It took a while - for the duration of the Iowa campaign, to be exact - but the Clintons have figured out the most effective way to use former President Bill Clinton in Hillary Clinton's campaign. Their division of labor is very simple: he criticizes Barack Obama while she mostly stays positive. It worked in New Hampshire and again in Nevada.
What didn't work was having Bill campaign with Hillary, speaking before his wife at events and introducing her. That was tried earlier in Iowa and, of course, she lost the caucuses there in what feels like an eternity ago but was actually a little more than two weeks ago. At joint events, he overshadowed her and spent much of his time talking about himself. This prompted a newspaper cartoon with a tiny Hillary standing on the shoulder of a huge Bill. Now they appear separately.
And they seem to understand Bill's unique value in the campaign. As an ex-president he can command extensive media attention. What he says gets widespread coverage. In effect, he has a megaphone as big as his wife's, maybe bigger. No other presidential candidate has a surrogate like Bill Clinton. Obama certainly doesn't.
When every candidate except Hillary wants to put out unfavorable information about an opponent and be sure to draw heavy press coverage, the candidate himself must handle the task. And there's a downside: the candidate is deplored for "going negative." But if an aide or supporter is assigned the task, the media is likely to yawn and the information the candidate wants to trumpet gets far less coverage.
But not in Bill Clinton's case. He's the one supporter of a candidate whose words are reported to the world under blazing headlines. Thus when he criticizes Obama on Iraq and other issues, as he did in New Hampshire, we hear about it. And when he scolds the press for giving Obama a free ride, we not only hear about it but the press takes the criticism seriously.
In Nevada, after two union endorsements of Obama put Hillary's expected victory in the Democratic caucuses in jeopardy, Bill waded in again. He denounced the way the caucuses were set up as undemocratic and unfair. Later, he repeated charges that Hillary voters were being threatened if they voted for Obama. Once more, the coverage of Bill was big-time.
Bill Clinton does another thing for Hillary's campaign - he responds to criticism of her. When her experience as a major White House player has been questioned, Bill has stepped in to defend her. He should know, right? He was president.
Without a surrogate like Bill, Obama is at a disadvantage. He's been wary of responding to charges and criticism by Bill and other Hillary backers because it would detract from the positive tone of his candidacy. For the same reason, he's been reluctant to go after Hillary himself. Obama's strategy has been to stay above the fray as much as possible.
Now he doesn't have that luxury. To counter attacks by the Clinton camp effectively, Obama will have to step forward himself and respond. And if he wants to be sure voters hear about Hillary's shortcomings, he's the one who will have to point to them. What Bill does for Hillary, Obama must do for himself.
