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Bill's shot at redemption

James Forsyth

Tuesday, 6th May 2008

One of the great sub-plots of the North Carolina primary is that it is Bill Clinton’s chance to atone for his performance in South Carolina. His red-faced appearances and, to be charitable, clumsy comparison of Obama’s win to Jesse Jackson’s compounded the impact of Obama’s massive victory there and did much to push Teddy Kennedy towards endorsing Obama. After South Carolina, the conventional wisdom shifting to seeing Bill as not an asset but a liability for the campaign. Here, though, he is an undoubted asset. Reprising the role he played in Texas, the 42nd president is hitting every small town he can for his wife.

The beauty of this for the Clinton campaign is that these towns aren’t used to such attention, at least 20 counties in Indiana and North Carolina have received their first ever presidential visit in the last few weeks thanks to Bill according to The Washington Post, so the Clinton campaign receives positive coverage both ahead of the visit and after. Bill’s pulling power is also impressive. I was at the Clinton campaign office when the field director received a call that there were a 1,000 people at an event in Roxboro an hour before Bill was due. When you consider that the population of the town is less than 9,000 you realise just how much of a boon Bill’s small town visits are to the Clinton campaign.

If the Clinton campaign does deny Obama the commanding victory here that would lock down the popular vote nationwide for him, then Bill will deserve much of the credit and if the Clinton camp pulls off a shock win—something that I would put at about 5 to 1—then Bill will have truly made up, in the eyes of his wife, for his performance in South Carolina.