Did Hillary's Senate run cost Gore the White House? Nick Juliano

Published: Monday October 1, 2007



Save This Page

Print This Email This As Bill Clinton's second term as president came to a close, his attentions were divided between the political ambitions of his vice president and his wife. A new book exposes how the former president appeared to favor Hillary Clinton's run for Senate in New York over Al Gore's campaign to become the Oval Office's next occupant. The dueling 2000 campaigns exemplified a rivalry between Hillary and Gore that dated back to Bill Clinton's first term in office, writes Sally Bedell Smith, author of the new book For Love of Politics -- Bill and Hillary Clinton: The White House Years. "Hillary always had an undercurrent of competition with Al Gore that burst into the open from time to time," Smith writes in a book excerpt published in the newest issue of Vanity Fair. Once Hillary decided she would run for Senate in New York, following the resignation of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Bill Clinton divided his substantial fundraising prowess and White House clout between her campaign and Gore's. Some advisers to the former vice president saw Clinton as diverting attention and resources from Gore for his wife. "As a sitting president, Bill was in a unique position to boost his vice president's candidacy by scheduling White House events to highlight his achievements," Smith writes. "But in 1999 those resources were diverted from Gore to Hillary 'in a big way,' said one member of the Gore team. 'The Clintons come first. That was their basic framework.'" In the last half of that year, according to Smith, Bill and Hillary appeared at 20 White House events, compared to just one for Gore, a mental health conference that also included his wife along with the president and first lady. Also in 1999, Hillary had 86 speeches posted on the White House Web site, up from 31 two years earlier and four times as many as the president and vice president combined. "With the Hillary and Gore campaigns revving up at the same time, the three-way tensions evident in the White House since 1993 became a more serious problem," Smith writes. "Now Gore's campaign advisers began to worry that Hillary's candidacy would actually have an adverse effect on their candidate. ... Not only was Hillary unavailable as a campaigner, she was poaching top Democratic fund-raisers and donors who would normally concentrate on the vice president." Although neither Hillary nor Gore appeared much in public with Bill Clinton, the then-president worked vigorously behind the scenes at private fundraisers raising money for both candidates -- "considerably more for Hillary than for Gore," Smith writes. Appearing at 34 events tied to Hillary's Senate run, Bill Clinton brought in more than $5 million for her campaign. He even solicited donations for her at events for other candidates, telling a fundraiser for southern California congressional candidates, "A lot of you have given to Hillary. If you haven't, I hope you will." "The president so immersed himself in Hillary's campaign that it became an extension of himself," Smith writes. "In some ways, their relationship had come to resemble a co-dependency more than a co-presidency." To be sure, there were plenty of factors that led to Gore's defeat, from Ralph Nader's siphoning support from liberal voters, to the vice president's widely panned debate performances to confusing ballots handed to Florida voters. But, Smith writes, Gore's election loss fostered animosity between him and Clinton. "A veneer of public graciousness between the president and vice president concealed their intensifying private anger over each other's role in the electoral outcome," Smith writes. "At Gore's request, they met in the Oval Office on Thursday, December 21, to air their differences. It was an unpleasant encounter, as Gore forthrightly blamed Bill's scandals, while Bill rebuked Gore for failing to make the most of their successful record. Afterward, Bill told Sidney Blumenthal they had parted after 'patching everything up,' but in fact the mutual resentments among the Clintons and Gores persisted."



