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The Clinton Conundrum - NationalJournal.com

Hillary Clinton's Campaign Will Have To Straddle Two Different Worlds
Adam Goldberg
By 

Senior Front Page Editor, HuffPost

IN this April 14, 2015, photo, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton meets with local residents at the Jones St. Java House in LeClaire, Iowa. The board of the Clinton Foundation says it will continue accepting donations from foreign governments but only six nations, a move aimed at insulating presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton from controversies over the charity's reliance on millions of dollars from abroad. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
IN this April 14, 2015, photo, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton meets with local residents at the Jones St. Java House in LeClaire, Iowa. The board of the Clinton Foundation says it will continue accepting donations from foreign governments but only six nations, a move aimed at insulating presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton from controversies over the charity's reliance on millions of dollars from abroad. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

As president, Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which authorized states to deny recognition to same-sex marriages performed in other states. As a presidential candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton launched her 2016 campaign on Sunday with a video that featured two gay men excitedly planning their own same-sex wedding.

That contrast captures a profound shift since Bill Clinton's presidency—not only in American social attitudes, but also in the nature of his party's electoral coalition. If Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic presidential nomination, she will inherit from President Obama a very different coalition than the one that elected her husband. Her great opportunity is to meld the different support that each man mobilized. Her great risk is that she won't be able to re-create quite as much of either man's coalition as she needs to win.

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