“I gave you four surplus budgets, all those jobs, declining poverty, the lowest poverty rate we’ve had in 30 years, and the first time in more than 30 years that there has not been an increase in inequality,” Clinton boasted. “We went forward together. We’re supposed to grow together. We didn’t do it by taking anybody down, we did it by lifting everybody up.”

It was hard not to see a veiled critique of the current president in Clinton’s paean to himself, one that veered perilously close to the “Green Lanternism” that liberal commentators so detest—the view that if the current president just tried hard enough, he could overcome the Republican intransigence and structural impossibility that have doomed his agenda. Indeed, Obama went totally, glaringly unmentioned in Clinton’s 18-minute speech. (On Monday, Clinton’s implicit critique became more pointed: “When people sneeringly say McAuliffe is a dealmaker, I say, ‘Oh, if only we had one in Washington during that shutdown,” he reportedly said, adding that it was “exhausting seeing politicians waste time with all these arguments. People deserve somebody who will get this show on the road.”)

This is some chutzpah on Clinton’s part. After all, the Clinton years featured their own government shutdowns, one of which was longer than the recent closure, along with such polarizing doings as his impeachment hearings. But either things now are so much worse, or hindsight has sufficiently colored the memory, that Clinton can recast those days as a heyday of mutual respect and comity.

“If we become ideological, then we’re blind to evidence. We can only hear people who already agree with us,” Clinton said. “We think we know everything right now, we’ve got nothing to learn from anybody, and most important thing we can do is impose our views on everybody else. And you can choose that course here. But I’m telling you ... it doesn’t work .... The only thing that works is cooperation.”

The campaign of McAuliffe’s opponent, Ken Cuccinelli, bombarded reporters with “Back to the Baggage” press releases slamming Clinton, complete with a Photoshopped header graphic of McAuliffe as Marty McFly and Clinton as Doc Brown. “From renting out the Lincoln Bedroom to selling tickets on Air Force One, the former president and his ‘professional best friend’ have accumulated a lot of baggage,” one representative example noted. But Clinton’s campaign schedule on behalf of McAuliffe showed that he is that rare politician who plays to every crowd—urban or rural, white or black, liberal enclave or hardscrabble town. No other former president has this sort of appeal, nor has any remained in the political fray to this degree—especially not Clinton’s successor, George W. Bush. Bush’s approval ratings have markedly rebounded since he left office, but—or perhaps because—he has kept a determinedly low profile.