Twenty years ago this month, a charismatic politician from Arkansas was making his way ever so slowly through a high school gym in Nashua, New Hampshire, shaking every hand thrust his way.
A young woman from New York was watching the man from Arkansas as he approached, doing so in fits and starts. She was in perfect position to shake the Arkansas man's hand. All she had to do was wait.
The young woman's husband kept his eye fixed elsewhere - specifically, on a clock in the gym. He had to get his wife to Boston to catch a train back to New York, while he remained in New England on a dream assignment: covering the 1992 New Hampshire presidential primary campaign.
As the fellow from Arkansas stopped and started, chatting with small children, fixing his gaze on all who shook his hand, the impatient husband tapped his wife on her shoulder. "C'mon," he said, pointing to the clock. "You have to get to Boston. Anyway, there's no point waiting for this guy. He's not going anywhere."
The man from Arkansas, as you no doubt figured out, was Bill Clinton. The young woman waiting patiently to shake his hand was my wife. And yes, I was the brilliant political reporter who confidently announced that Governor Clinton's presidential aspirations were doomed, so there was no point in missing a train for the sake of shaking his hand.
These thoughts come to mind for two reasons. First, the 20th anniversary of Bill Clinton's successful presidential campaign of 1992 ought to inspire some fond memories among Irish Americans - and all Irish people for that matter. For it was during the 1992 campaign that Clinton announced, in response to questions from three questioners, including this newspaper's current editor, Ray O'Hanlon, that he would, among other things, support the appointment of a special envoy for Northern Ireland.
Most observers saw Clinton's response as just another exercise in ethnic political pandering, but as the ensuing eight years proved, Clinton was absolutely committed to mediating a conflict that far too many American policymakers regarded as intractable.
We all know how that story played out. Bill Clinton's victory in 1992 changed the course of modern Irish history. Would the peace process have unfolded as it did without Clinton's support? It's hard to imagine.
The other reason my thoughts have wandered back to that time and place is because 1992 may have been the last, or certainly the next to last, presidential campaign of the old media era.
As I'm writing this, I have in front of me a story from the New York Times of December 29, 2011. The piece explains how the Republican candidates for the party's 2012 presidential nomination are using social media "to mobilize voters" in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses.
Back in '92, Bill Clinton mobilized voters by shaking their hands, looking them in the eye, and engaging in good-natured banter.
In 2012, Michele Bachman is sending out on-line videos to get her voters to the polls.
Frankly, I prefer the old way. In fact, I would argue that a gifted retail politician like Bill Clinton would have a harder time today, when candidates seem to depend as much on mass emails as they do on old-fashioned rallies in high school gyms.
As I saw first-hand in New Hampshire 20 years ago, Bill Clinton was a superb meet-and-greeter, the kind of candidate whose charm and intelligence were best experienced in person, rather than on videos, or some other form of e-politics.
Bill Clinton's second-place finish in New Hampshire two decades ago - the first-place finisher, as only political nerds will remember, was Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts, a local favorite - is rightly considered a milestone in the Clinton saga.
Written off as a sure loser by people a lot smarter than yours truly (and there are lots of people who fit that description), Clinton revived his campaign in New Hampshire and went on to take care of business elsewhere in the following weeks.
Clinton's moral victory in New Hampshire in '92 also should serve as a cautionary tale about today's political commentary, as pundits create winners and losers on a nightly basis.
By the time you read this, certain candidates will have been written off on the basis of a few thousand Republican voters in the Iowa caucus, while others will be anointed as front-runners.
If you believe any of that, you've forgotten what people like me were saying about Bill Clinton in January, 1992.
[caption id="attachment_68953" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="The charmer-in-chief."]
Believe me, my wife hasn't forgotten.
In fact, she reminded me of it eight years later, when she finally got her chance to shake hands with the guy from Arkansas. That handshake took place at a reception in the White House.
Who knew? Obviously, not me.
