LITTWIN: Bill Clinton elicits what we liked, would like to forget

By Mike Littwin, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published September 18, 2007 at midnight

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When Bill Clinton talked in Denver on Monday, he barely mentioned Hillary Clinton during a 45-minute speech in which he mentioned almost everything else.

He didn't have to mention Hillary.

We all know the deal. Hillary's running for president — and every time Bill talks, he reminds everyone what it means to have a Clinton, any Clinton, as president.

I still have trouble believing that Hillary Clinton, the wife of a former president, is the front-runner to succeed George Bush, the son of a former president. It sounds all too banana republic-ish. It also suggests a woeful lack of imagination.

But if it happens, you can blame George Bush. And for of those of you who complain that I blame Bush for too much, this time, you know I'm right. Read a poll, any poll: Much of America wants to simply erase the last seven years.

Clinton was here for an Aurora Economic Development Council luncheon — held, strangely enough, in Denver. But he wasn't worried about the venue. The check was good, and he talked about all the big global issues — and then sat down for questions.

If you were there, you know he could have talked for hours — if only someone had thought to bring in pizza, and if he wasn't already running late for the next event, a fundraiser for Hillary.

It felt just like the old days. I'll give you one Clintonesque line that will bring it all back to you. Clinton was talking about the interconnected global economy when he said, "I'll never forget when I met my first Ethiopian businessman in Denver ... "

Yes, we were back on the way to that well-trodden bridge to the 21st century — instead of getting stuck waist deep in the Big Muddy, which, the last I checked, is exactly where we are today.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Iowa, Hillary Clinton was rolling out her brand-spanking-new health care plan — which Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani raced to be the first to try to successfully tie to the old, rejected Hillary Clinton health care plan.

I'm not sure which of them called it Hillarycare 2.0 first — but I think the name could stick.

The old days?

Let's just say I'm waiting for someone to contact Harry and Louise's agent. (If you don't remember Harry and Louise, just Google them under "Hillary," "health care" and "fiasco.")

What year are we in? I could have sworn that O.J. Simpson was just arrested.

I know this much: Hillary is running as Bill 2.0, and Barack Obama and John Edwards are both stuck gingerly trying to suggest that maybe the best way to the future does not run through the past.

You can understand why they have to be careful. It isn't just Democrats who suddenly have caught a heavy dose of Clinton nostalgia. Not surprisingly, a recent Gallup poll showed Bill Clinton's positives among Democrats at 88 percent. But, as you may have heard, Alan Greenspan — the high priest of conservative economics — just wrote a book ripping George Bush and, stunningly, writing a love note to Bill Clinton, calling him "a fellow information hound ... We both read books and were curious and thoughtful about the world."

This is what comes, I guess, of nearly two terms of incurious George Bush.

It's as John Edwards was quoted the other day in Politico: "The trouble with nostalgia is that you tend to remember what you liked and forget what you didn't." Like, I guess, triangulation. And Dick Morris. And NAFTA. And the Lincoln bedroom. Or maybe the impeachment hearings. And, well, you know what you remember if you think hard. Or you can just turn on Rush Limbaugh.

I remember writing, in the late Clinton years, a magazine article about the impeachment trial — and how it was the last battleground of the '60s culture wars. I thought it was an extremely insightful piece — even though it turned out to be completely wrong.

In the Bush era, the time of the red-blue divide, the country is stuck in the same battle. Iraq stands in for Vietnam, and we argue about what the word "values" means.

Obama's campaign is based, in large part, on the premise that 15 years is long enough for this fight — a fight Obama once described as a "psychodrama of the baby boom generation, a tale rooted in old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago."

And yet, on the Democratic side, the fight remains about who is Bill Clinton's rightful heir. Hillary Clinton fought the battles alongside him. Many observers would say she threw the better punch. But listening to Bill Clinton, he didn't mention those fights, he didn't even mention Hillary's new health care plan. He sounded like the Clinton many people always hoped for. He sounded like the change agent he always said he was.

The speech was about how fighting global warming would create jobs. And how persistent global economic inequality is an issue that must be addressed. And about how global economics are tied to what he called global insecurity.

It sounded like a campaign speech, except with almost no applause lines. In this campaign, Bill Clinton is the only candidate who doesn't need them.

littwinm@RockyMountainNews.com

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