Now that some dust has settled after the momentous primary, it got me thinking. What now? What does Bill Clinton do now?
He's not going back to the White House, that much is clear. Fair or not, some who revered him in June 2007 now despise him given he many verbal darts thrown at Obama on behalf of his wife. He watched his flagship policy from his administration, NAFTA, become campaign fodder in Ohio and PA. He through a hissy fit with Vanity Fair's, Todd Purdum, calling him a "scumbag". He's had some questionable names on the much ballyhooed "donor list".
A man, who when he left office, left a gigantic budget surplus and was beloved by the American people. The man who came along and made politics accesible to young people by playing sax on Arsenio. The man who is widely considered and arguably the best, pure politician of the last 30 years. What have we learned about who Bill is and what will become of his legacy? The answers may be many, but one answer for each popped into my head.
We learned that Bill Clinton REALLY, REALLY, REALLY wants to be president again. No matter what he does with the rest of life, he will always want to remove the former from his current title, Former President Bill Clinton.
His legacy, for me will always be tied to that fact and one other. A man so consumed with being president again himself, one who is regarded as one of the best campaigners and surrogates in the game, DID NOT, WOULD NOT, or COULD NOT get his sitting VP (Gore 2000) elected against a failed baseball owner, governor, and oil-man OR his wife (Hillary 2008) elected against Barack Obama. A candidate, who was as green as Cali Bud when it came to Washington presidential politics, who wasnt even on the radar to most Americans before he won Iowa that cold January.