KEY POINTS:
WASHINGTON - When you are there, in person, you get an idea of what all the fuss and bother is about.
When you see how he effortlessly connects with an audience, somehow making it appear he is speaking to each and every one of them individually, you understand
why people will pay good money to listen to Bill Clinton.
Take for example the Democratic Party convention in the summer of 2004 in Boston. Knowing that Clinton's oratorical skills would drown those of the presidential candidate John Kerry, officials made sure the two men addressed the party faithful on different days.
It made no difference; despite Senator Kerry's valiant efforts - "I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty" - it was Clinton's speech, and that of the then unknown Barack Obama, that people remembered.
Or how about that October, just two months after he had undergone quadruple heart by-pass surgery, when Clinton stumped for Mr Kerry in Philadelphia in the final days of the election campaign.
"If that's not good for my heart I don't know what is," Clinton told the crowd, smiling and putting his hand to his chest as 20,000 people cheered and roared.
Even on that occasion, with his powers greatly reduced, he held his audience transfixed and he relished once again being in the limelight.
But if it has long been known how good a speaker Clinton is, it has now been revealed just how profitable an endeavour it has become for him.
A report in a US newspaper shows that from having left the White House six years ago in deep debt, the former president has now amassed around US$40 million from speaking fees.
Last year alone he averaged around one speech a day and earned almost US$10m.
An awful lot of the speeches that Clinton delivers are not for money.
Of last year's 352 appearances only 20 per cent were for personal gain, the vast majority being given for no fee or else in exchange for a contribution to the charitable foundation he has established to engage in such causes as Aids prevention and urban renewal.
The William J Clinton foundation has reportedly received US$60m this way.
But when he does appear for money, his bank account is boosted by hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time.
The New York-based investment fund Goldman Sachs - whose employees are major contributors to the campaign of his wife, Senator Hillary Clinton - has paid the former president US$650,000 for a total of four speeches in recent years.
Meanwhile the Citigroup bank paid him US$250,000 for a single speech, delivered in France in 2004.
And Clinton is not scrambling to find work; while he makes hundreds of speeches, he receives thousands of requests.
Clinton's appeal as a speaker is two-fold. He is both a masterful orator and a true A-list celebrity.
People want to hear him speak but they also want to associate themselves with him, just as they might with a film star.
Stephen Hess, Professor of public affairs at George Washington University and a former speech writer for President John F Kennedy, said Clinton was on occasion, a great speaker but that was only part of the draw.
"Clinton is a great celebrity - a great celebrity - and people want to come out and look at," he said.
"From the host [of the event's] point of view that can make them money, they can sell tickets for the event, but normally it is done for public relations or branding purposes."
Of Clinton's skills, he added: "He is like a musician. He takes a theme and does a riff, so it does not necessarily come out like the speech-writer would do it for him. Of course, he is a very smart guy so it's also true that he has a lot to say...He likes to speak because he likes words, he likes thoughts. He likes to ruminate."
Clinton - and his speech-writers - also have the knack for killer lines.
How about this simple, effective and hugely memorable line from his first inaugural address in January 1993.
"There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America."
Or how about this somewhat hokey gem, offered up to reporter and author Joe Klein: "Character is a journey, not a destination."
Sylvia Tidy-Harris, managing director of the UK-based The Speakers Agency, which represents dozens of speakers ranging from Toyah Willcox to Rageh Omaar, said of Clinton: "He is a great orator, he is fantastic. He is one of the few people I would pay money to go and see."
Clinton's abilities as a speaker and a campaigner have also long been recognised by his wife.
In her 2003 memoir Living History, Mrs Clinton noted that the first time she spotted her future husband, he was delivering an impromptu speech to fellow students at Yale.
She wrote: "He...had a vitality that seemed to shoot out of his pores. When I first saw him in the law school's student lounge, he was holding forth before a rapt audience of fellow students.
As I walked by, I heard him say '...and not only that, we grow the biggest water melons in the world'.
I asked a friend 'Who is that?'. 'Oh, that's Bill Clinton', he said. 'He's from Arkansas and that's all he ever talks about'."
For Mrs Clinton, her husband's abilities are a double-edged sword.
While she wants to capitalise on his campaigning power and his personal popularity, appearing with him at an event where both of them speak is almost certain to add to the impression that she can be cold and somewhat robotic.
As a result, Mrs Clinton's aides are drawing up plans for her husband to campaign for his wife as she makes her run for the White House, but largely without her being present.
Of course, Clinton is not the first former president to have turned to speaking as a way of earning money.
Ronald Reagan drew headlines shortly after he completed his two terms in office in 1989 when he travelled to Japan and earned US$2m for personal appearances.
Likewise both George Bush Sr and Jimmy Carter have earned considerable income from travelling and speaking.
But few appear to have the same combination of A-list celebrity and charisma that Clinton appears to ooze.
The former president's spokesman, Jay Carson, told the Washington Post: "The reason that we picked paid speeches is that it is an efficient way for him to make a living for his family and allow him a lot of time to do charitable work, which is his passion."
Of deciding which invitations to accept and which to politely decline, Mr Carson said Clinton tried to combine charitable work, his personal appearances and speeches that will benefit the Democrats.
He added: "We take a look at his schedule and say 'All right, he has to be in this place for this paid speech. There are three or four great things we've been meaning to do in this place. Let's do them'."
An example of this was last year when Clinton had been booked for a US$150,000 speech in Denver, Colorado, before the National Apartment Association, a trade body that represents landlords.
On discovering that efforts to raise funds to build a memorial to the victims of Columbine were struggling, he offered to make a speech at a special ceremony.
As a result, the fund-raising saw an immediate boost.
On that Colorado trip he also spoke to a group of head teachers.
Yet the report published yesterday revealed that despite careful vetting of requests and painstaking planning, Clinton's line of work has occasionally left himself open to controversy.
In 2005, for instance, he travelled to a resort in the Bahamas and earned US$150,000 from the Swiss bio-technology firm Serono International.
A few months later, the company pleaded guilty to two federal conspiracy charges and paid US$704m in fines.
Likewise, in December 2001 he accepted US$125,000 to address an Illinois-based company at the centre of sexual harassment allegations.
Mr Carson admitted: "We take our vetting process very seriously and we do our best to catch any issues. And given the volume of that we are not always perfect."
- INDEPENDENT
