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Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review December 10, 2007 / 1 Teves 5768

Bill hurts, not helps, Hillary's campaign

By Dick Morris & Eileen Mc Gann


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Bill Clinton's poll ratings are very high so Hillary figures he can be of great help to her on the campaign trail. So far, so good — but then they extrapolate that view and conclude that he would be a good person to make her negative attacks on opponents, to answer charges against her and to take the media to task for their coverage. And that's where they are wrong.


Bill's high ratings are largely due to his nonpolitical activities in recent years. His book Giving, although largely a payoff to those who have given to him or to his wife's campaign, portrays him as a philanthropist par excellence. Combined with the kudos for his role in helping tsunami and Katrina victims, and his annual September conference to organize and help to third world countries, he is acquiring the statesmanlike reputation that eluded him when he was a working politician.


But when he gets down and dirty, defending his own record, rebutting attacks on Hillary or excoriating the media or his wife's opponents, he acts very political and brings down the very ratings that made his intervention seem useful in the first place.


He and I spoke right before the 1994 Congressional elections about where he could campaign to help to re-elect Democrats. He had just returned from the signing of the peace accord between Jordan and Israel and his approval ratings, for once, were pretty high. "You should go back to the Middle East," I told him.


"But you don't understand, my ratings are high now because of the trip to the Middle East and I can do candidates a lot of good," he answered.


"No, you'll lower your ratings because you won't appear presidential as you campaign and you'll end up doing the candidates for whom you campaign more harm than good," I replied.


Bill couldn't help himself. He ran out and campaigned all over the U.S. for the congressmen and senators who had backed his economic package and anti-crime bill, and most of them ended up losing in the GOP sweep of 1994. In the meantime, he lowered his rating by 10 points by campaigning and seeming political.


When Bill takes the stump for Hillary and speaks in bland generalities, he does her some good and no harm. But when he emerges as a cut and burn politician, flipping and flopping over his past position on Iraq and attacking media coverage of Hillary, he lowers his ratings and ends his usefulness to Hillary's campaign.


The best thing for Bill to do is to stay home. Or better yet, leave the country on some charitable or philanthropic mission while his wife runs for president. His job is to keep his own ratings high. Her job is to exploit those ratings for her own advantage, no matter how little she deserves them.


Hillary's entire campaign, like her whole legal and political career, is entirely derivative of Bill's. By using her lynchpin as a bludgeon to hammer her opponents, he destroys his effectiveness and hurts her own campaign.


That is not to say that left to her own devices, Hillary will do herself any good. She seems incapable of waging an effective negative campaign. She hits Obama with stupid charges like her campaign's comment about his kindergarten remarks or throws pitty-pat punches that do no real damage like her attack on his health care proposal. Absent real dirt, Hillary is facing an almost impossible task in trying to besmirch Mr. Clean, and as she tries, she undermines both the perception that she is a winner and the idea that she is an effective fighter.

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JWR contributor Dick Morris is author, most recently, of "Outrage: How Illegal Immigration, the United Nations, Congressional Ripoffs, Student Loan Overcharges, Tobacco Companies, Trade Protection, and Drug Companies Are Ripping Us Off . . . And". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) Comment by clicking here.



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