访谈录 Interview 2007-08-03&08-05, 比尔·希拉里现象

The big news over last few weeks, Bill Clinton reemerging on the campaign trail, here he was in Iowa last week.

I know some people sort of say well, you know, look at them, they are old. And they are sorta yesterday’s news, you know. Well, yesterday’s news was pretty good.

Yesterday’s news was pretty good. Here they are campaigning in New Hampshire again, just this week, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton. And it’s led to this kind of covers. Here is the cover with The Bill Factor and Hillary’s dilemma 1. That’s Newsweek and The Week, which remind me of 1992, we saw this cover, The Hillary Factor, what role did she play in that particular race, which led to this comment by Barack Obama: Bill Clinton crowed that Hillary Clinton had emerged from his shadow as a new leader for America, but Barack and Michelle Obama intimated both the ex-president and former First Lady belong to the past. Quote,"It’s time to turn the page."

Bob Shrum, is that the whole campaign, we can bring back the great days of the Clintons or it's time to turn the page?

I think it is. They, they, they tried this week to redefine change as nostalgia 2. To borrow Bob Bill's phrase: They wanna build the bridge to the past. And democratic voters can cross that bridge, look at the 1990s and vote for Hillary Clinton. It’s a strategy born of necessity. They understand that she is the establishment candidate in a change election. There was one other thing that was remarkable 3, by the way, in these appearances. Bill Clinton giving speeches five or six minutes long. That hasn’t happen since he spoke 4 at Boy's State in high school. He really wants to win this thing.

Here, here is, I think, the Bill Clinton problem, I'll use a Hollywood example. If you are Robert Redford's agent , and producers want him to star in a new movie, and they come to you and say, we have got a great co-star, Brad Pitt. You're gonna (say): No, no, no, well, we want Ernest Borgnine. He takes the energy and the...

(Are you) calling Hillary Ernest Borg(nine)?

No, no, no. I am using a Hollywood, I figured Democrats 5 Hollywood, a dated Hollywood reference here. No, but it is a problem. He takes up all the energy, and he makes a change election about going backwards 6 which is death for her, I think. So it’s a very hard thing for them to wiggle out of, just like McCain and immigrations. Sometimes the rules are gravity, are stronger than all your clever campaign strategies. But for all the advantages of Clinton, ultimately, it, it shrinks her, makes her less. And it refocuses the campaign backward in a forward year, I think it’s a terrific problem. And the one lucrative 7, the one metric I'm watching, Internet fundraising, coz that’s where money is reaching out, trying to find candidates rather than arms being twisted, the old way to bring money in. And that’s where Obama is killing 8, it is a metric of real political strength for him.

Bob Novak, it also seems to be a real subtle message, subliminal 9, nonetheless real in the Barack Obama message. And that is it’s time to turn the page. Twenty eight years of two families controlling the presidency 10.

That’s another thing. That is something that everybody talks about. And you know, talk about nostalgia, it’s hard for a lot of these people to believe this. But there is, there is not that much nostalgia for Bill Clinton. I just, I just find people who aren't democratic professional politicians who, you know, are sorry they've had eight years of Republicans, they don’t really yearn 11 for Bill Clinton. The thing...

But I think he does, he is very popular in all the polls.

A lot of people don’t want him back, though, for a third, for a third term, and this, I think it’s very dangerous to call this a third term of Bill Clinton. There's one other thing, the morale 12 of the Republicans...

Who has done that? Who has called it the third term?

Me.

It's dangerous. So that's why he called it.
Nice, nice try, Novak.

There is a...(Consider the source.) Republicans are very pessimistic about 2008, when you talk to them off the record, they don’t see how they can win this thing. And then, you, they think for a minute, and only the Democratic Party with everything in their favor, would say that OK, this is a year either to have a woman or an African American to break president, to do things the country's never done before and it gives the Republicans hope.