The 'Billary' Campaign -- A Symbiotic Relationship

In today's New York Times, Maureen Dowd discusses the presence of former President Bill Clinton on the campaign trail.

Dowd wonders if Bill Clinton is savior or saboteur for Hillary Clinton. It's a good question. But it's not a simple question to answer.

Dowd notes that the Clintons have always needed each other to succeed. "Their relationship has always been a co-dependence between his charm and her discipline," Dowd writes, and I tend to agree with that.

But in politics, especially since the advent of television, what voters see comes first and what they hear comes second. So, while the message may be on target, it misses the mark completely if the voters don't see something appealing first.

For example, much has been said -- and written -- about the different interpretations from radio listeners and TV viewers of the first Kennedy-Nixon debate in 1960. Those who listened to the debate on radio thought Nixon won, but TV viewers, perhaps influenced by Kennedy's tanned and rested appearance, picked Kennedy over the haggard-looking Nixon.

Today, any news event, including a debate, clearly will have far more TV viewers than radio listeners. Although that does lead to an interesting personal point. On Sept. 11, 2001, I was at work and had no access to a TV. Every person at a desk that had a radio was listening to reports of events that almost everyone else in the country was seeing.

That can be a blessing, especially when you realize that everyone in my office was spared seeing people jumping to their deaths from the Twin Towers.

But back to the point at hand ...

Lacking President Clinton's kind of appeal means Mrs. Clinton needs her husband's charisma if she's going to pull off the deal that Dowd says she's trying to make with the electorate -- i.e., "asking people to like her if they liked him."

Dowd goes on to assert that "it’s almost as if she’s offering herself to Clinton supporters as the solution to the problem of the 22nd Amendment."

It reminds me of George and Lurleen Wallace in the 1960s. George was barred by Alabama law from seeking a second consecutive term as governor in 1966, so his wife ran and was elected. George was governor behind the scenes for 17 months. But Mrs. Wallace died of cancer and was succeeded by the duly elected lieutenant governor, leaving George with no elected platform to use while seeking the presidency as an independent in 1968.

By the way, Lurleen Wallace remains the only woman ever elected governor of Alabama.

Dowd correctly concludes that this is a "coattails strategy." It's also a symbiotic relationship. Someone who was stronger in the sciences would know the answer to this better than I, but it seems to me that it isn't necessary for a symbiotic relationship to be mutually beneficial. It is possible to have a symbiotic relationship of a parasitic nature -- in which one party benefits and the other does not.

For awhile, this particular symbiotic relationship seemed to be working. Now, it's not so clear that it's working. Electorally, at least. I don't know how well it works on a personal level.

But the problems on the campaign trail puncture the balloon of Mrs. Clinton's "inevitability" as the Democratic nominee.