MSNBC's Chuck Todd asks:
Answer: No, the Clintons would've mopped up their power and moved on.
Bill obviously is suffering too. This is how powerful people fall with a thud.
David Axelrod, Obama campaign strategist, says the media is making it worse than it is:
So this is in Clinton's power whether her name is put into nomination, not Obama's nor Howard Dean's.) Watching the video clip, you can tell that Hillary still hasn’t gotten over losing, and given all of the people she had telling her that she’d be the next president, we can understand the denial; she had been preparing for this moment for nearly four years. But we've asked this question a million times and we ask it again: Would the Clintons have been as deferential (or be expected to be as deferential) to Obama if the roles were reversed? What has happened over the last few days has given Obama the high ground here.
Answer: No, the Clintons would've mopped up their power and moved on.
Time: But behind the united front, says an adviser, "it's not a great relationship, and it's probably not going to become one." In private conversations, associates say, Clinton remains skeptical that Obama can win in the fall. That's a sentiment some other Democrats believe is not just a prediction but a wish, because it would prove her right about his weaknesses as a general-election candidate and possibly pave the way for her to run again in 2012. Clinton is also annoyed that Obama has yet to deliver on his end of an informal bargain, reached as part of their truce, that each would raise $500,000 for the other. "Hillary has done her part in that regard," says an adviser. "Obama has not."
Bill obviously is suffering too. This is how powerful people fall with a thud.
Meanwhile, if Hillary Clinton's feelings are still bruised, her husband's are positively raw. The former President is particularly resentful of suggestions—which he believes were fueled by the Obama camp—that he attempted to play upon racial fears during the primaries. Not helping is the fact that Obama has yet to follow up on the tentative dinner plans he and Bill Clinton made at the end of the primary season. "It's personal with him, in terms of his own legacy," says a friend of Bill Clinton's. "And the race stuff really left a bad taste in his mouth."
David Axelrod, Obama campaign strategist, says the media is making it worse than it is:
Axelrod also suggested that an ABC reporter who pressed Bill Clinton about his apparently reluctant support for Obama was "picking at the scab... This whole interview was calculated to try to create conflict. I thought Clinton was very restrained in his responses.'' Asked if the Clintons are acting in "a unified fashion,'' Axelrod said they are. "I think that Sen. Clinton, you're going to see her out there (campaigning for Obama.).. I think she is making a good faith effort on behalf of Barack... I think she will be a force this fall.''