Bill Clinton's negative impact on Hillary's campaign has been negligible. The media has time after time attempted to make something of it, but they have been, for the most part unsuccessful. that's because the electorate has a very short and profoundly forgiving memory of the past.
Let us examine President Clinton's legacy, which we can of course call his baggage for Hillary to drag along with her.
1. President Clinton was known during his time in office as "the first black President of the United States." He has always appealed strongly to the lower middle-class, the blue collar worker. Of course, now that Barack Obama is running, there is something with which to contrast that statement. President Clinton supported every equal rights and desegregation effort he was confronted with. He regularly appealed to the black churches. His support with the black community was unrivaled in his eight years in office. He ate with them, talked with them. He "felt their pain." When he retired from office, he set up his headquarters in the middle of Harlem.
Let's face it, Bill Clinton is more like the black community that Obama is! Clinton was chomping cheeseburgers and getting in trouble because of his pot smoking while Obama has been forcing down waffles just dying to get back to his organic egg white omelet. When Clinton appears in public we are always a little surprised that he doesn't have an egg McMuffin stain on his tie. Obama looks like a Ken Doll in a Versace suit. Bill Clinton's appeal to the middle class is inviolate, and we can see that Obama has a deep disrespect for anyone who is not of his liberal educated elite.
2. President Clinton has a temper. The media loves this one, and they have tried to capture President Clinton in a "Howard Dean" moment. The problem is that Americans see Bill Clinton's temper as passion. Now everyone knows that Bill Clinton is self-serving, egocentric and mendacious. But show me the politician who isn't. Instead, President Clinton became known as the Teflon President, because no matter what he did, America smiled and claimed it didn't matter all that much. Think about it. The man perjured himself under oath. The nation excused it as if it were just some personal indiscretion. The man was caught in one financial scandal after another, culminating in the illegal acceptance of finances from foreign nationals. But America excused it all.
Let's face it, Bill Clinton is likable. He played the sax on the Orsenio Hall Show. He smiles with charm, he gives a good speech, and when he does something wrong, he shrugs it off as if it were the boyhood indiscretion of holding a joint but not inhaling.
3. President Clinton presided over some good times. It was a time before 9/11 when terrorism was something we took care of long distance. We sent some cruise missiles and blew up training camps in Afghanistan. When the terrorists attempted to blow up the Twin Towers in 1993 America caught the criminal responsible, Ramzi Yousef, and convicted him in a trial. By 1997 the terrorist had been convicted and was giving up information on a daily basis. The economy was cooking along nicely. Inflation was pretty much something that we never even thought about. The internet bubble was expanding, and the real estate bubble was pregnant and delivering dividends like candy from a Pez dispenser.
Let's face it, Bill Clinton presided over what Americans, with their blinkered view of history, think of as the good ol' days. President Clinton's actions may have been responsible for allowing Bin Laden to escape and perpetrate the mass murder of Americans, but we don't remember that. His sex-capades may have irreparably damaged our international stature and our self-perception as a moral nation. His policies may have been directly responsible for the collapse of the internet bubble and his actions in office were at least irresponsible. But America does not remember these things for the most part.
Instead, President Clinton on the campaign trail nearly always draws larger crowds that either Barack Obama or Hillary. The prospect of Bill Clinton as the "first gentleman" of the White House is at least humorous. But, the President is still a big player in this campaign, and it is in Hillary's best interest to remind the public that she stood next to the President while he was answering the Big Red Phone in the middle of the night.