Bill Clinton returns to the campaign trail

The Big Dog is back, though he said that he worries he's become an "old horse".

"I told somebody the other day, I'm not sure I'm very good at this anymore," former President Bill Clinton said at the start of a 45-minute speech to the West Virginia Democratic Party's Jefferson Jackson Dinner in Charleston that included jabs at Donald Trump and more than a little boosterism for his wife Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

"I'm kind of like an old horse that you keep at a stable and an election comes along and they come and give you a few extra oats and brush you down and take you out to the track and slap you on the bum and see if you can get around just one more time," he said.
 

But as he spoke about coal and healthcare and the "sugar high" from which the US economy was coming down when he took office, it was clear he still keep pace with the other horses on the track.

"The role of government is to give you the tools to make the most of your own life," he said. "The responsibility of the national government is to give every person in America the chance they need to succeed and every region in America a reasonable chance to get over its problems and to seize its opportunities."

Friday's speech was Clinton's first public political appearance since his wife's campaign launched in April, an unveiling of the Hillary Clinton's not-so-secret weapon off the beaten track of presidential campaigning and away from the glare of most national press, with only two print reporters in town from New York and Washington for the speech. Clinton hasn't always been a potent weapon, showing himself to be a double-edged sword, often an invaluable surrogate and validator but at times a liability.

"Like anyone who cares deeply about someone, Bill Clinton doesn't like to see his wife take the kind of hits she's been taking," said Democratic strategist Donna Brazile. "But few people understand better than he that politics, especially at this level, is a contact sport. But no one knows her better and has the benefit of knowing what it takes to do this job and do it well."

In 2012, Clinton was a top surrogate for President Barack Obama's re-election campaign, delivering the best-received speech at the Democratic National Convention and hitting the road as the "secretary of explaining stuff," talking about Obama's economic achievements in a way that broke through to voters. And in 2014, he was more in demand on the trail than Obama, campaigning for senatorial and gubernatorial candidates in purple and red states where the president wasn't welcome (still, most of those races did not go Democrats' way).

"We can send Bill Clinton back to the White House. We can send Hillary Clinton to the White House," Senator Joe Manchin said on Friday as he introduced the 42nd president, who he described as "the best president we've ever had."

But Clinton's behaviour during the 2008 Democratic primary highlighted his weaknesses, as he lashed out at the Obama team and at a media he saw as aggressively pro-Obama. Obama's record on Iraq was "the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen," he said in January 2008 in New Hampshire. Accused of playing the race card against Obama, Clinton insisted in an interview that the race card was actually being used against him, and got angry the next day at a 20-something embed who tried to ask about the comments.

In 2008, "the benefit of Bill Clinton far outweighed the negatives," said Mo Elleithee, Hillary Clinton's 2008 travelling campaign press secretary. What got through to voters was that Clinton "has a way of connecting with everyday Americans that is almost unparalleled in modern American politics," he said said. "He has a way of breaking complex issues down. Voters know this is someone who's fighting for me and who's got my back."

For all the coverage of the former president's criticisms of Obama and the press, "we never saw that stuff penetrate and pop with real people," Elleithee said. Still, aware that what he says and can create major complications for his wife's campaign, Clinton has shown some restraint-at least thus far. "I shouldn't be making news on this," he told reporters trailing him at a Miami community service project in March, just days after his wife's reliance on a private e-mail server during her time at the State Department became public.