But there is one candidate against whom Clinton will inevitably be measured. He happens to have the same last name, and he went on to be elected president. Starting right away, Hillary Clinton will be compared to her husband in nearly everything she does—sometimes favorably, sometimes less so. In fact, the whole issue of how she stacks up against Bill Clinton will be one of the major themes of the upcoming campaign.
The Clinton campaign knows that Bill is a major campaign asset. But they believe the asset depreciates when the former president—one of the great political talents of modern times—appears alongside his wife. This was driven home at the funeral last year of Coretta Scott King. Hillary delivered a prepared eulogy long on platitudes, while Bill—sensing the mood of a too-politicized service—offered a brilliant extemporaneous tribute (“There’s a real woman in there!” he said, pointing to the casket) that stole the show and made his wife seem like an ordinary politician. To avoid these comparisons, the two Clintons will rarely appear together, and never speak back-to-back. This has the added and powerful advantage of essentially allowing Hillary’s campaign to appear in two places at once.
But such geographical distance cannot prevent the two Clintons from being constantly juxtaposed, as they have been since they first began dating at Yale Law School. During his unsuccessful 1974 campaign for Congress—as in subsequent gubernatorial and presidential runs—Hillary was the one who kept Bill organized and focused. He almost certainly would have failed without her. But no one ever doubted that he was a better candidate, with an unmatched feel for connecting with the audience on the campaign trail. Of course that’s not saying much: Bill Clinton has no rival in that department in late-20th-century politics, with the possible exception of Ronald Reagan.
It’s useful to remember, however, that Bill Clinton was not always a mesmerizing speaker. When he delivered a nominating speech for Michael Dukakis at the 1988 Democratic Convention, it was so boring that the delegates applauded when he finally got to the words “in conclusion.” His State of the Union speeches as president were often considered too long (although they polled well), and after the Democrats’ drubbing in the 1994 midterms, Clinton was reduced to pleading in public that his presidency was still “relevant.”
Hillary’s prepared speeches, from those she has made at political conventions to her current stump speech, are no match for his, and may lag behind Barack Obama’s and John Edwards’s as well. They sometimes resemble a laundry list of policy proposals, instead of reflecting Bill Clinton’s patented postpresidential mixture of inspiration and informal grace. When she tries to sound forceful—as she did last week after returning from Iraq—her voice takes on a trace of the school marm. But she has plenty of time to bring up her game to the point where the contrast with her husband and rivals is not quite so glaring. And in the smaller settings (like those she’ll find in Iowa and New Hampshire), she is warm, approachable and impressive.
During the Clinton presidency, Hillary’s political instincts were seen as weak, especially after the health-care-reform debacle. But even then, she possessed some critical skills her husband lacked, especially in staying organized and inspiring the loyalty of staff. And after proving a surprisingly good candidate for the Senate in 2000 and highly adept in the treacherous world of the U.S. Senate, her reputation for political smarts has been revived, though neither she nor anyone else is likely to equal the artist formerly known as President Clinton as a political performer.
The question of which one is smarter is almost irrelevant, considering that both are at the far upper end of the scale for presidential candidates. Even so, Howard Gardner, author of the theory of “multiple intelligences,” would have a field day making the comparisons between them, because their minds work so differently. Think of music. Bill’s brain is like sublimely improvised jazz; Hillary’s more resembles technically superior classical. Both are deeply knowledgeable about the world and synthesize issues with clarity and insight. Neither is an original intellect, though each can drill down into the details of an issue as well as anyone in politics.
The Clinton presidency was characterized by an informal, even messy, approach to decision-making that nonetheless yielded many well-constructed and thoughtful policy initiatives. President Hillary Clinton would more likely pursue a disciplined, deliberate and unspontaneous policymaking process. Whether this more corporate style would prove as successful is impossible to know, though Hillary would likely provoke many of the same resentments among conservatives that her husband did in the 1990s.
We are only now beginning to assess how the comparisons will play out. If elected she would be the president, and he the—what? First Gentleman? First Man? Or would protocol demand they be introduced as “The president of the United States and former president”? What will happen when they are known to disagree about some issue? He would be expected to defer to her, of course, but imagine if the public thought he had the better judgment. What then? Even as Hillary and Bill Clinton take the first steps down this uncharted path, we’re back where we were 15 years ago—trying to figure out not just their personal relationship, but the qualities they share, and those they don’t.
