First Call

By Joseph Williams
WASHINGTON _ The much-reported chill between Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, the result of a bruising primary between Obama and Hillary Clinton -- and subject of much hand-wringing among Democrats worried that the party remains divided -- has officially begun to thaw, according to CNN and Democratic officials.

CNN reported this afternoon that the former president and the presumptive Democratic nominee had their first contact -- a phone call -- cince Obama became the presumptive nominee, and most reports indicate the conversation went well. The men, both widely considered to be gifted politicians, apparently had warm words for one another and they pledged to get together in the near future, the network reported.

Terry McAuliffe, the former Democratic National Committee chairman and a close adviser to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, confirmed to the network that Clinton and Obama had "a good conversation." President Clinton, McAuliffe said, is at Obama's disposal, and is looking forward to vigorously campaigning for the Illinois senator in the near future.

As recently as last week, political journalists and TV pundits openly questioned if the former president was dragging his feet in getting behind Obama, even after his wife gave her full support to Obama in a widely-anticipated joint appearance in Unity, New Hampshire, last week. Speculation centered on whether President Clinton was nursing hurt feelings developed in the heat of his wife's hard-fought primary campaign against Obama.

Since the campaign ended in early June, political journalists increasingly began to question why Clinton had not met with or endorsed Obama weeks after Obama claimed the nomination, even though Hillary Clinton had done so a few days after the last ballot was cast. The former president, still a big draw on the campaign trail, is still one of nation's mos influential Democrats.

News reports indicated that President Clinton was stung by suggestions that some of his strongest criticisms of Obama were racist -- a charge he blamed on Obama's campaign -- and angered by Obama's harsh critique of the former president's White House record.

Some Democrats, already concerned that Hillary Clinton's voters are still bitter over her narrow primary defeat, worried that the rift between President Clinton and Obama would further add to the tension heading into the Democratic National Convention this month.