Alexandria, Virginia — Remember the stories when both Bill and Hillary Clinton spoke at Coretta Scott King’s funeral? The general consensus was that it was terribly, well, unfortunate that Mrs. Clinton had to speak from the same podium as her husband, because it highlighted the sharp contrast between her rather droning delivery and his indisputably masterful style.

Well, the same thing happened here on Election Eve with Bill Clinton and Virginia’s Democratic Senate candidate, Jim Webb. Only worse. And when it was all over, the crowd was revved up and ready to vote…for Bill Clinton. Webb held his last rally of the campaign outside the Alexandria City Hall Monday night, and everybody who was anybody was on the stage. There was Senate Minority Leader — hoping to be Majority Leader — Harry Reid. There was Senate campaign chief Charles Schumer. There was the former senator, and Webb’s fellow Vietnam veteran, Bob Kerrey. There was former Virginia governor Mark Warner. There was current Virginia governor Tim Kaine. And there was Clinton. Who was operating — some things don’t change — on Clinton Time. “The rock star is on his way,” announced Virginia Rep. Jim Moran, who proceeded to stretch a few opening remarks into a long historical review of the Democratic party while the crowd waited for the former president to arrive. Moran worked his way through JFK, and Hubert Humphrey, and LBJ, and Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton and — well, by that time he had been dancing for quite a while, hoping that Clinton would eventually show. Finally, he got word and announced, “Now, I think we’ve gotten a signal.” The crowd cheered. Except the signal was premature. There was no Clinton, Webb, or anybody else. With nothing more to say, Moran retired from the microphone and proceeded to pace around the stage — occasionally clapping in, and out, of time with the music, and checking his watch until the rock star finally came. When Bill Clinton appears with any group of Democratic politicians, there is a built-in status gap. He outshines everybody. And in Virginia Monday night, there was something else, perhaps a bit of a hostility gap: Clinton was not only outshining everybody, but he was shoulder-to-shoulder with two men who, at least at some point in their lives, couldn’t stand him. Former Sen. Kerrey, you’ll remember, declared several years ago that Clinton was “an unusually good liar.” A moment later, he reemphasized: “Unusually good.” And would-be senator Webb took things even farther when he said that Clinton’s was “the most corrupt administration in modern memory.” Both men’s feelings came to a large extent from Vietnam, where they served with great distinction — Kerrey won the Congressional Medal of Honor — and Clinton didn’t. Of course, that’s all ancient history, right? Not really, at least for Webb. When he spoke — a flat and unremarkable speech in which he spent a good deal of time complaining about his opponent’s campaign tactics — he made scant reference to Clinton and heaped fulsome praise on Kerrey. “We’re very grateful to President Clinton for being here,” Webb said. Where another speaker might have said what an honor it was, and what a great president Clinton was, and how exciting it was to have him, Webb moved right on: “I want to introduce also my great and longtime friend, Sen. Bob Kerrey. If it were not for Bob Kerrey, I would not be standing here in front of you, because he is the individual I talked to when I first decided seriously to run for the U.S. Senate. He’s my brother, a Vietnam veteran, he’s the winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor.” It was clear to anyone watching that that meant a lot more to Webb than the former commander-in-chief standing a few inches away. To a lot of voters in Virginia — although few, if any, in this crowd — that said something good about Jim Webb. In any event, Webb had clearly left it up to Clinton to do the reaching out. “I was personally thrilled when Jim Webb decided to run for the Senate,” Clinton told the crowd, “and I was thinking something that he has often said, that after 9/11, we all had to let our former divisions go.” Later, Clinton said, “I glory, it makes my heart thrill” to hear Webb talk about economic justice. It’s fair to say that Clinton made a lot more gestures to Webb than the other way around. And then Clinton launched into a sometimes rambling but always entertaining speech which might have been headlined, “Things Were Great When I Was President.” Or perhaps, “George Bush and the Republicans Messed Up Everything I Did.” And oh, by the way — vote for Jim Webb. As he often does in political appearances, Clinton seemed to relish telling the crowd that he has become quite wealthy since leaving office, and that he is angry at the Bush administration and the Republican Congress for giving him an unwanted tax cut. “People like me — I love saying this, I never had a nickel to my name until I got out of the White House,” Clinton said — people like him have not been asked to sacrifice to pay for the war in Iraq. “Nothing, nothing could stand in the way of them throwing money at those of us who don’t need it instead of giving it to those of you who do. That’s not class warfare. My class is winning, and I don’t like it.” Any Clinton speech also reveals scars from the many investigations of his conduct in office. “I heard a story today on the news that said that this Congress spent eight times as many hours holding hearings on my Christmas list as on the no-bid contracts and missing $9 billion in Iraq,” he told the crowd. “Now, you’re laughing. I like to laugh. It enables you to listen. But it ain’t funny.” The look on his face made it clear that he certainly didn’t think so. And then Clinton launched into what was the biggest crowd-pleaser of the night. “The campaign that has been run against Jim Webb is just the most grotesque example of this formula they’re running all around the country,” he said. “It goes something like this — this is their message, pretend I’m their guy.” “OK, we really messed up. I mean, this Iraq thing didn’t work out too good, and now we’ve put Afghanistan at risk, and we probably shouldn’t have put that horse show association guy in charge of FEMA. And you know it was embarrassing when our senior White House aide, because of Mr. Abramoff, had to go to prison. But Karl Rove didn’t know anything about it — they only had 485 contacts with the White House. And he’s shy, Karl is — you’ve got to know him 486 times before he knows you. And you know we did get attacked by six federal judges in the last two months for flagrantly and deliberately violating the law in the environmental area.” “But what the heck. We’re in power. What’s the law? You know, we’ve got a lot of problems, but you’ve still got to vote for us. Because my opponent is a slug, and they’re going to tax you into the poorhouse. And on the way to the poorhouse, you’ll meet a terrorist on every street corner. And when you try to run away from that terrorist, you’ll trip over an illegal immigrant.” With that, the audience broke into a roar of laughter. “I mean, is that it?” Clinton asked. Yes, it was, they agreed. Later, as they all filed out, and the sound system cranked up — was there any other choice? — “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow,” people began talking among themselves. “God, he was great!” said one. “Isn’t he good?” said another. “He’s amazing!” said a third. They weren’t talking about Jim Webb. – Byron York, NR’s White House correspondent, is the author of the book The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy: The Untold Story of How Democratic Operatives, Eccentric Billionaires, Liberal Activists, and Assorted Celebrities Tried to Bring Down a President — and Why They’ll Try Even Harder Next Time.