Bill Clinton is sitting on a giant tool box in the back of a Chevy pickup truck, waiting to address a small gathering of Democrats, when the fellow introducing him attempts a joke comparing Barack Obama to a rooster.

The punch line comes and goes and the would-be comedian, a Texas state representative, looks up to find no one is laughing. Once more in his long career, Mr. Clinton is called to the political rescue.

"I think what he was trying to say is this," Mr. Clinton explains after taking the microphone. "Just because the rooster crows when the sun comes up in the morning, it doesn’t mean the rooster made the sun come up."

His point is clear — that despite some of the hype surrounding Mr. Obama, the Illinois senator is not actually responsible for all that’s good in the world — and the crowd erupts in cheers.

But as criticisms go, the rooster joke is a pretty gentle one, and it’s the closest Mr. Clinton comes this day to saying anything remotely controversial.

Bill Clinton’s sudden restraint on the campaign trail may be coming too late for his wife.

Once considered to be Hillary Clinton’s ace in the hole, the 42nd president is now being widely blamed for helping send the former first lady’s own White House campaign into a tailspin ahead of March 4 primaries in Texas and Ohio.

Aides to the New York senator have told reporters that Mr. Clinton’s racially-tinged criticisms of Mr. Obama last month in South Carolina triggered the steady decline in support that has resulted now in 11 straight nominating contest losses for Mrs. Clinton.

Her senior strategists also reportedly recoiled when Mr. Clinton delivered an ultimatum to voters in Ohio last week, telling them flatly that Mrs. Clinton’s campaign was dead unless she won the Buckeye State and Texas next Tuesday.

"At times, he has badly overplayed his role in her campaign and let his emotions get away from him," says Merle Black, a politics professor at Emory University in Atlanta. "He has been a negative force. He always puts her in the shadows — and that is not where you want the candidate to be."

In New Hampshire, Mr. Clinton’s description of Mr. Obama’s Iraq policy as a "fairy tale" angered black voters, who interpreted the remark as a racial slight. African-American voters abandoned the former first lady’s campaign in droves following the South Carolina vote after Mr. Clinton likened Mr. Obama to Rev. Jesse Jackson, a former Democratic candidate with little appeal to white voters.

His angry outburst at a restaurant in Charleston, South Carolina — where he accused the media of distorting his remarks — laid bare the underlying tensions about his role within the Clinton campaign.

"Once that happened, a key element of Hillary’s strategy was blown to bits — that she would split the black vote with Obama," says Mr. Black.

In recent days, Mr. Clinton has taken a far lower profile in his wife’s campaign.

He still keeps a punishing schedule, making solo appearances at six events one day this week in Texas. During his appearance at a community college in Austin this week, where he was separated from a crowd of about 500 by steel barricades, he hewed closely to campaign talking points.

"Here is my pitch for Hillary," he said at one point during a 30-minute speech.

Then, as if on strict orders to stay on script, "there is something else Hillary wanted me to say."

Source:  The Ottawa Citizen