The Hillary and Bill Show

By Mark Halperin

The sequence is firmly fixed for most great American duos. It is never Costello and Abbott, or Cher and Sonny, or Clyde and Bonnie. And up to this point in history, it has always been Bill and Hillary. As the former First Couple campaigned together for the first time in Iowa over the Fourth of July holiday week, their agenda was topped by one goal: the political sleight of hand necessary to change their public partnership from Bill and Hillary Clinton to Hillary and Bill Clinton.

That's how they were brought onto the stage at rallies. That was the order on the campaign flyers. For the next six months leading up to the Democratic Party's selection of its 2008 nominee, the Clintons hope to alter the family pecking order in the public mind. Their success may determine her ability to capture the White House.

Senator Clinton will spend most of the next six months campaigning alone, trying to establish an independent political identity. But when she and her husband do hit the road together, aides say, he is committed to using his unparalleled political showmanship solely to help her cause.

All year, Bill Clinton has served as chief fund raiser and private political cheerleader for his wife. But his spousal contributions in Iowa have been especially distinctive. He has helped draw bigger crowds so that the vital precaucus task of amassing names, phone numbers and e-mail addresses (required of all those who attend) produced a bumper crop. At public events and private meetings, Bill Clinton played biographer in chief, talking not about himself or his presidency (well, he might have slipped in a few stories and favorite statistics) but about his wife's career. And at joint meetings with local Democratic activists, aides say, Hillary Clinton took the lead, answering most of the questions.

But Bill Clinton is teaching his wife a thing or two about how to loosen up on the campaign trail. Too often for her own good, Hillary Clinton seems either tentative or strident. In Iowa, Bill Clinton is encouraging her to follow his lead as a happy warrior.

On an elevated stage at the Iowa State Fairgrounds on July 2, the Clintons entered side by side, holding hands, to the swells of her newly selected campaign theme song, Celine Dion's You and I. He stood behind her as they were introduced, occasionally putting his hands on her shoulders or whispering a private thought that invariably made her smile and then laugh.

Iowa is in some ways the most important state for Hillary Clinton's nomination campaign and the one in which she is weakest. (She trails John Edwards in most Iowa polls.) It is for that reason a good place to test her new campaign slogan--"Ready for change! Ready to lead!"--which highlights both her greatest strength as a contender for the job and the most frequent knock on her campaign.

Thanks to Bill Clinton's eight years in office, Hillary Clinton is by association an established dynastic candidate rather than the emblem of change that Americans say they want from their next President. A strategist for Barack Obama acknowledges that Bill Clinton is a "wildly popular former President" but notes that "people are anxious to turn the page from the politics we have now ... Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton doesn't sound a whole lot different."

But Bill Clinton knows all about how to be a "candidate of change"; it's what won him the White House in 1992 after he stole the title from Ross Perot, the hot reform candidate of the cycle. Clinton took advantage of the country's desire to turn the page on the Bush era. That pattern might be repeated. Perhaps just as Bush 41's failed Administration begat Clinton 42, Bush 43's war in Iraq and unpopular stewardship could pave the way for Clinton 44.

Moreover, Clinton partisans argue, to make change happen, a President must be ready for the job. Clinton strategists are aware that many voters associate the charismatic and youthful Obama with the ideal of change, but they are betting that voters see Hillary Clinton as the only candidate capable of implementing change.

In order to shine the spotlight on the future--and on Hillary Clinton--her campaign needs to make sure that the former President stays in a supporting role. That's a tall order for a man who has naturally drawn attention his whole life--and loves it.

So far, Bill Clinton is sticking to his lines. At the Iowa State Fairgrounds, he was first to address the rapt crowd, promising to make "just a couple of points" before bringing on his wife. And for once, he actually meant "just a couple," at least by Bill Clinton standards. The former President spoke for just over eight minutes in a role carefully designed by Senator Clinton's strategists, recounting her long history of public service leading up to the Senate, calling her "by a long stretch, the best-qualified nonincumbent I have ever had a chance to vote for."

With the crowd duly warmed up, Hillary Clinton took the stage for 25 minutes, dwelling on her biography and on her major issues (health care, environment, education, Iraq, international leadership and, as always, experience). She attacked the alleged corrupt practices and cronyism of the Bush White House, just as her husband did 16 years ago with a different Bush.

Playing the proper candidate spouse, Bill Clinton performed a subtle version of the fixed eyes and adoring nod. But frequently he rested his face in one of his oversize hands, looking--depending on one's perspective--captivated or faintly restless.

The crowd seemed similarly ambivalent. About eight minutes into her speech, some started to get distracted, holding audible conversations, even moving away from the stage rather than angling forward. The moment highlighted the risk of following the former President's act. Bill Clinton sounds intimate and conversational when he's discussing energy policy. Hillary Clinton sounds like a policy wonk when she talks about her mother's childhood struggles.

The next day, at rallies in Iowa City and Davenport, Bill Clinton again kept his remarks short, focusing on his wife's qualifications and resume. "We sorta changed roles now," he said, drawing laughter. "I'm a little rusty, so you'll have to forgive me."

Afterward, the Clintons worked the rope line, accompanied by his and her (make that her and his) Secret Service details, and fans pressing equally for autographs, handshakes and photos. Bill Clinton, leading the way, stopped for a brief interview with Time. Asked how someone named Clinton who serves in the Senate could be considered the best change candidate, the former President had a ready answer.

"[Voters] don't want to change from what we did," he said. "They want to change from what was undone about where we were going ... Basically, every election is a change election. All elections are about tomorrow, not yesterday. Yesterday is only relevant as it gives evidence about tomorrow."

The Clintons' Iowa tour also included a Fourth of July parade and a stop by Whitey's Ice Cream in Davenport. In Grinnell, they took a break for chicken sandwiches and Diet Cokes at a Dairy Queen, then worked the crowd, the kind of retail campaigning that Bill Clinton does best. David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, has said of the former President, "It's hard to shine when you stand next to the sun." But for now, Hillary Clinton is in nobody's shadow.