Clinton School Dean Skip Rutherford was there at the very beginning of then-Governor Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential run. In fact, he and the future president chatted about the possible run as early as the summer of 1990 in the bleachers of their daughters’ softball games in Little Rock.
Rutherford describes these moments and his subsequent role in his friend’s formal campaign in interviews with the late Diane Blair, a former University of Arkansas political science professor whose papers were released Tuesday at the UA’s Mullins Library.
Blair took a leave of absence from her UA post in 1992 to serve as a senior researcher for the Clinton campaign. About a month before the election, Clinton gave her permission to interview campaign staff members and volunteers for a historical archive.
The papers are housed at the David and Barbara Pryor Center for Oral and Visual History at the UA, which is named for Clinton School founding Dean David Pryor. Of Blair’s 120 interviews, 67 agreed to be included in the public archive.
Pryor himself joins Rutherford and top Clinton campaign aides James Carville, George Stephanopoulos and David Wilhelm, among others, included in the public archive. Click here for access to the full transcripts on the Pryor Center Web site.