Philadephdia: “In the spring of 1971, I met a girl...”
So began Bill Clinton’s invitation to pull up a chair by the fire and listen to a love story on Tuesday night as he recalled his life with Hillary – and the fact that he had to ask her three times before she agreed to marry him. US President Barack Obama, he noted, also had to keep asking before she agreed to become his secretary of state.
Now, Clinton argued, it is time for America to finally give in and fall in love with Hillary.
With a spring in his step as he walked to the podium, the 42nd president delivered a warm and, on occasion, awkwardly intimate speech to the Democratic national convention that praised Hillary as a “change-maker” and reminded the party why he ultimately represents more of an asset to his wife than a liability.
To admirers, Bill Clinton – who turns 70 next month – is draped in the mantle of the peaceful and prosperous 1990s, a prelapsarian world without 9/11. To detractors, he carries the stench of political calculation and sex scandals. And on the campaign trail these days he is an ageing champion, older, greyer and leaner, a diminished and somewhat undisciplined force prone to the odd gaffe.
But in this, his 10th address to a Democratic convention delivered to thousands of delegates waving red, white and blue “America” signs, he had surer footing. The policy master, who four years ago was dubbed economic “explainer in chief”, found himself in the very traditional role of a would-be first spouse humanising a would-be president for the nation. For once, it wasn’t about him, and he managed to stay on script.
There was barely murmur in the packed arena as Clinton wove together personal anecdoes with a long CV of his wife’s achievements, like a novelist mixing up romance and action to grab the reader’s attention so he can smuggle in some highbrow themes. Critics, however, might baulk not so much at the message as the messenger, whose personal history meant this was never going to be a pure and innocent love story.
“The first time I saw her we were, appropriately enough, in a class on political and civil rights,” he recalled. “She had thick blond hair, big glasses, wore no make-up, and she had a sense of strength and self-possession that I found magnetic. After the class I followed her out, intending to introduce myself. I got close enough to touch her back, but I couldn’t do it. Somehow I knew this would not be just another tap on the shoulder, that I might be starting something I couldn’t stop.”
His first marriage proposal, in Britain’s Lake District, was rejected. “So the second time I tried a different tack. I said I really want you to marry me, but you shouldn’t do it.” Finally, Clinton took the gamble of buying a house in Arkansas that she liked. “The third time was the charm.”
He recalled: “We were married in that little house on October 11, 1975. I married my best friend. I was still in awe after more than four years of being around her at how smart and strong and loving and caring she was. And I really hoped that her choosing me and rejecting my advice to pursue her own career was a decision she would never regret.”
Clinton became attorney general and Hillary started a group called the Arkansas Advocates for Families and Children. In 1979, he became governor and asked her to chair a rural health committee. On February 27, 1980, he said, “Hillary’s water broke and off we went to the hospital” – surely the first time such an anatomical detail has been revealed about a presidential nominee.
Chelsea’s birth was “the greatest moment of my life,” Clinton said. “The miracle of a new beginning.” Afterwards Hillary became “our family’s designated worrier, born with an extra responsibility gene. The truth is we rarely disagreed on parenting, although she did believe that I had gone a little over the top when I took a couple of days off with Chelsea to watch all six Police Academy movies back-to-back.”
Clinton lost the governorship, but regained it. In 1983, Hillary chaired a committee to recommend new education standards and turned the state’s fortunes around, he said. She spotted a preschool programme in Israel and brought it to Arkanas. “There are a lot of young adults in America who have no idea Hillary had anything to do with it who are enjoying better lives because they were in that programme,” he said.
Clinton added: “She did all this while being a full-time worker, a mother and enjoying our life. Why? Well, she’s insatiably curious, she’s a natural leader, she’s a good organiser, and she’s the best darn change-maker I ever met in my entire life.”
