http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/29/us/politics/to-avert-repeat-of-2008-clinton-team-hopes-to-keep-bill-at-his-best.html?hpw&rref=politics&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0To Avert Repeat of 2008, Clinton Team Hopes to Keep Bill at His Best
By PATRICK HEALY and AMY CHOZICKMARCH 28, 2015
Bill Clinton’s hearing has faded. With his head of white hair and frail frame, he looks older than his 68 years — “truly grandfatherly,” as one friend said. He often jokes about what would happen if he were to “drop dead.”
But even if his step has slowed, Mr. Clinton is hungering once again to play a central role in his wife’s presidential campaign. And Hillary Rodham Clinton’s advisers are once again grappling with how to deploy Mr. Clinton, a strategic imperative that was executed so poorly in 2008 that it resulted in some of the worst moments of her campaign.
In that race, the former president was at times a frustrated and unpredictable presence, operating on his own, calling up some of his wife’s aides to second-guess strategy and shifting the news media’s focus from her to him with stray remarks, such as when he set off African-American anger by diminishing Barack Obama’s success in South Carolina.
This time, advisers and political associates say both Clintons understand how critical it is to harness both the rare gifts and rash impulses of a former president on behalf of a potential one. Whether this will work is a great unknown of the 2016 race: If Mr. Clinton veers far off script with just one stunner of a comment, the campaign could stumble.
Some plans are already forming, the couple’s advisers say. Mrs. Clinton, who is expected to announce her candidacy next month, will shoulder most retail campaign events without him this year, even though Mr. Clinton is more of a natural at them. Putting her in close-in settings with voters at house parties and diners will allow her to avoid Mr. Clinton’s shadow, while underscoring the message that she is taking no voter for granted.
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