Spin Cycle

Hillary Clinton's staffers have organized an unusual 40-member "whip team" to quell embarrassing displays by her supporters on the convention floor at next week's Democratic convention in Denver, blasts brother Thrush at Politico.

They're planning to hand out placards to wave in front of any troublesome delegates.

Darragh Murphy, founder of the anti-Obama group PUMA (Party Unity My A--), which is planning a candle-lit "Beautiful Protest and Rise" at Denver's Cheesman Park Monday, says she has heard from a lot of Hillary's delegates and doubts anyone can prevent them from making a ruckus. "I think they'll try to do what she wants, but the delegates at this point have a mind of their own," she said.

Liz Moore

Sen. John McCain told a campaign crowd that he had spoken with Georgia President Mikheil Saakashvili and told him that "the thoughts, prayers and support of the American people are with that great little nation as it struggles today." Report is here.

Obama, in Hawaii, told reporters that -- like McCain-- he wants to see a multinational approach to dealing with the crisis but according to the AP "added that U.N. Security Council should play a major role in helping end the crisis."

McCain declared that Russia's aggression shows a will to restore the old Russian empire (not the Soviet one). With the predictability of a hometown crowd at a ballpark, the emotional domestic noise will be -- depending on your partisan team -- either that McCain never met a potential military involvement he didn't like (per the Obamites) or Obama is removed and ineffectual (per the McCainites). And here, we are told Obama has moved into a more critical position against Russia's invasion.

Be your own judge. McCain's latest speech from Pennsylvania is below:

Back in 1992, when Hillary Cllinton and Tipper Gore were up on that stage dancing mildly with spouses Bill and Al at the Democratic convention in New York, the sound system pumped out Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop," the theme of that first campaign.

Now, the question for second-term Sen. Hillary Clinton is which of a number of possible tomorrows she won't stop thinking about. The Democratic convention opens in 13 days, and the public position is that she still may or may not have her name entered into nomination at the parley. If she does, as one analysis notes: "It would be the first time in the modern era of presidential primaries that a losing candidate has so visibly endorsed an opponent so many months before the convention, and then gone on to have his or her name placed in nomination."

Supporters today are still pushing her to push the envelope.

For today, the questions that for many reasons remain unanswered include: Does she think there's a tomorrow for her in 2012 if Obama loses to John McCain? And if Obama wins, does she even choose to stay in the Senate? These questions could figure in her thoughts of the more immediate tomorrow, but right now, the speculation buzzes on about whether this year's retro song by the same band should be, "Allow Me One More Show."

John Edwards could have put it this way: "I did not have kids with that woman!"

Had he done this bit of Bill Clinton revision, Edwards would have given Friday's show of admission and refutation a bit of historical heft.

Instead, we have your standard-issue sex scandal besieging another politician. This leads some of us to wonder when the National Enquirer will fall from its lofty pedestal as the political newspaper of record.

Until that moment, spinmeisters could at least lighten up the dialogue for their clients.

Imagine if a damage-control consultant had Sen. Larry Craig go out there after his cringe-inducing arrest, wag his finger Bubba-style, and say with accuracy: "I did not try to have sex with any women."

Jim McGreevey could have done the same.

Eliot Spitzer, for whom it was a business doing pleasure, might have crafted his own non-denial denial with something like: "I refrained from ordering the disclosure of any sensitive security data ....

Dan Janison

Former President Bill Clinton, on his foundation's trip to Liberia, tells ABC News that Sen. Hillary Clinton "has always been a great public servant but she became a great political leader in this campaign..."

He denies he's angry, and with a bit of the trademark finger-wag style, says he was never angry at Sen. Obama, and "I'd be the last person to ever begrudge anybody their ambition...It's a contact sport..." He angrily protested any suggestion that racism had a role in his controversial South Carolina remarks during the primrary fight.

When he was asked about complaints from "supporters" that he brought her down, he challenged the premise, and said: "Go get yourself a map, look where I went and look what the vote was, in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky...not just rural places, cities..."

“I got bad press. Why? Because I told the truth, that there was a different standard applied to the finest candidate I ever supported...”

(Flashback: We won't have Dick Nixon to kick around any more...)

Regrets? "Yes," says the former first lady's spouse, "but not the ones you say. It would be counterproductive for me to talk about it." He indicated he'd elaborate in January.

Full video clip is here.

Earlier in the presidential race, the Hillary Clinton candidacy seemed to echo the 1968 campaign of Republican Richard Nixon. Like her, Nixon left a secondary role in the White House nearly eight years earlier and had high negatives. Yet he acquired an aura of inevitability and won.

By last week, the chatter about a Democratic ticket headed by Barack Obama, with rival Clinton for vice-president, evoked 1960 — when a forced partnership emerged from the party convention between the younger, more charismatic Massachussetts Senator John Kennedy and the Texan Senator Lyndon Johnson. Their mutual suspicion became legend.

Suddenly Friday, word broke that New York’s junior senator cited the murder 40 years ago of a previous New York junior senator, as she clumsily explained to the Sioux Falls Argus Leader why she was refusing to withdraw. “We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California,” she said. She issued an explanation, of course, but by then, our historic attention was redirected to 1968.

All of which shows that looking backward has its limits.

Dan Janison

Why wait to speculate? One of the more cutting-edge observers of the local scene, whose modesty forbids being quoted by name, finds it entirely plausible -- if unsupported by any evidence -- that Hillary Clinton, after losing the presidential race, would quit the U.S. Senate and run next year for New York City mayor.

There is always an extra burden for any City Council speaker to run for mayor. The last two tried and did miserably. So if Manhattan's Christine Quinn also fades from the contest for the Democratic nomination, Hillary could ride in as the only well-known woman candidate -- an advantage. And she could run unopposed, our sage says, as she did in 2000 when she arrived in the state to seek the Senate seat.

Mike "the Maintainer" Bloomberg leaves due to term limits at the end of 2009. But he has fixed up -- and maintained -- Gracie Mansion very nicely without ever having moved into it. So the Clintons could choose to keep or turn over the place up in Chappaqua, depending how the real estate market is doing.

One side-effect: Gov. David Paterson, if striving for a term of his own in 2010, could keep Attorney General Andrew Cuomo from breathing down his neck by appointing him to the Senate seat vacated by Clinton.

Hillary Clinton, speaking at the Indiana J-J dinner, may have taken this white, working-class populism thing to a Cross-of-Gold rhetorical extreme (the authentic WJ Bryan is above). Speaking of the mortgage crisis, Clinton asked the crowd: "Why don't we hold these Wall St money grubbers responsible for their role in this recession?"

It should be noted that many (presumably non-grubbing) Wall Streeters are her biggest fund raisers and she's a big investor in a pair of hedge funds.

Also no word on whether she'll be reassessing her position on evolution or the League of Nations.

Glenn Thrush in Indianapolis

Will the 1960’s — or the American reaction to it — ever end?

There are those who say the final year of World War II was not 1945 but 1991, when the Soviet Union was dissolved. The Cold War was the next phase of the conflict in Europe, goes the thinking.

So by the same reasoning we’ve still got a few years left before the tumult of the late 1960’s will have run its full half-century course.

The GOP candidate for president was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. The friction over race and rights plays itself out within the Democratic Party — with special scenes scripted in Chicago.

To make it more explicit, the former Weatherman, Bill Ayers, becomes a target for political association with Barack Obama — by a candidate whose presidential husband pardoned a couple of psycho-60’s nostalgists.

Flag pins or anti-war marches — take your pick. Big differences: Now you can buy the pins on e-bay, watch the demos on YouTube. Bigger difference: There’s no draft, at least not yet.

All three U.S. Senators running for president have begun sticking faster than glue to an unwritten rule of the campaign trail: Gall is a virtue, and the biggest shame is being ashamed.

This cynical dictum might clash with the message of Pope Benedict XVI, who arrives today in New York. But nowhere was its force felt more than in the Democrats’ last debate before Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary.

Here stood Barack Obama, who repeatedly touts his opposition to President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, hailing the last President Bush on the 1991 Persian Gulf invasion.

When the candidates were asked how they would make use of former presidents in the White House, Obama just happened to sing the praises of the man Bill Clinton unseated. “I’m probably more likely to ask advice of the current president’s father than the president himself,” replied the change agent, “because I think that when you look back at George H.W. Bush’s foreign policy, it was a wise foreign policy.

“And how we executed the Gulf War, how we managed the transition out of the Cold War, I think, is an example of how we get bipartisan agreement.”

Oh? That might or might not sound surprising coming from a man his foes wish to paint as radical — even after he gave that hat tip to Ronald Reagan a few months back.

But you should avoid betting against Hillary Rodham Clinton in an audacity contest. She showed gumption-wrapped-in-apology during the do-or-die debate when called to account for her false story....

Dan Janison

Oh where have those days gone when the New York candidates Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani -- icons of the 1990's awash in campaign cash -- looked forward to the "Super Duper Tuesday" of February, riding the logic that fundraising power equals electability?

The general public has ceased to hear from Giuliani, of course. He's been left with millions of dollars in campaign debt and insiders doubt he can raise the funds -- especially while living la vida de luxe -- unless he kicks in a significant amount of his own personal stash.

And on the other side of the would-have-been eight-years-later "rematch," here's the latest pitch from the junior New York Senator:

"I've felt such a deep connection to the people I've met in Pennsylvania, and I'm proud of the campaign we're running here. But we are still being outspent 3-to-1, and I need your help to close that gap if we want to win. "

"In the next seven days, thousands of people will be making their final decision in the Democratic primary, and we must make sure they hear our message. We can't let our voices be drowned out by the Obama campaign's limitless spending."

Alas, for that "limitless spending". How much did the former first couple recently declare they raked in since leaving the White House?

Dan Janison

Bill Clinton has no problem with a key supporter bad-mouthing the Iowa caucus three days before the polling, although he doesn't agree with him.

We caught up with the former president on the rope line at a 4-H club in Greenfield today to ask him about the Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland's comment that the caucus is unfair and ought to be eliminated.

Clinton laughed. "Look, every other state would like to be first -- he was just being a good governor for Ohio," he said. "It didn't have anything to do with the campaign and obviously we don't feel that way about it."

Glenn Thrush in Atlantic, Iowa

Stuart Taylor of the National Journal, an old tormentor who once argued for Paula Jones' right to a trial, thinks it's amusing that Hillary is using a Kindergarten essay to question Obama's candor. He takes the opportunity to remind us here of some of her own past highlights.

Such as, telling ABC in 1992 how Bill's contacts with Gennifer Flowers (now a Hillary supporter)were "just an example of how he loved to 'help people who are in trouble' and 'listen to their problems.' " And the claim, through aides, that she managed to make $100,000 in nine months on commodities trades by "reading the Wall Street Journal."

It gets a little deep into the weeds of scandals past, but it's also a useful primer on why some voters, without even remembering why, may have a little residual mistrust of the gleaming and regal image her campaign now pitches.

In an appearance in Iowa yesterday, Bill Clinton did what he's done a lot of for the past few months -- tell a crowd that Hillary is a really great person and would make a really great president.

From the LA Times:

"He mentioned a college friend who called and offered to campaign door-to-door for Hillary Clinton. The former president said he asked why the friend would be willing to do that. 'He said, 'Because I'm sick and tired of reading about what a polarizing figure she is. I have known her almost as long as you have and I have never known anybody who actually knew her who didn't like her, admire her, respect her and follow her wherever,' " Clinton said."

Although it would be better if Bill had actually behaved this way towards her during certain segments of his life, this is still nice. And we know that Bill is much beloved by many loyal Democrats. But aren't husbands supposed to say nice things about their wives? Isn't it pretty much discounted by voters, like your mother?

If Hillary has a likeability problem, or people don't trust her, it's just hard to believe that people will stop feeling how they do because Bill tells them she's really great. Not to mention the fact that he's said some variation of the same thing in about 100 different speeches at this point, so that even if it could have some effect it's pretty diluted.

UPDATE: A commenter points out that, overall at least, Bill is an undeniable asset. Today's NYT poll says that 44 percent of Democrats say his involvement makes them more likely to support Hillary, compared to 1 percent who feel the same about Oprah and Obama.

Bill Clinton, who could release many of his White House records if he chooses TODAY, was in New Hampshire opining that the press a) is not nice enough to his wife b) should pressure others (Barack) to release their own records instead of HRC c) Not tough enough on anyone in the race not named Clinton.

"One percent of the press coverage was devoted to their record in public life. No wonder people think experience is irrelevant. A lot of the people covering the race think it is (irrelevant),'' Clinton said to students at Keene State College.

-- Glenn Thrush in Des Moines

Our fellow Newsday blogsters at the Huntington local have the story on Bill Clinton's putblic visit to a Huntington bookstore, following the fundraiser hosted by Nassau Exec. Tom Suozzi and others. The posting from reporter Laura Rivera is here.

Add the 1994 Crime Bill to the list of Bill Clinton laws or initiatives (NAFTA, "Don't Ask Don't Tell," etc.) that his wife is now running away from. At Saturday's Iowa minority affairs forum, Hillary Clinton took her shot at the law-and-order measure, but she blamed the House and Senate for its most controversial elements, including stiffer drug sentences, 60 new death-penalty offenses and its millions for prison construction.

The bill, she said, created "an unacceptable increase in incarcerations across the board and we have to address that... There were reasons why the Congress wanted to push through certain penalities and increased prison construction... [but] we've got to take stock of the consequences."

Glenn Thrush

Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi, who has made trips to Iowa for Hiillary Clinton, is also hosting a $2,300 per head bash for the former First Lady on Sunday that will headline her husband Bill Clinton, the former president.

The event will be held in the Mill Neck home of CKx Inc. senior vice president Howard Tytel -- whose company owns rights to Elvis, Graceland, and American Idol. It will be co-hosted by Nassau Democratic chairman Jay Jacobs and developer Roger Tilles. The soiree is expected to bring in $500,000. Others can sign up as hosts as long as they bring in at least $25,000 from other donors. After the soiree, Clinton heads off to a book signing in Huntington.

Rick Brand

Apparently, the Clintons think voters don't yet understand that Hillary is a woman, and all of the other candidates are men -- or, as Bill puts it, boys. They've got to keep reminding people.

But -- she's tough! She can take it!

Bill Clinton has helpfully reminded the world in a TV interview described here that, when he had a similar level of experience to what Barack Obama has now, he was prudent enough to decide in 1988 that he was not quite seasoned enough to be president.

Clinton: “I was, in terms of experience, was closer to Senator Obama, I suppose, in 1988 when I came within a day of announcing....I really didn’t think I knew enough, and had served enough and done enough to run.”

That, along with concerns about whether Chelsea was old enough, has long been Clinton's version of why he didn't run in 1988. The other version, recorded in some respected biographies, is that in the wake of Gary Hart's withdrawal after reports of an affair, Clinton's own rumored womanizing was too much of a liability.

That version, however, doesn't have the benefit of allowing the ex-president to put down Obama while ignoring unhelpful issues about himself. In fact, it suggests that....

Bill Clinton has weighed in to help out his wife on a couple of questions that came up last night -- disclosure of contributors to his library (he will, in the future, if she's elected, but apparently not those who have already given) and her failure on health care.

It was a big accomplishment just to get a bill to committee, he says -- better than Harry Truman! The Politicker was there.

Bill Clinton, through lawyer Douglas Band, is threatening a Manhattan eatery if it doesn't remove a five-year-old picture of Chelsea from its gallery of celebrity diners.

This would appear to be the same Douglas Band who is the subject of a WSJ story today for using his Clintonian connections to get in the middle of a messy financial scandal involving a guy named Raffaelo Folliero.

No apparent connection between the two stories.

In 1991, a then-unknown candidate named Harris Wofford won a special Senate election in Pennsylvania over Dick Thornburgh by putting a call for a national health plan for the middle class at the center of his campaign. He was advised by two then unknown strategists, James Carville and Paul Begala. (See story after jump.)

Carville and Begala were quickly hired by aspiring presidential candidate Bill Clinton, who -- like other Democrats -- made a call for a health plan a staple of his campaign. He won, put his wife Hillary -- who had no particular background in health policy -- in charge of a White House task force to put together a health plan. It turned into a big mess, and failed.

But today, Hillary has airbrushed both Wofford and her own failure out of history. Fresh from unveiling her big new health plan, she has unveiled a big new ad that begins, "She changed our thinking when she introduced universal health care to America." You bet she did -- she made it a political third rail for 15 years.

Here's the ad:

As Hillary finally unveils her health care plan in Iowa today (here's a good AP overview) and experts begin comparing it with the plans previously outlined by Obama and Edwards, it's worth noting how much flexibility she suddenly has to deal with her role in the failed Clinton administration health plan of 1993-94.

On the one hand, she wears the scars of that fiasco like a badge of honor, proving she's tough and experienced enough to fight the insurance industry, as in this account of comments in Iowa yesterday: "I know how hard it is. I’ve been up against these people. I understand that the special interests don’t want change. They’re willing to just keep dragging us further and further into the ditch. We’re going to take them on this time, and whem I’m president, we’re going to get it done – we’re going to have universal healthcare."

And on the other hand, here's a new article in the American Prospect from a former advisor on the 1990s effort, claiming that despite years of criticism, the problems with the first plan were Bill's fault, not Hillary's, and she really wasn't responsible for the tactical mistakes either. It's called, "The Hillarycare Mythology."

Add them together, and you've got a perfect antidote to critics: She had nothing to do with the failed plan, but watching herself get unfairly blamed gave her the experience to succeed this time!

John Riley

Bill Clinton, speaking to ABC in Africa, defended Hillary against the predations of Elizabeth Edwards who suggested hubby John would be better for women than the woman who's running for president. The former president also responded to a convoluted section of Edwards' interview with Salon in which she said that female lawyers -- like HRC and herself -- sometimes had to act like men to do their jobs.

Hubby Bubba: "I defy you to find anybody who has run for office in recent history who's got a longer history of working for women, for families and children, than Hillary does... I don't think it's inconsistent with being a woman that you can also be knowledgeable on military and security affairs, and be strong when the occasion demands it. I don't consider that being manly -- I consider that being a leader."

Glenn Thrush

Former President Bill Clinton showed up for the National Action Network conclave in Manhattan run by Rev. Al Sharpton -- where Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Joseph Biden spoke against the politics of "polarization."

Here's an interesting item: Bill Clinton getting testy about the New York Times picking on poor Hillary over her vote to authorize the war in Iraq and making too much of a fuss about her refusal to apologize.

This seems particularly odd, one day after the NYT gave Hillary a platform to explain how and why she wanted to keep some unspecified number of troops in Iraq indefinitely to serve various functions, and politely described her views as a "more nuanced" version of previous calls for "bringing the troops home" and for the president to "extricate our country" from Iraq by 2009. As in, forward is just a "more nuanced" version of backward?

Anyhow, in addition to playing press critic, Bill apparently also had some thoughts about Barack Obama, and Obama is pushing back, according to the Times blog.

John Riley

Michael Fauntroy, a politics professor who makes a weekly appearance on Chicago’s African-American talk station WVON-AM, has noticed a curious pattern of caller comments recently. Folks are taking issue, he says, with the whole Bill-Clinton-as-First-Black-President story line and questioning just how good Clinton really was for the community, especially his still-controversial 1996 welfare reform act.

"It’s intensified over the last two weeks, I’d say a total of a half-dozen people called in skeptical of Bill Clinton’s record," said Fauntroy, who thinks (without any evidence) Obama fans are behind the surge in calls.

Glenn Thrush

Here's an earnest question. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani appears to be alienated from his kids. Given all the history -- which included their father's divorce lawyer disparaging their mother in public -- this isn't surprising. But will it and should it matter politically? And, how does that reconcile with your view of the Clintons?

Dan Janison

Glenn Thrush corresponds from La La land on Obama's karma among Hollywood bigs...

So Bill Clinton campaigned for Joe Lieberman in Connecticut last night. He called Iraq the "pink elephant" in the room.

The money quote, on Iraq: “The real issue is, whether you were for it or against it, what are we going to do now. ... No Democrat is responsible for the mistakes that have been made since the fall of Saddam Hussein that have brought us to this point.”

That’s Lieberman’s argument and, not incidentally, Hillary’s too. But, logically, is it really a response to the anti-war crowd that is a concern for both of them? After all, we're talking about Democrats who thought Iraq was a huge mistake from the get-go, and thought their "leaders" were opportunistic political cowards for not opposing it.

So if a “leader” was for the war, as Joe and Hillary were, mightn’t that call into question their judgement about what we’re going to do now? And if a “leader” voted to give President Bush a free hand, as Joe and Hillary did, just exactly why are they not responsible for the consequences?

John Riley

Next door, a new Quinnipiac poll shows Connecticut's Sen. Joe Lieberman trailing Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary challenge, 51-47. Lieberman led 55-40 in a poll last month, so that feels like some seriously bad momentum. But Lieberman's campaign announced that none other than Bill Clinton will be coming in to stump for him. Presumably, he'd tell anti-war Democrats who think Iraq is a huge mess that just because a senator voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq, it doesn't mean that he -- or she, as the case may be -- doesn't have the good judgment and sagacity to serve in the Senate. Or even lead the free world, as the case may be.

John Riley

Hillary Clinton caused a global sensation early this year by suggesting that the GOP ran the House like a "plantation." Never mind that she’d previously said similar things, or that African-American legislators responded with a collective "Yeah, tell us something we didn’t know."
So, why no backlash over Bill Clinton’s more overtly racial statements in Arizona this week?
Speaking at a $500,000 fundraiser for millionaire Senate hopeful Jim Pederson on Thursday, the ex-POTUS declared that the Republican Party is dominated by "right-wing, white Southerners," according to the Business Journal of Phoenix.
(Calls to two indisputably white, undeniably right-wing senators weren’t returned.)
Clinton also claimed that the GOP is being run for profit by "crony capitalists," though it should be noted that few of Bill’s current cronies (take supermarket mogul and Page Six favorite Ron Burkle) are what you’d call Communists.