FIRST CAMPAIGN

Analysis of Bill Clinton's First Campaign

Analysis of Bill Clinton's First Campaign

In the spring of 1993, a friend and Bill Clinton set off on a drive across the country, from Ohio to Texas and then back through the Deep South. Somewhere on the third or fourth day of the trip, having stopped for the night in Memphis, we decided to make a push to find Hope, Ark. The following morning, we crossed the Mississippi River early and began our trek. Hope, as we discovered, lies across the state, a bit off the freeway in an unremarkable patch of land near the Texas-Arkansas border.

Bill Clinton, as hard it might be for anyone to believe now, was still a bit of an unknown then. His bolt-from-the-blue quest for the presidency had just paid off, and he had been in office for little more than a month. And while the larger sketch of the man had been drawn (poor upbringing, Southern moderate, ambitious wife, Baby Boomer, draft dodger, etc.), all the smaller details hadn't been entirely filled in.

We wanted to see the humble starting point for ourselves, to separate honest experience from media-generated cliché. Hope, indeed, lived up to its billing. A modest, impoverished place. We had our pictures taken beneath the train station site made famous in the short film aired at the 1992 Democratic National Convention and moved on to Texas and less esoteric things.

We were there for the same reason Clinton's life fascinated so many. The apparent clash of contradictions, the gulf between the Serious Wonk and Slick Willie. The overarching question was basic: How did someone with such common origins end up at Yale and Oxford, get elected governor, and reach the presidency in such an uncommonly short time?

Well, after 957 pages, Bill Clinton knows. Boy, does Bill Clinton know. And know. And know. And know.

Bill Clinton, as he writes in the foreword, has a good story to tell. He tells it, unfortunately, in excruciating fashion, substituting detail for soul, and spreading the events of his compelling life over a canvas so thin that the power of the work is almost irreparably diluted.

Will Rogers never meet a man he didn't like? Bill Clinton never met a man whose name, home town, favourite musical instrument, and the near-fatal medical condition of his mama he couldn't recite off the top of his head. Reading My Life isn't like drinking from a fire hydrant-there, the water ultimately tapers off. It takes longer.

It's closer to being forced to endure a 12-day campaign speech standing up. At times, pushing through the book becomes such an exhausting and immersing experience that Clinton's voice may linger in your mind like an alter ego: While, say, purchasing fish at the market, you could find yourself musing (in a down-home drawl) about the Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act.

Which is a shame, because the traffic jam narrative is at odds with the essence of the modern version of the man, as ...