“I knew in my bones…” (one of them, at least)

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In a CNN story about a recent Bill Clinton interview on PBS, it’s mentioned that the former president compared himself to Obama, saying he chose not to run for president in 1988 because he knew he wasn’t ready.

From the story:

Also in the PBS interview, Clinton compared Obama to himself in 1988, when he was a young governor of Arkansas who decided not to run for president yet.

“Even when I was a governor, and young, and thought I was the best politician in the Democratic Party, I didn’t run the first time I could have. I had lots of Democratic governors encouraging me to, but I knew in my bones I shouldn’t run, that I was a good enough politician to win, but I didn’t think I was ready to be president.”

That would be an interesting little observation, were it true.

But anyone who’s read Pulitzer Prize winner David Maraniss’ excellent Clinton biography First In His Class or his subsequent The Clinton Enigma has heard a different story from Clinton’s former Arkansas Chief of Staff (and later head of Arkansas’ Democratic Party), Betsey Wright.

Wright, the political consultant who served as inspiration for the Libby Holden character in Joe Klien’s Primary Colors, told Maraniss that Clinton’s main incentive not to run was a list she confronted him with — a list of women he was rumored to have been involved with, potential “bimbo eruptions” as she famously called them.

According to Wright Clinton had already told friends he was running, flown in buddies and supporters and rented a hotel conference room for the announcement when she told him the list was a deal breaker. He quietly bowed out of contention, becoming one of the legions of politicians who needs more “family time.”

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