Clinton Undermines Obama’s Arguments Against Romney

Last week Bill Clinton called Romney’s business career at Bain Capital “sterling.” He also declared that in addition to Romney’s business career, his career as Governor makes him qualified to be President of the United States. Conservatives have run with Clinton’s comments, with Rush Limbaugh leading the way, declaring that Clinton affectively endorsed Romney. Nothing could be further from the truth. Clinton didn’t endorse Romney, he merely said he was qualified to be President. While Clinton isn’t endorsing Romney, he’s clearly up to no good.

Obama’s biggest argument against Romney is that his career at Bain Capital was less than sterling. Obama has claimed that Bain gutted businesses for profit and cost thousands their jobs. Obama’s claim isn’t factual, it furthermore requires Obama to have not the slightest clue as to what Bain Capital does to make money for its investors. Nevertheless, that’s Obama’s argument and in the very least it appeases the far left and may appeal to some independent voters. He’s been making it for the better part of the last month, the Obama team clearly thinks it is a winning argument to make as they try to paint a negative picture of Romney.

Now you can see that Bill Clinton was up to no good in praising Romney’s business career. It’s one thing for the Mayor of an irrelevant city (Cory Booker) to criticize the Bain attacks, it’s another thing for a washed up former Governor (Ed Rendell) or Congressman (Harold Ford) to criticize the Obama Bain attacks. It’s something entirely different when the still popular former Democrat President of the United States, with a wife eying a 2016 run says it. Clinton is undermining the Obama argument and he knows exactly what he’s doing.

A substantial number of Democrats still listen to Clinton and believe everything he says. Many of these Democrats are the sort of blue collar folks who voted for Hillary in 2008. They’re the sort of blue collar Democrats who voted for a convicted felon in West Virginia rather than Obama last month and who voted for someone no one has ever heard of in Arkansas rather than Obama. But worse than that, independent voters still respect Clinton’s judgment. Thus when Clinton praises Romney’s record at Bain Capital, it completely undermines Obama’s attacks with this group of important voters.

Obama may not be after independent voters this time around, his campaign is going to be won or lost based on his ability to turn out the far left in greater numbers than Romney can turn out the right and middle. Clinton is doing two things though. First, he’s undermining Obama’s argument knowing that many independent voters will listen to him rather than the President. In doing this, Clinton imagines he’s setting Obama up for defeat in November. An Obama defeat will make it easier for Hillary to win in 2016. Which is the second thing Obama is doing, he’s positioning Hillary to appeal to independent voters down the road. Hillary is no less liberal than Obama is but Bill can position her to appear more moderate in comparison to Obama on this and other largely irrelevant issues of importance during this campaign.

Expect to see Clinton undermine Obama’s arguments every so often between now and November. Ole Bill will still be out there campaigning for Obama and putting on a good show of support. Make no mistake, Clinton will play the part of the good Democrat all while undermining Obama both in public and in private. He desperately wanted Hillary to take on Obama in this years primary. He’s eying an Obama defeat to set Hillary up in 2016. Clinton is willing to lose the White House for a few  years if it helps him, so expect him to put on a good show of support while occasionally undermining Obama’s arguments on all the important campaign issues. Bill Clinton is a calculating politician and he’s calculating a return to the White House in January 2017.