http://fortune.com/2016/04/09/bill-clinton-hillary-clinton-black-lives-matter/
Bill Clinton has made himself uncharacteristically scarce this election season.Unhappily for his wife,he crashed back into the news at the end of this week, angrily counter-confronting Black Lives Matter protesters at a rally in Philadelphia on Thursday and then offeringa feint at regret on Friday (“I almost want to apologize,” he said.).The proximate cause was the ongoing relitigation of his administration’s anti-crime efforts, seen by a new generation of liberals as spawning an eraof racially skewed mass incarceration.
But for the 4 2nd president,so long the irrepressible BigDogof the political scene, the moment must have offered some deeper catharsis. He’s spent the better part of ayearholding himself in check while Hillary Clinton has disavowed much of his record,piece by piece.The DemocraticParty she seeks to lead is rediscovering lefty instincts he banished a generation ago as the young tribune of an ascendant centrism,and she is adjusting accordingly.
Candidate Hillary now talks up the need for criminal justice reform to undo the 19 94 crime bill herhusband championed; decries the wages on American workers of NAFTA and subsequent free-trade deals he ushered in;and calls for crackingdown on afinancial sector he helped deregulate.Her evolution appears aimed at least in part at keeping faith with younger Democrats,a bloc that’s nevertheless rejecting her, en masse, in favorof a septuagenerian with a‘60s vintage message. (In Wisconsin on Tuesday,Bernie Sanders won a whopping 8 2% of voters under 30 .)So Bill could be forgiven if he’s feeling abit lost in the party he once defined.