Bill Clinton a free agent

The Washington Post has the Bill Clinton update today on the front page. It's an interesting account of new ground being broken in presidential politics. The upshot: Bill is doing his own thing, and his actively campaigning for Hillary is the exception rather than the rule.

Here's a snippet:

Federal election rules are such that Clinton cannot advocate for his wife unless her campaign is financing the event. So as he tours the globe wearing his other hats, he is likely to talk about himself as much as the current presidential candidate.

[Clinton] campaign officials do not want to squander his star power through overuse. One adviser compared it to using "conventional weapons versus a nuclear bomb -- when he goes places, it's a huge deal."

This sounds like a plan. Bill can be used to go nuclear when necessary. Oprah's endorsement of Obama was just one such occasion: Bill appeared on her show in September to undercut the Obama endorsement.

The one thing the article doesn't mention is the weirdness of it. It's an unconventional marriage with a lot of very public baggage, and overuse of Bill could cause negative comparisons with the other candidates.