Bush, Clinton families bound by weight of job
DALLAS — They have dominated American politics for the past three decades: the Bush and Clinton families, taking turns in a string of positions of power and influence.
The dedication of George W. Bush’s presidential library today shines a spotlight on two of the nation’s most prominent political dynasties — and the prospect of another White House campaign, in 2016, featuring the families.
President Barack Obama, who broke a 20-year string of either a Bush or Clinton in the Oval Office, will join four ex-presidents at the red-brick library on the campus of Southern Methodist University. Obama has his own back story with the families — he waged a long primary race against Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2008, campaigned vigorously against Bush’s policies and then turned to the former senator and first lady to run the State Department. When Obama needed a re-election boost last year, former President Bill Clinton was there to help.
The White House binds the two families — from former President George H.W. Bush, who presided over the end of the Cold War but watched his popularity fade, to Bill Clinton, whose “I feel your pain” message created a connection with Americans that survived impeachment, to the younger Bush, whose bullhorn speech amid the wreckage of the 9-11 attacks in New York was coupled with draining wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that left him unpopular in his second term.
“The president’s club is small,” said Mary Matalin, a longtime George W. Bush adviser. “Only presidents who have sat behind that desk in the Oval Office know the weight of it. There’s just a bond there that nobody else can understand except for a handful of people who have done it.”
The families first squared off in 1992, when George H.W. Bush ran for re-election and faced Bill Clinton in a riveting campaign that took place as Bush’s sky-high approval dwindled.
Clinton repeatedly questioned Bush’s handling of the economy while the incumbent challenged the fitness for office of Clinton and running mate Al Gore, punctuated by Bush’s claim that his English springer spaniel, Millie, knew more about foreign policy “than these two Bozos.”
When the Clintons arrived at the White House in January 1993, aides to both families said the Bush family was gracious to the new president and his family. The elder Bush avoided criticizing his successor and after Clinton’s presidency, the two joined forces to raise money for victims of the devastating tsunami in Asia in 2005 and Hurricane Katrina in 2006.
Aides describe a friendship between the two ex-presidents that almost resembles a father-son relationship. Bill Clinton has visited the ailing ex-president at his homes in Houston and Kennebunkport, Maine, and they keep in touch.
That friendship helped connect Clinton and George W. Bush, who campaigned for president in 2000 on restoring “honor and dignity” to the White House following Clinton’s impeachment over a sex scandal. After Haiti’s devastating earthquake in 2010, Obama tapped Clinton and the younger Bush to lead a relief effort.
The two families could be thrust into the spotlight once again if Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush runs for president in three years.
