Deep down in his heart of hearts, does Bill Clinton want his wife to be President? I’ve never met the man and I doubt there’s a way to get a truly honest answer either way, but it’s interesting enough that I think it’s worth asking. The question doesn’t arise out of any criticism or praise of Bill’s actions on the campaign trail, whether he’s been an asset or a liability to Hillary’s campaign is one of those pesky known unknowns. Rather, on a personal level, would he really want to be the first First Gentlemen after having been President?
Bill Clinton has been so famous for so long that it’s hard to know what really makes the man tick. We know that he’s an extremely talented politician; we know that he’s a gash hound; we know that he’s a policy wonk; we know that he’s got a big but not entirely unjustified ego. It had to have killed him not to be able to run in 2000. A victory, which he was popular enough to think would’ve been probable, would’ve erased the stain on the blue dress far better than any dry cleaning. Instead he had to sit on the sidelines and watch Al Gore’s weak campaign and the fiasco in Florida.
As a matter of simple marital decency he has to support his wife’s candidacy. (Though apparently the same stricture didn’t apply to Bob Dole.) But I wonder how enthusiastic he is about it. The role of the political spouse doesn’t suit him.
Most political spouses, on just about every level of American politics, are ignored. All they need to do is smile and wave and not get caught doing anything illegal or tawdry. It’s usually the wife in the sidecar, but it’s true no matter which member of the marriage is the actual candidate. Bill Clinton, on the other hand, has been the undisputed center of attention in every room he’s been in for the last thirty years, even a sitting U.S. Senator is still second banana to an ex-President. All that changed when Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign got started.
The fishbowl life began anew and Bill knows from experience that it will only get worse if Hillary becomes the nominee and then the President. Even the biggest Hollywood celebrities don’t know the kind of media scrutiny that’s on a President. For Hillary there’s an upside to once again submitting to the strict brackets the attention would impose on life. After all, she’d get to be President. For Bill, what’s the upside?
Everything I’ve read about him these past few years seems to suggest that he spends a great deal of his time traveling abroad and giving speeches. All of that would come crashing to a halt if his wife became the President of the United States. Sure, he’d still be able to attend conferences about AIDS in Africa, but everywhere he went would become an unofficial state visit. He probably wouldn’t even be able to travel in privacy on the airplanes of his wealthy friends anymore.
The inversion that becoming the First Gentlemen would entail is almost unimaginable. Would be happily get on board that great big airplane to fly to some summit meeting and then be content talking to the other spouses? Does he really want to be sitting upstairs at 1600 Pennsylvania while Hillary is downstairs in the bunker deciding whether or not to attack Iran? Does he want to again see his every movement become a news item?
We don’t know what the power structure would be like inside a second Clinton White House. We don’t even know, nor do we want to know, what the power structure is like inside the Clinton’s marriage. Certainly Bill would be more visible than an ordinary First Lady, but the Presidential spouse doesn’t technically have a title. He’d be a uniquely positioned special envoy but he knows, better than anyone, that the Executive Branch is a one person show. Maybe he’s made his peace with all this, but it’s a question that just gets deeper the more one thinks about it. Even if he believes unequivocally that Hillary would make a better president than Barack Obama, I’ll bet that some part of him feels a tiny bit relieved if/when she finally suspends her campaign.
Come to think of it, when that does happen, and it almost certainly will, somebody, either in a prominent position on-line or in a newspaper or magazine, is going to ask this same question except it will be framed in terms of, “Did Bill Clinton sabotage his wife’s campaign once it became clear that Obama could win?” Ought to be entertaining.
