Watching Clinton in action, one almost feels he can’t help but get involved in Obama’s reelection effort. Clinton has been in politics almost his entire adult life, and he’s learned a few things along the way. Politico calls him “Obama’s campaign whisperer,” imparting advice on how best to go after Romney.
That advice, the news site reports, was to stop arguing that Romney has no “core” beliefs, and instead say that he has found his core – and it’s “severely conservative,” to quote Romney’s own self-definition at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February. Clinton argued that Romney should be portrayed as having embraced tea-party conservatism, which could alienate Hispanics, women, and moderate independents.
By April, Team Obama was employing that line of attack. At the April 29 fundraiser, Clinton himself talked about how Romney is embracing “the policies that got us into trouble in the first place.”
“I mean, this is crazy,” Clinton said. “He’s got an opponent who basically wants to do what they did before, on steroids, which will get you the same consequences you got before, on steroids.”
The only danger for Obama, in joint appearances, is that Clinton takes over and leaves Obama standing in his shadow as a kind of junior partner. Still, if you’re Obama, you want that Clinton candlepower working on your behalf.
