"Bill Clinton had a very difficult job last night: He was tasked with making it seem like Hillary would have been the nominee even if she wasn't Mrs. Bill Clinton, the wife of the former Governor of Arkansas and the former President of the US."

Wrote Tommy Duncan, in the comments to the previous post.

That made me think of this section of Bill Clinton's big speech:

Meanwhile, I was still trying to get her to marry me. The second time I asked, I tried a different tactic. I said, "I really want you to marry me, but you shouldn't do it." She smiled and looked at me like what is this boy up to. She said, "That is not a very good sales pitch." I said, "I know but it's true." And I meant it. It was true. I said, "I know most of the young Democrats our age who want to go into politics, they mean well and they speak well, but none of them is as good as you are at actually doing things to make positive changes in people's lives."

So I suggested she go home to Illinois or move to New York and look for a chance to run for office. She laughed and said, "Are you out of your mind? Nobody would ever vote for me." So I finally got her to come visit me in Arkansas. And when she did, the people at the law school were so impressed, they offered her a teaching position. And she decided to take a huge chance.

She moved to a strange place, more rural and conservative than anywhere she had been. Where she knew good and well that people were wondering what in the world she was like and whether they could or should accept her. Didn't take them long to find out what she was like....

It takes a third asking before she agrees to marry him, but she's already moved to Arkansas and begun living with (near?) him. He's linked her up with a job at the law school where he works. Why would she go and teach in Arkansas if not to be with him? There's a way that you go about getting a lawprof position if that's what you want, and the normal thing to do is to apply to the best schools in the places where you'd be willing to live and to see how well you can do.

Any graduate of Yale Law School would know to do that if she wanted to enter academia. You wouldn't just snap up a job because Arkansas happened to see you when you were in town and threw an offer your way. Obviously, she was stepping down career-wise in order to be with Bill — a man whose offer of marriage she'd already turned down twice.

I know, it's only the story he tells, certainly not the whole truth and possibly hardly true at all, but I'm analyzing the speech. Bear with me.

Later, he buys a house and she — liking the house?! — accepts his offer of marriage, but it's the decision to bag her high-level career and exile herself in Arkansas that's really important, and look why she does it. It's the idea that in Illinois or New York, she'll have trouble establishing a power base, and not just because these places are big, but because "Nobody would ever vote for me." Why not? And what does that have to do with marrying her fortunes to Bill?

We know the answer to that question. It's the basis of the statement in the post title. She had a lot but she lacked something crucial, political charisma. She's still got that problem, even after all those decades of hard work and dogged desire. Bill was the magic missing ingredient, and she needed that in him. I know that last phrase looks like double entendre, but I only mean to dangle that in front of you for your amusement, not because I believe it's true that she wanted him sexually. She wanted his charisma in her, merged with her, giving her what without which Nobody would ever vote for me.