Two Brothers of the South

Shortly after graduating from Yale Law School in 1973 at the age of 27, Bill Clinton took out a pen and piece of paper and wrote down his most important life goals. “I want to be a good man, have a good marriage and children, have good friends, make a successful political life, and write a great book.”

Assessing how he fared decades later against those five missions, he was unequivocal with respect to the third: “No person I know ever had more or better friends.”

Although he would call upon many of those friends, one man in particular gave him the emotional life he most needed when he became the youngest ex-governor in American history. In 1980, the voters of Arkansas rejected Clinton’s bid for reelection to the office he loved. He was only 34. His vision of a grand political career — which so many others believed would carry him to the White House — now appeared to be in tatters. He became depressed, convinced his career was over.

Even before the polls opened in November 1980, Clinton knew that two of his own decisions had imperiled his reelection bid: a steep new license tax he enacted that enraged every car and truck