No one will take the stage at the DNC this week with more experience at the task than former President Bill Clinton.
No one will take the stage at the Democratic National Convention this week with more experience at the task of the Big Speech than former President Bill Clinton.Former US President Bill Clinton takes the stage on Day 3 of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center, in Chicago, on Aug 21, 2024.Mr Bill Clinton, who turned 78 on Aug 19, is the same age as former President Donald Trump and three years younger than President Joe Biden.
But the progression of those dozen speeches reflects the larger story of Mr Clinton’s political life, a tale of boom and bust and boom again that has made him one of the most enduring figures of American life in the modern era, if not always its most universally accepted. He has gone from young rising star to tiresome bloviator to dynamic presidential nominee to popular incumbent to scandal-tarred lame duck to candidate husband to wise elder statesman, with quite a few ups and downs in between.
Still, it is also a convention about generational torch-passing, and Democrats hope that Mr Clinton’s speech will help validate Vice-President Kamala Harris, 59, particularly with working-class white swing voters in Midwestern and Sun Belt states who remember the 42nd president fondly and are not yet sure whether to make her the 47th.
While the old political saw holds that “if you’re explaining, you’re losing” – meaning that a candidate is on the defensive – Mr Clinton has found explaining to be a political winner. Mr Clinton recovered by making a self-deprecating appearance on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson and went on to win the party’s nomination and the presidency in 1992. He addressed conventions again in 1996, when he vowed to use a second term to “build a bridge to the 21st century,” and in 2000, when he sought to repair his reputation after his sex-and-lies impeachment stemming from an affair with a White House intern.
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