Bubba

And then there was the Bill Clinton factor. He toured “back of the house” areas at several Strip properties last week, spending two solid hours at one casino shaking hands with Culinary members on his wife’s behalf.

At the Mirage site on Saturday, Bill Clinton seemed to allege the Culinary Union was intimidating voters, saying it was un-American. “This is America. Everybody is supposed to be able to vote,” he said. Clinton won the site by 25.

The influence was undeniable.

“It’s not too often that you have the former president of the United States greet you as you go into your caucus or have Chelsea Clinton leaflet you,” Taylor said. “It was a full onslaught of Clinton and I congratulate her. She won."

One guy I talked to at the Clinton event in Henderson was basically saying that we need Bill Clinton to fix the problems that George Bush wrought. It's clear that there's a 2-for-1 deal going on here.

But it's quite troubling. This is a former President and not just any old supporter. He's stretching the truth and shaping conventional wisdom and having an impact on voters. I think Obama's camp is wrong on many things, but Obama is probably right to call attention to this.

EXCLUSIVE: OBAMA RIPS INTO BILL CLINTON MONDAY DURING ABC INTERVIEW WITH 'GOOD MORNING AMERICA' HOST ROBIN ROBERTS... SAYS HE FEELS LIKE HE RUNNING AGAINST BOTH CLINTONS... Bill 'has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling. He continues to make statements that are not supported by the facts. Whether it's about my record of opposition to the war in Iraq or our approach to organizing in Las Vegas. This has become a habit and one of the things that we're gonnna have to do is to directly confront Bill Clinton when he's making statements that are not factually accurate'... DEVELOPING....

It's tarnishing the legacy of Bill Clinton, which is very good in the minds of most people, to a disturbing degree (his legacy wasn't all that good to begin with in my mind, in comparison to W it is, but that's a low bar). Most people don't vote on ideological or issue-based grounds, they figure they were better off with Bill Clinton in the White House and they want to see it that way again. But his tactics in this race have been unseemly.

UPDATE: Michael Tomasky:

I don't know who on this planet has the stature to go face-to-face with Bill Clinton and look him in the eye and tell him he behaved in a discreditable fashion. His wife? His buddy Vernon Jordan? Whoever it is, someone had better stop him. He campaigned against a fellow Democrat no differently than if Obama had been Newt Gingrich. The Clinton campaign may conclude that, numerically and on balance, Bill helped. But, trust me, to the thousands of committed progressives who supported him when he really needed it, who went to the mat for him at his moment of (largely self-inflicted) crisis but who now happen to be supporting someone other than his wife, he's done himself a tremendous amount of damage.

This is how I feel. I respect the man for his intelligence and natural gifts, but I think he's doing himself and his party a disservice. Of course, the first Clinton Administration ended with a party in disarray, so maybe it's to be expected...