Obama vs the Clintons

Lots of discussion about the race between Obama, Hillary, and now Bill. A sample of four different news stories:

TIME:

Not making a real effort [in South Carolina] allows her to discount an Obama win as uncontested, and hence less meaningful. But by leaving the state to her husband, who won two presidential contests here, she makes it impossible for Obama to relax or focus his energies elsewhere. This week in South Carolina Obama is essentially running against the former President, and he knows it.... Obama spent the day on the defensive, growing visibly frustrated at times with the Clintons.... Still, Hillary Clinton's triumph in Nevada, where Bill Clinton was particularly vocal, seemed to show that, in the final equation, her husband does more good than harm.

AFP:

A poisonous new exchange erupted on the Democratic campaign trail Wednesday as former president Bill Clinton accused his wife's chief rival Barack Obama of a political "hit job."

After the jump, Ben Smith wonders if Bill is a liability, but Chris Cillizza says Bill has been a net plus for Hillary.

Ben Smith:

On one hand, Bill Clinton is a beloved figure among many Democrats and more popular than his wife.

But on the other, the former president is the face of the past, and his high profile may diminish his wife's....

In fact, Obama and Clinton are both in uncharted waters, particularly when it comes to how the dynamic will affect the female voters on whom Clinton depends. Will they be jarred away from Hillary by Bill's emergence as an equal partner?

Or will they be offended by Obama's statement of that fact?

Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post:

Days before the South Carolina Democratic primary and less than two weeks before the potentially decisive Feb. 5 Super Tuesday contests, former President Bill Clinton and his aggressive, hard-edged advocacy of his wife has emerged as THE issue in the race for his party's presidential nomination....

What's clear from this poll -- and many, many other data points just like it -- is that whatever elected officials may think of Bill Clinton, he remains perhaps the single most popular political figure in the Democratic party. Democratic voters like him and remember the eight years he spent in the White House for the relative peace abroad and a prosperous economy at home rather than the series of scandals culminating in the Monica Lewinsky affair.

That depth of good feeling toward Bill Clinton makes him -- in the words of one longtime party strategist -- the "ultimate surrogate." The strategist, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, added that having Bill Clinton on the trail was "like having another candidate out there" due to his ability to draw crowds and TV cameras.

Those cameras, and Bill Clinton's penchant to commit news in front of them, has -- without question -- rubbed many within the party leadership the wrong way. But, in The Fix's conversations with a number of unaligned party strategists, the general consensus was that while Bill Clinton might be breaking a few eggs he was not in danger of fouling the omelet -- so to speak.