{"id":12220,"date":"2016-01-04T22:28:27","date_gmt":"2016-01-04T22:28:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=12220"},"modified":"2016-01-04T22:28:27","modified_gmt":"2016-01-04T22:28:27","slug":"turn-the-former-president-loose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=12220","title":{"rendered":"Turn the former president loose"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/vote.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11489\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11489\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/vote-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Close view of a collection of VOTE badges. 3D render with HDRI lighting and raytraced textures.\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/vote-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/vote.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Bill Clinton has made his 2016 campaign debut on behalf of his wife.<\/p>\n<p>The reports are that Donald Trump is casting a large shadow over the former president&#8217;s initial appearance. Never mind. It will not diminish President Clinton&#8217;s drawing power.<\/p>\n<p>The ex-Democratic president is going to start stumping for his wife, the presumptive Democratic frontrunner. Take this to the bank: He&#8217;s going to be &#8212; to borrow a\u00a0term from Trump &#8212; a <em>&#8220;huuuuuge&#8221;<\/em> asset.<\/p>\n<p>How do I know this?<\/p>\n<p>Well, let&#8217;s flash back to 2008. Hillary Clinton was in the midst of a heated primary campaign against a fellow U.S. senator, Barack H. Obama. The Texas primary was coming up and the race wasn&#8217;t yet decided.<\/p>\n<p>Hillary decided to call on Bill to make a campaign appearance for her, of all places, in Amarillo.<\/p>\n<p>The former president&#8217;s advance team did its usual stellar job of preparing for the event. Bill Clinton would speak at the Amarillo Civic Center.<\/p>\n<p>He came here &#8212; into the belly of the proverbial beast. This is blood-red Republican territory. We are the reddest part of the reddest state in the country. Look far and wide and you&#8217;ll find hardly\u00a0Democrats holding elective office in any of the 26 counties that comprise the Texas Panhandle.<\/p>\n<p>Bill Clinton came to the Panhandle in the midst of the 2008 campaign and he was met by a standing-room-only crowd. The crowd packed the Civic Center Grand Plaza; it spilled out into the hallway.<\/p>\n<p>People came from all over the region to hear the former president. I have knowledge of a good number of dedicated <em>Republicans<\/em> who attended the event because they wanted to hear what the former Democratic Leader of the Free World had to say\u00a0on\u00a0behalf of\u00a0his wife.<\/p>\n<p>Will he replicate his astonishing drawing power in the 2016 campaign?<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a word to the wise: Do <em>not<\/em> bet against him.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bill Clinton has made his 2016 campaign debut on behalf of his wife. The reports are that Donald Trump is casting a large shadow over the former president&#8217;s initial appearance. Never mind. It will not diminish President Clinton&#8217;s drawing power. The ex-Democratic president is going to start stumping for his wife, the presumptive Democratic frontrunner. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=12220\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Turn the former president loose<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,13,14],"tags":[293,631,1424,2139,4668],"class_list":["post-12220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-amarillo-civic-center","tag-bill-clinton","tag-donald-trump","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-texas-panhandle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12220"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12221,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12220\/revisions\/12221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}