Taking a look at the Bill Clinton factor in the campaign

Given the personality involved, it's probably not a big surprise that Bill Clinton has become a dominant figure in the 2008 election. His wife, after all, is a candidate. But some of Clinton's actions have begged the question whether he's helping or hurting. Today, both the New York Times ("Stumping and Simmering") and the Washington Post ("Shadowed by Past Battles") have articles examining the Bill factor.

The guy certainly commands attention. He gets an enormous amount of press. He creates an excitement. But, today's articles take a look at some of Bill's recent series of angry outbursts. The most recent was over the caucuses in Nevada. It's posted below.

There's never a dull moment when Bill Clinton is involved. The punditry is working over time to figure out how Bill affects Hillary. Overall, I think it has to help. They make a fierce double team -- and he never misses a chance to fight back. You have to wonder if some of the negativity comes from a punditry that never really liked Bill Clinton anyway.

What do you think? Is Bill an asset or a liability to Hillary's campaign?

Excerpts from the articles after the break.

The Times keeps the focus on the famous -- or infamous -- Clinton temper:

Mr. Clinton’s temper has been an issue for him as long as he has been in public life. But it has played an unusual role during the current campaign, his face turning red in public nearly every week, often making headlines as he defends his wife and injects himself, whether or not intentionally, into her race in sometimes distracting ways.

Some Clinton advisers say the campaign is trying to rein him in somewhat, so that his outbursts become less of a factor to reporters, but his flashes of anger only seem to be growing. Last week, for instance, a clearly agitated Mr. Clinton told Dartmouth students that it was a “fairy tale” for Mr. Obama to contend that he had been consistently against the war in Iraq. And in December he said that voters supporting Mr. Obama were willing to “roll the dice” on the presidency.

“The bottom line is, his outbursts don’t help the campaign,” said James A. Thurber of American University, an analyst of the presidency and Congress. “They become an issue, and it can grow into a real problem. I think the campaign is worried about him right now.”

But some advisers say a former president at times prone to outrage can draw attention to issues as no one else can. They say Mr. Clinton’s “roll the dice” comment, made on the PBS television program “Charlie Rose,” helped focus public and media attention on Mr. Obama’s scarce experience relative to Mrs. Clinton’s, a factor that her campaign saw as contributing to her victory in the New Hampshire primary.

The Washington Post looks back ten years to analyze the Bill Clinton of today:

Few know more about the harsh scrutiny of Washington than Bill Clinton. He spent much of his presidency fending off investigations by special prosecutors, congressional committees and news organizations. His marital indiscretions were excavated by tabloids and depositions. And then, on Jan. 21, 1998, came news that Starr was investigating whether he obstructed justice to cover up an affair with Lewinsky, a former White House intern.

The next 13 months were absorbed by the battle to save his presidency as Clinton tried to mislead and maneuver his way out of trouble and House Republicans impeached him on a party-line vote. Clinton won acquittal in the Senate, but a federal judge later found him in contempt of court for not telling the truth under oath. He eventually admitted giving false testimony about his relationship with Lewinsky, surrendered his law license and paid about $1 million in fines and settlement costs.

Hillary Clinton's campaign has managed to avoid much discussion of these episodes over the past year, and her Democratic rivals have brought them up only obliquely, saying, as Obama has, that they do not want to return to the political battles of the 1990s. Advisers to the senator from New York are acutely aware of Monday's anniversary, coming at the height of the primary season, and hope it will pass with little notice. Some of them cringed last week when her husband recalled the scandal-ridden times at the same event where he made his "fairy tale" comment.