Where in the World is Bill Clinton?

While Democrats offer feigned surprise (and genuine delight) that President Bush is absent from the campaign trail for the McCain/Palin ticket, the mainstream media seems happy and eager to hop on that bandwagon.

But aren’t they ignoring the big elephant in the living room? Or, perhaps more accurately, the big donkey? Has anyone noticed that former President Bill Clinton seems to be hiding out as Barack Obama continues on with his “historic” campaign for the White House?

Sure, there’s the stature gap thing — even though Obama beat Hillary in the primary (barely) and is the first African-American to win a major party nomination for president. The mere thought of seeing Bill Clinton and Barack Obama on a stage together is reminder of the lightweight nature of Obama’s experience and record. At the time Obama secured enough votes to win the nomination, I predicted it would be quite some time before we saw the former president and the inexperienced Obama together, but I thought surely Obama could gain enough stature before the start of his nominating convention. That would be, I surmised, when these two popular figures in the Democratic Party would finally appear together, and by that time Obama would have grown enough to at least look presidential with Bill Clinton, rather than suffer in his shadow. I figured, if Hillary could do it (and she eventually did) then Obama should be able to as well.

But it didn’t happen. And no, Obama appearing with Barbra Streisand is not the same thing, although I suppose one could argue that it comes close.

So here we are, 47 days out from indisputably one of the most consequential elections in generations, and the Democratic nominee isn’t able to be seen with the most recent Democratic inhabitant of the White House. As well, the former Democratic president is not at all eager (and perhaps not even willing) to join Obama on the campaign trail. Oh, sure, the two shared a pizza in Clinton’s Harlem office last week, but all that came from that was a chilly joint statement and a still photo that was, well — awkward. Obama did not look like a leader, and the gravitas gap between the former president and the wannabe was evident even in a single stilted wire photo.

If Obama was threatened by Hillary enough to keep her with those 18 million voters off the ticket, I think it’s reasonable to assume that the specter of Obama being dwarfed by her husband on the campaign trail was a significant factor in that decision.