I Don't Think So

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Hillary Clinton says the Clinton family emerged from eight years in the White House "dead broke."

Color me skeptical.

I grew up in Arkansas. I know what the pay was like for statewide officials there. Until the voters changed it, state officials were paid $10,000 a year or less. Clinton may have been paid at that level for awhile, but voters gave state officers a raise at some point, and his salary went up to around $30,000 a year.

That was a princely sum at the time, but it was still less than most state governors received. Today, it isn't even as much as the state's median family income.

Anyway, I don't doubt that the Clintons were low on funds when they entered the White House.

But Bill Clinton was paid $200,000 a year as president, and he served for eight years. While Clinton was president, the salary for the president was doubled, effective for the next president — so Clinton received $1.6 million while president. His successor served two terms and received $3.2 million, as will Barack Obama by the time his second term ends.

I know that Clinton didn't have all that money stashed away when he left the White House. He had to pay some tax on his income, of course, and Hillary was right about having to buy a house and pay for their daughter's education (although she could have found cheaper places to go to school than Stanford, Oxford and Columbia).

But she became a senator just before he left the presidency. Senators at that time made just over $140,000 a year. President Clinton's memoirs sold more than 2 million copies.

Like everyone else, the Clintons had expenses. I'm not saying they didn't, and, as I have already observed, no one has ever gotten rich on a public servant's pay in Arkansas — but, when they left the White House, the Clintons had sources and levels of income that are not part of the experience for most Americans.

To say they were dead broke upon leaving the White House seems like an exaggeration to me — not unlike Mrs. Clinton's '08 campaign assertion that she was better qualified to answer that infamous 3 a.m. phone call — and even if it was true, cash started flowing pretty quickly.

Well, if Mrs. Clinton seeks the presidency in 2016, as many people seem to think she will, she will have to release her financial information, and it will be subjected to considerable scrutiny.

As will her actions before, during and after the Benghazi attack.

One Big Happy Family

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Four current and former vice presidents
on Inauguration Day 1969.

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At their national convention in Denver, the Democrats have been putting on a happy, unified face — even the supposed malcontents Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Hillary gave her speech to the delegates on Tuesday, then made various procedural moves on Wednesday to boost Obama's support level among the delegates.

Her husband, the former president, made his speech to the delegates Wednesday night, declaring that Obama (who is about the same age as Bill Clinton was when he first sought the presidency in 1992) is ready to lead the nation in a world that has changed a great deal in 16 years.

It seems to me that the Clintons have done everything they can to help Obama make this convention a success. If he does not receive the "bounce" he expects, he can take that as evidence that there is a (perhaps unidentified) fault within himself and his candidacy that kept it muzzled — and/or his opponents may steal some of his thunder with the expected announcement of John McCain's running mate tomorrow.

• Mike Allen and Jonathan Martin report in Politico that McCain has decided on his running mate and will inform that person today.
  
  (This reminds me a bit of reports I was hearing last week in the hours before Joe Biden was unveiled as the Democratic vice presidential candidate. Those reports focused on the fact that Obama had settled on a name, but never mentioned whether Obama had actually asked his choice if he/she would accept.
  
  (That may seem like a mere formality to many observers today, but when I was younger, a presidential nominee still had to ask his choice for running mate to join him on the ticket. And they didn't always accept.
  
  (In 1972, for example, I don't know how many people were offered the second slot on the Democratic ticket before Sen. Tom Eagleton accepted it — and, a few weeks later, after revelations of Eagleton's hospitalization for exhaustion in the 1960s, including some electric shock treatments, prompted him to withdraw, presidential nominee George McGovern went through several additional public rejections before Sargent Shriver agreed to replace Eagleton on the ticket.)
  
  As I mentioned last week, it seems a little arrogant of a presumptive nominee to assume that his choice for running mate will accept his offer.
  
  But, based on what I've read from Allen and Martin, it appears that McCain will make the offer today.


• Elisabeth Bumiller and Michael Cooper report, in the New York Times, that McCain still plans to reveal his choice on Friday.
  
  So, presumably, McCain has a backup plan in place — in case his choice turns him down at the last minute.
  
  If you're looking for clues as to who might be McCain's pick, sources close to the campaign say the top three prospects are:
  
  
  1. Mitt Romney
  
  
  2. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty
  
  
  3. independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut
  
  A little vice presidential trivia here.
  
  Dick Cheney is the 46th vice president of the United States. All but four of the individuals who have served as vice president had backgrounds that included service as governor or in the Congress.
  
  The last one who didn't have that experience in his background was Henry Wallace — who was Franklin D. Roosevelt's vice president through most of America's involvement in World War II.
  
  Wallace had the good fortune of running with Roosevelt when FDR had already served two terms as president. And Wallace had been part of Roosevelt's Cabinet, as secretary of agriculture, from 1933 to 1940.
  
  But, in the early days of the republic, if you wanted to become president, the best way to get on-the-job training was to be secretary of state. That was considered the real stepping stone to the presidency. Six of the 15 presidents who came before Abraham Lincoln had been secretary of state. Five had been vice president.
  
  Politically, the secretary of state may no longer hold that kind of significance. But the job retains its importance in many ways, both in its status as the most significant Cabinet post and its position in the presidential succession.

A Package Deal

Lately, there's been a lot of discussion about Bill Clinton's presence in his wife's campaign for the presidency.

We're in uncharted waters here, since this is the first time an ex-president's spouse has sought the presidency. But, as long as Hillary Clinton is part of the political landscape, you can expect Bill Clinton to be wherever the spotlight is.

And there are those who believe that Bill Clinton is a loose cannon, taking aim at constituencies that have been enthusiastic Clinton supporters in the past.

Take, for example, his charge about Barack Obama and his claims of consistent opposition to the Iraq War. In the words of CBS News' Vaughn Ververs, "[M]any blacks heard more than policy criticism. They heard a dismissive attack on the first black with a real chance of winning the White House. They heard echoes of racial battles of the past. And they heard it from someone who was supposed to be on their side."

The South Carolina primary offered proof of how the black community responded. More than half of Saturday's Democratic voters in South Carolina were black, and nearly four-fifths of them voted for Obama.

The final totals showed Obama with 55% of the vote in South Carolina. Clinton was second with 27%, and John Edwards was third with 18%. The latest delegate count has Obama with 63 delegates, Clinton with 48 and Edwards with 26.

And if you've found yourself being turned off by the talk of political dynasties -- following the presidencies of George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush in the last two decades -- isn't Clinton's candidacy just more of the same?

In a way, that's the point that Obama tried to make when he observed, in the most recent debate, that he didn't know who he was running against, Bill or Hillary.

Frankly, the situation is exactly what they told us it was 16 years ago -- two for the price of one.

That part hasn't changed. What's different is the experience level. And, for both of them, that includes eight years in the White House.

It's a record that needs to be fully investigated. To this point, America's voters have been asked to accept it on faith, much as they were expected, 40 years ago, to accept on faith Richard Nixon's promise of a "secret plan" to end the Vietnam War.

Hillary Clinton claims to have gained invaluable experience as first lady, but we've been given no details of that experience. Was it confined to sitting in on high-level meetings? Was she given a vote on policy? If so, on whose authority?

To my knowledge, she was neither elected nor appointed to any position that permitted her to participate in making policy.

As a lawyer, she should know -- as I'm sure she does -- that there are laws prohibiting the assumption or execution of any power or privilege unless the source of that authority is legitimate.

Legal authority. That's how things work in a democracy.

The presidency is not a fraternity or sorority. When the word "legacy" is mentioned, it does not mean the automatic right of a president's spouse or offspring to assume presidential power after the president leaves office.

And, to this point, we have no evidence of the legitimacy of Hillary Clinton's White House experience.

Maybe Hillary Clinton didn't have a vote. Maybe she was allowed to speak at meetings, but wasn't given any other privilege. What did she say? How did she influence decisions on policy?

I'm sorry, but it's just not enough for me to be told that "she was there." Potted plants were there, too. But no one has suggested that the potted plants played a role in policy making.

Earlier this week, Maureen Dowd wrote, in the New York Times, that "It’s odd that the first woman with a shot at becoming president is so openly dependent on her husband to drag her over the finish line."

The Economist puts it more bluntly: "Is Mr. Clinton damaging his wife's presidential chances as well as his own reputation?"

And Bill's influence certainly won't end there. It's becoming clear, from sea to shining sea, that his involvement is more about him than it is about her.

Vanity Fair has already concluded that Bill is running for a third term. Vanity Fair says Bill Clinton's behavior has been "sordid and undignified. And his de facto backdoor attempt to retake the presidency is nothing short of unseemly."

Jonathan Chait wonders, in the Los Angeles Times, if "the conservatives might have had a point about the Clintons' character. ... They do seem to have a feeling of entitlement to power."

If Hillary is nominated, this won't end on Election Day.

"Any Democrat who seriously thinks that Bill will fade away if Hillary wins the nomination -- let alone that the Clintons will escape being fully vetted -- is a Democrat who ... believes in fairy tales," writes Frank Rich in today's New York Times.

"For better or worse," writes Michael Tackett in the Chicago Tribune, "Bill Clinton [is] in the race."

Say what you will about George Wallace. But I preferred it when his first wife, Lurleen, ran for governor of Alabama more than 40 years ago because George was barred by the existing state law from succeeding himself. Everyone in Alabama knew who would be the real governor if Lurleen Wallace won.

At least the voters knew the nature of the deal they were making.

Who will be the real president if Hillary Clinton wins? Do we know the nature of that deal?

Random Thoughts While Watching the Replay of the Debate

I watched some of the New Hampshire debate last night on ABC and I've been watching the replay tonight on CNN. And a thought occurred to me.

It seems like I've been watching Hillary Clinton on TV all my life.

It may seem that way to you as well. But it is no idle exaggeration on my part. I grew up in Arkansas, graduated from Conway High School just north of Little Rock and graduated from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.

I was 18 the year Bill Clinton was first elected governor, and I voted in that election. Arkansas elected its governor every two years in those days, so Clinton came up for re-election when I was 20. He lost that race, but won his next bid for governor when I was 22. He was re-elected when I was 24 and 26.

The year I was 24, Arkansas voters wisely chose to amend the state's constitution to make terms in state offices like governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, etc., four-year terms instead of two-year terms. So when Clinton ran again when I was 26, it was for a four-year term. I moved away from Arkansas when I was 28, and I haven't been back there to live in 20 years.

But less than four years after I left Arkansas, Clinton ran for president. And seeing the Clintons on the evening news every night made it seem like I had never left.

In the 16 years that have passed, the Clintons have remained in the public eye. And, with Mrs. Clinton running for this year's Democratic presidential nomination, it once again seems like I never left Arkansas -- even though both of us long ago left that state. After being the nation's first lady for eight years, of course, Hillary went on to be elected -- and re-elected -- to the U.S. Senate from the state of New York.

Actually, now that I reflect on it, I guess I haven't been watching Hillary on TV all my life.

For one thing, my family didn't get a TV set until I was 6 years old, so I really have no memories of seeing an Arkansas governor on TV before Winthrop Rockefeller -- or of seeing an American president before Lyndon Johnson.

And, for another thing, it was 12 more years before Clinton became governor, so I guess Hillary's been on my TV for about two-thirds of my life!

* I have no first-hand memories or knowledge of Mike Huckabee. He became governor many years after I left. But a good friend of mine who still lives in Arkansas was bringing me up to speed on Huckabee a few months before Iowa discovered him.

Huckabee is different from most modern Republicans, but perhaps he has more in common with earlier Republicans than today's Republicans do. In his way, I think he is reacquainting today's Republicans with their roots with his brand of populism.

That's not a bad thing in a campaign that has seen both sides yearning for the "good old days" when other presidents were in charge.

For that matter, we've also seen several polls this year that suggest a high percentage of American voters feel that a third party would be better equipped than the two existing parties to embody the standards and principles people want in their leaders.

Perhaps what the voters really need is to learn about the original principles of each party -- and to see more examples of politicians who live by those principles.

My instincts tell me that Huckabee can't win the Republican nomination, for several reasons. But his insurgent candidacy could prove to be an irresistible force, like George McGovern in 1972 and Barry Goldwater in 1964. It's too early to tell about that.

New Hampshire will tell us a lot about his ability to draw votes from other than his evangelical base. But we'll need to see what happens in Michigan and South Carolina -- and perhaps the mega-primary day on Feb. 5 -- before we'll know what kind of coalition of Republicans Huckabee can build.

* There is a certain inherent danger of reading too much into the results from a single state, like Iowa, but until New Hampshire's voters get out and vote on Tuesday, Iowa is the only thing we have to work with, other than polls.

For the Democrats, I think John Edwards has to do better in New Hampshire than the polls have been showing in order for his campaign to be considered viable. If he is close to the top, I think he can remain in the race for another week or two, competing in the Michigan and South Carolina primaries.

But he has to convince Democrats that he can attract votes outside his native region.

Unless Edwards is able to do that, the race will come down to Obama vs. Clinton very shortly. If it hasn't already.

On the Republican side, I think John McCain can beat Mitt Romney in New Hampshire, and Romney's campaign will be in trouble, having invested so much time and money in the first two states with no victories to show for it.

But the next states on the calendar -- Michigan and South Carolina -- favor different candidates. Romney may do well in Michigan. His father was governor there for six years. But Michigan and South Carolina may have enough evangelical voters to boost Huckabee to victories. And independents are the wild cards. Which candidate -- and which party -- will they favor?

And Rudy Giuliani is counting on a strong showing in Florida.

After that comes the "Super Tuesday" primaries on Feb. 5. Will the Republican picture come into focus on Feb. 6 (which, by the way, is Ronald Reagan's birthday)?

I'm starting to wonder ...

* Barack Obama's triumph in Iowa was impressive, but I think the comparisons between Obama and JFK are a little over done.

As my father told me today, "I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine ..."

* Well, Lloyd Bentsen is dead and buried.

But I thought New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson had the best line last night.

After listening to several minutes of Clinton, Obama and Edwards parrying and thrusting, Richardson remarked, "I've been in hostage negotiations that were more civil than this!"

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.

Two For the Price of One

David Ignatius writes, in today's Washington Post, about "Hillary's Ex Factor" -- the possible role of Mrs. Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, in her presidential administration.

In stores, two for the price of one is seen as a good deal. Back in 1992, a lot of voters were put off by the thought of it on the presidential level. And there are still people who balk at the notion in 2007.

Iagnatius offers a thoughtful evaluation of the situation. There certainly would be benefits to having a former president around. After two terms in the White House, Bill Clinton would be uniquely positioned to offer advice to a new president to help avoid making mistakes, large and small, that can slow down or even halt momentum in a particular direction.

Ignatius does a good job of discussing the pros and cons of such a relationship, but he leaves out what I think may be the most important factor -- the role of the former president in the debate between the Republicans and Democrats in next fall's general election campaign.

I have long maintained that, if Hillary Clinton is nominated by the Democrats, the general election debate will be a rehash of her husband's presidency, the impeachment proceedings, Monica, etc., and the American public will be deprived of a real discussion of the issues that face us today -- as well as a genuine evaluation of which candidate is best qualified to deal with them in the next four years.

Just as we were deprived of a real discussion of foreign policy, the Iraq war, and other important issues in 2004 when most of the attention was riveted to the "swift boat" matter that ultimately contributed to John Kerry's defeat.

It's fine for Barack Obama to say that he will not hesitate to offer Bill Clinton a role in his administration. Obama is not married to Bill Clinton, and his presence in the White House would not be a given if Obama is elected.

But if Hillary is the nominee, the question "What about Bill?" becomes unavoidable. Just as Mormonism became the issue that Mitt Romney could no longer avoid, once Mike Huckabee started winning the support of Christian conservatives on the Republican side.

It is, as Ignatius puts it, "the elephant in the room."

Or, perhaps, to use a more appropriate political analogy, it is the "donkey" in the room.

Either way, it is something for Democrats to consider when they go to the polls to vote in the primaries.

Do you want the general election campaign to be about yesterday -- or tomorrow?