Man of the World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton (48 page)

Surely Clinton felt a degree of personal redemption in Rwanda, prompting critics to complain that behind his foundation’s good works was a mixture of narcissism and angst. He shrugged off these putdowns. “I have never met anybody who spent all their time talking about everybody’s motives who, at the end of their life, could talk about very many lives
they
had saved,” he once said.

By the summer of 2008, his foundation’s programs had expanded well beyond the capital to reach the most distant, neglected rural villages—places such as Rwinkwavu, in the country’s southeastern corner, where the foundation had paid to renovate a derelict hospital that reopened in late 2006. Accompanied by President Paul Kagame, Clinton flew down to Rwinkwavu to visit the hospital and meet the rural health workers who were fanning out into the countryside.

It was a health worker paid and trained by his foundation—a young woman named Beatrice—who brought Clinton to meet one of her very young patients. Fifteen-year-old Jean Pierre lived with his sister Eugenie, nineteen, who had looked after him ever since both of their parents died of an illness that was probably AIDS in 2002. Three years later, Jean Pierre was diagnosed with advanced AIDS symptoms and could no longer attend school. For many months he lay ill in their hut, waiting to die, until Beatrice showed up one day to deliver care, medication, and human kindness. Jean Pierre’s health improved dramatically and he returned to school.

As they shook hands, the thin dark boy told the smiling white-haired man that he would like to become a doctor who helps sick children. Clinton spoke about that moment for many weeks after he returned from Africa. To him the recovery of that brave child, with real hope for a full life, symbolized his foundation’s mission. Six years after the creation of CHAI, there were still far too many children and adults dying of AIDS in Africa and elsewhere. But there were also well over a million alive, like Jean Pierre, because they were at last receiving treatment—and there was now the prospect of bringing proper care to all.

Reporters on the trip seemed fixated on Clinton’s reaction to the defeat of Hillary and the rise of Obama rather than his global vision or his foundation’s achievements. Evidently unaware that he had visited Africa every summer since 2002, the
Washington Post’s
reporter thought he had scheduled this particular trip to commence his political “rehabilitation.” In a 1,600-word story, she confined her account of actual events on the ground to a few paragraphs. She didn’t find space to mention Jean Pierre, the rural health workers, or the new hospital in Rwinkwavu.

When he arrived back in Chappaqua, Clinton was tired but happy to be home. Within a few days, he would need to start thinking about a speech for the Democratic convention, where he would endorse a man he had come to dislike intensely. Anita Dunn, the communications director of the Obama campaign, had sent Band an email advising that the former president was scheduled to speak on Wednesday evening at 9 p.m. They wanted him to talk about national security and foreign policy. They wouldn’t mind if he outlined “contrasts” with Republican nominee John McCain. And separately, they let him know they wanted to see the text in advance.

Band had ignored that last demand, knowing Clinton wouldn’t submit to any vetting of his words. He also knew that his boss would talk about whatever he wanted to discuss, unconstrained by any themes ordained by the Obama campaign. With Clinton’s assent, he asked speechwriter Jeff Shesol to start working on a first draft.

In a certain way, Shesol was an ironic choice to draft the endorsement speech. Years earlier, before joining the White House staff, he had written a well-received history of the feud between Lyndon Johnson, a controversial Southern president of great ambitions and appetites, and Robert F. Kennedy, a gifted politician and eloquent reformer to whom Obama had been compared by his surviving brother, among others. Its title was
Mutual Contempt
.

As Band had anticipated, Clinton did not even glance at the Shesol speech until the Friday before the convention. He took the draft, whose motivating idea might be called “What a Democratic President Can Do,” replete with direct and implied references to what he had done during eight years in power, and began to add and whittle. Sitting out in the Chappaqua barn, he went through one draft, and then another.

He continued to craft the speech as he boarded a private jet in New York on Monday, August 25, the convention’s opening day, to fly out to Denver so he would be present for Hillary’s speech the next evening. The aircraft belonged to Steve Bing, a rakish film and music producer and philanthropist who had inherited a shopping mall fortune estimated at $700 million. He was a dedicated Democrat and Clinton supporter who had spent huge sums promoting Hillary’s candidacy in 2008.

The fortyish bachelor had been involved in not one but two colorful
paternity cases. He was an exceptionally loyal and close friend, but his presence in the Clinton entourage always encouraged gossip.

Bing’s other traveling companion was Jesse Dylan, the oldest of Bob Dylan’s five children and a respected film and video producer in New York. Modest and low-key, Dylan was a fervent supporter of Barack Obama, for whom he had directed the emotionally powerful “Yes We Can” music video, featuring will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas and a dazzling cast of singers and actors poetically affirming Obama’s New Hampshire primary concession speech.

Dylan had pulled them all together and put up his own money to produce the video. He had expected nothing in return, and nothing was what he got: Not a telephone call from the candidate, not a thank-you note, not even an invitation to celebrate at the convention. More than 57 million viewers had watched “Yes We Can” on YouTube by the time Obama delivered his convention speech, resulting in many millions of donated dollars and many thousands of volunteer hours.

When Bing told Clinton how the Obama campaign had treated Dylan, the former president shook his head. To Clinton, who had prided himself all his life on remembering people and writing appreciative notes, such unfeeling behavior was worse than a sin; it was a mistake.

Arriving in Denver, Clinton and his small entourage settled into luxurious quarters on the same floor as Bing at the Brown Palace Hotel. For a few hours, he set aside his own draft to work on Hillary’s speech. Over the following two days, Doug Band fended off a series of increasingly agitated calls from the Obama camp, requesting to see the draft. He blew them off repeatedly, trying hard not to be rude without always succeeding. Obama aide Anita Dunn didn’t get a glimpse at the text until Band brought her up to a hotel conference room to read it, only hours before Clinton arrived at the convention center on Wednesday evening.

There was simply no way to read Clinton’s speech—a litany of indictments and guarantees, well-crafted but lacking great inspiration on paper—and actually hear its uplifting spirit and the way it would resound in the hall as he delivered it. Many of the reporters listening to him rated it the best address he had delivered in years, perhaps the finest since he had left the White House. It gave Obama everything he needed, and more, with generosity:

My fellow Democrats, sixteen years ago, you gave me the profound honor to lead our party to victory and to lead our nation to a new era of peace and broadly shared prosperity.

Together, we prevailed in a campaign in which the Republicans said I was too young and too inexperienced to be Commander-in-Chief. Sound familiar? It didn’t work in 1992, because we were on the right side of history. And it won’t work in 2008, because Barack Obama is on the right side of history.

His life is a 21st Century incarnation of the American Dream. His achievements are proof of our continuing progress toward the “more perfect union” of our founders’ dreams. The values of freedom and equal opportunity which have given him his historic chance will drive him as president to give all Americans, regardless of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or disability, their chance to build a decent life, and to show our humanity, as well as our strength, to the world.

We see that humanity, that strength, and our future in Barack and Michelle Obama and their beautiful children. We see them reinforced by the partnership with Joe Biden, his wife Jill, a dedicated teacher, and their family.

Barack Obama will lead us away from the division and fear of the last eight years, back to unity and hope. If, like me, you still believe America must always be a place called Hope, then join Hillary, Chelsea, and me in making Senator Barack Obama the next President of the United States.

Those final few paragraphs electrified the delegates, who rose up shouting, waving signs frantically, and embracing across the differences that had divided them. The African American delegates looked especially joyful in welcoming errant brother Bill back into the family. They didn’t question his sincerity. They wanted to believe that he believed.

Within days after the Democratic convention, the comfortable polling lead that Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, held over McCain and his surprise choice, Alaska governor Sarah Palin, began to evapo
rate. In several polls, McCain led by the first week of September. And suddenly, Obama was no longer too busy to meet with Bill Clinton, whose sustained popularity among white working-class voters seemed essential to Democratic hopes for carrying states like Ohio and Pennsylvania.

When Clinton learned that Obama was coming to Manhattan for the seventh anniversary of 9/11, he extended an invitation for lunch at his office—just the two of them—and this time, his courtesy was reciprocated. The Democratic nominee came up to Harlem after a morning memorial ceremony at Ground Zero. Before going into Clinton’s private office, they spoke very briefly with reporters gathered in the foyer. “I’ve agreed to do a substantial number of things—whatever I’m asked to do.” As for his view of the race, Clinton said, “I predict that Senator Obama will win, and win handily.” Smiling broadly, Obama interjected: “There you go. You can take it from the president of the United States. He knows a little something about politics.”

Over a catered lunch of grilled chicken and vegetables, they talked about the race and the best use of Clinton’s available time to ensure victory. The mood was cordial. Clinton was delighted that Obama had finally showed up to repair their relationship. When it was time for his guest to leave, the former president accompanied him downstairs to 125th Street. Outside the glass doors, an enormous crowd had gathered, and when they saw Obama and Clinton, a chant of “Yes We Can!” went up. Surrounded by agents, Clinton put his arm behind Obama’s back and they walked out together, waving.

The Clinton Global Initiative convened in Midtown two weeks later, with Obama and McCain appearing there on the opening day. The Obama campaign had sent sincere regrets that the nominee would be unable to attend in person, due to campaign commitments, and planned to appear via satellite instead—but much to Clinton’s dismay, they also asked that he rescind the Republican’s invitation.

That would not happen, replied Band. McCain was a longtime political adversary, but both Clintons regarded him as a friend; CGI was a nonpartisan event; and Clinton would never do something so rude, under any circumstances. They dropped the request.

Both Obama and McCain were scheduled to appear on September 25—in the midst of delicate bipartisan negotiations in Washington over a bank bailout in the wake of the Wall Street credit crash. But on the eve of his appearance, McCain shocked the country by declaring that he would suspend his campaign so he could return to Washington to shepherd the bailout legislation through Congress. He urged Obama to do likewise. And the Arizona senator said that he would not attend the first presidential debate of the general election, set for September 26 in Mississippi.

“I’m an old Navy pilot, and I know when a crisis calls for all hands on deck,” McCain told the CGI audience, standing behind a lectern on the Sheraton ballroom stage. “As of this morning, I suspended my campaign. With so much on the line, for America and the world, the debate that matters most right now is taking place in the United States Capitol—and I intend to join it.”

But neither Obama nor the Democrats were willing to entertain this obvious ploy, which they dismissed as a “rescue plan” for the faltering Republican campaign. Gazing down from giant screens in the Sheraton ballroom, Obama transfixed the CGI audience and the press corps, his image beamed from a hotel in Florida. “It’s great to speak to you this morning. I’m sorry that I can’t be there, but I did enjoy the opportunity to sit down with President Clinton recently in New York . . .” The candidate knew what was on the minds of everyone in the country, and he got quickly to the point.

“You are meeting at a time of great turmoil for the American economy. We are now confronted with a financial crisis as serious as any we have faced since the Great Depression. Action must be taken to restore confidence in our economy,” he said.

“Let me be clear: it’s outrageous that we find ourselves in a position where taxpayers must bear the burden for the greed and irresponsibility of Wall Street and Washington. But we also know that a failure to act would have grave consequences for the jobs, and savings, and retirement of the American people. . . .

“Our election is in 40 days,” he went on. “The American people deserve to hear directly from myself and Senator McCain about how we intend to lead our country. The times are too serious to put our campaign on hold, or to ignore the full range of issues that the next president will face.”

Ultimately McCain folded, agreeing to Obama’s terms for the bailout and appearing as originally planned at the Mississippi debate.

Clinton spent most of those final weeks in the purple states campaigning for Obama, with appearances in Florida, Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and back to Florida again for a gigantic midnight rally with Obama on October 29 in Kissimmee, a small city just south of Orlando. Estimated at 35,000, the waiting throng looked as if everyone in the state had showed up—blacks, Latinos, whites, young and old, poor and middle-class—waiting for hours before the gates opened to see the two Democratic “rock stars.”