You Think I ‘m Campaigning Now? Wait Till I Dust Off My Sax

Hey there, America, it ‘s your favorite old hound doggy and 42nd president, Bill Clinton. And guess what, lil puppies ‘ I ‘m ba-ack!

Yep, I ‘m back and I ‘m butt-deep in the national campaign spotlight because, get this, my gal is running for president! After months of ‘will she or won ‘t she,” my old lady has finally let me loose on the campaign trail to make solo appearances for her campaign. While I ‘m technically on the campaign trail, though, please believe: I am not campaigning.

Not yet, baby. Not by a long shot! When I campaign, you ‘ll know it. Because I ‘ll be playing my saxophone.

Don ‘t get me wrong. It ‘s not that I don ‘t want to pull out the sax right here, right now. Every day it beckons to me from my office shelf, like Poe ‘s Tell-Tale Heart under the floorboards, pumping a rhythm within the black nylon Giardinelli brand padded gig bag I keep it in.

But not yet! Just like in jazz, which is a type of music I can and sometimes do play on my sax, ‘the notes you don ‘t play are just as important as the ones you do” (Quick note: I ‘ve done *some* drugs with Miles Davis, but never inhaled! Heh heh).

Let Uncle Bill break it down for you: Campaigning is one part LOGIC (i.e., ‘I will do this for the country. I will not do that for the country. ‘ Etc.). And 10 parts SOUL.

What all these stuffy Republicans and John Kerry just can ‘t understand, is that people don ‘t want you to shake their hand and recite facts on the campaign trail. They want you to scratch their back and whisper in their ear. They want you to sneak up behind them, put your hand under their shirt, and gently scratch that itch they didn ‘t even know they had while you softly whisper, ‘Sshhhh, it ‘s alright, shh-shh-shhhhhhh ‘” That ‘s where the soul is. And people listen to their soul.

Scratching an undecided voter ‘s back is the most important and most effective and most sensual and sexy and hot and easiest part of campaigning. And it just so happens that I wrote the book on it.

A little history. In 1992, your boy here was running for president.

Along the way, I was struggling to separate myself from those oldheads, Bush and Perot. That ‘s when it hit me: Bill, don ‘t out-think them, out-woo them. Ya know? You be you, and all that. So I immediately picked up my sax, drove to the Arsenio Hall Show ‘ which was the coolest show at the time because Arsenio was, and still is, black ‘ and signed in with security.

Arsenio saw me walk in, sax-strapped to the teeth, and immediately knew what was up. Like I said, he was cool. I threw on my sunglasses and the cameras immediately found me as my horn howled the opening of ‘Heartbreak Hotel.” It changed the campaigning game forever.

(Another quick note: I ‘m still close to Arsenio; we go out for coffee and some dirty gin drinks til 4 a.m. every few months to catch up.)

Anyway, when will I dust off my sax? Impossible to tell. I stopped making plans a long time ago. I ‘ll know when it ‘s right. And this is the missus ‘ campaign, I don ‘t want to distract from that. But ooh boy, you ‘ll know it when I ‘m campaigning! It ‘s gonna be great to get back on that Arsenio Hall Show stage.