The Clintons In Exile

THEY WERE THE MOST POWERFUL POLITICAL COUPLE IN THE MODERN ERA. NOW, THEY OFFER CUT-RATE SPEAKING TOURS AND MUSE ABOUT WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

- Bill Powell

ONE EVENING EARLIER THIS YEAR, AN OLD FRIEND and adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton sat down with the former president for dinner at a quiet Manhattan restaurant. Bill, the friend says, looked thinner and more tired than he had in some time. He is 72 now, 15 years on from open-heart surgery and the complications that arose from it. He was, the friend says, a “bit sad, and more than a bit angry.”

The 2020 race for the White House was underway, and not many of the ever-expanding field of Democratic contenders had phoned him or come calling to discuss what it is like to run a presidential campaign. A lot of the contenders seemed to be scrambling to the left to satisfy the progressive wing of the party “and the angry Twitter-verse,” as Bill’s dinner companion puts it. “This guy’s political brain is still sharp— among the sharpest in the party—and he worries that [the Democratic Party] may be frittering away the chance it has to beat Trump next year.” That’s where the anger comes in. And the sadness? “He realizes, politically, he’s in exile, and to some extent, Hillary is too. This is a tough time for them.”

For reasons both political and personal, Bill and Hillary, the most powerful couple in the modern era of American politics, stand on the sidelines as one of the most important election cycles for Democrats unfolds. For the Clintons, this is the year the might-have-been become especially painful. Just 80,000 votes in three traditionally Democratic states deprived them of the restoration: a return to the White House—with Hillary now “the Big Dog”—and a recapture of the leadership of their party.