippie, sort of, who comes here to chill out."
Chilling out, however, is the last thing on Clinton's agenda.
With Krista Reese, Stephen Sawicki, Marty Graham and Thomas Omestad
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