The Bill Factor

The overflow crowd outside Brown's Chapel where Barack Obama was speaking was clearly larger than the one outside First Baptist where Hillary Clinton was in the pulpit. But neither one of them caused the kind of excitement among the crowds that former President Bill Clinton elicited whenever his shock of white hair appeared.

From the Montgomery Advertiser:

An estimated 8,000-11,000 people walked across Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge Sunday afternoon, the most to take part in the bridge crossing celebration since almost 20,000 people came in 2000 to see then President Bill Clinton.

Although presidential hopefuls Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton joined a list of civil rights notables in the annual commemoration of “Bloody Sunday“ as well as the successful march from Selma to Montgomery, it was Bill Clinton who was once again the star.

“He’s a rock star. There is just no other word for it,” said Kaye Ivy, 31, of Tuscaloosa. Her 12-year-old Lantz Lipham shook hands with Hillary Clinton and Obama, but started shouting “I got his picture,” when he got a picture of Bill Clinton with his cell phone. The crowd applauded.

Camera flashes were like a strobe light as the former president stepped out of his security vehicle to join in the march. Following the march he was inducted into the National Voting Rights Museum Hall of Fame.

“We want Bill to be the president again!“ said Robin Rembert of Selma. Getting out her cell phone, she began frantically calling a friend. “This is who I’ve been waiting to see all day,“ Rembert said. “I love Bill Clinton.“

But can Bill transfer his popularity to Hill in quantities large enough to beat Obama?
CNN's Queen Crowley asks that very question.