WASHINGTON - Bill and Hillary Clinton have stirred strong passions in their nearly two decades in the national spotlight. They have been known as many things, good and bad: brilliant policy analysts, manipulators of facts and friends, tireless campaigners, skillful political tacticians, self-absorbed baby boomers. But most of all they were known as winners.
Until now.
The Clintons will almost certainly play a continuing role in national politics, and Hillary Clinton could yet emerge as this year's Democratic vice presidential nominee, but a major chapter in their vertiginous public biography was closed when Hillary Clinton conceded the Democratic presidential nomination to Sen. Barack Obama on Saturday. The Clintons' complicated legacy is all the more complicated now.
Hillary Clinton, who survived public humiliation as first lady and then easily won two Senate races in New York, entered the 2008 presidential primary season as the odds-on favorite because of money, connections and celebrity. But through a series of blunders and the appearance of a once-in-a-lifetime opponent, she saw the prize slip through her grasp despite a valiant personal effort that lasted through the final contests in South Dakota and Montana.
The Clintons often seemed out of touch with the political times, cautious when they should have been bold, negative when they should have been inspirational. Exquisitely attuned to the political winds in 1992, they watched Obama almost effortlessly master the changed environment of 2008.
Bill Clinton, a riddle as a man and a public figure, was seen by many at the beginning of his wife's campaign as a political genius, a statesman and a racial healer who had done much through his charitable work to erase the stigma of his impeachment for lying about an affair with a young White House aide and other personal sins. But his conduct during his wife's campaign, right up to a blistering tirade against a magazine writer last week, raised new questions about his judgment and blotted his legacy.
Allies of the Clintons and neutral observers said Hillary Clinton had much to be proud of in this campaign. She outlasted all but one of a distinguished field of primary opponents, won about 17 million votes and a dozen critical states and earned grudging admiration for her fortitude even from those who despised her. She shattered the gender barrier at the presidential level and emerged as the chosen tribune for a major part of the Democratic electorate.
