New York Times, Friday, May 12, 2017

President Clinton and I met in 1984 — we were in a couple of daddy-daughter programs with our girls. I campaigned for him during four elections: three gubernatorial and one presidential. (I was running for office myself in 1996 and Bill, of course, rode my coattails all the way to a second term in the White House!) Occasionally, we worked New York Times crosswords together — well, he solved and I kinda acted like I was helping.

After meeting Wordplay principals Pat Creadon and Chris O'Malley at the ACPT in 2005, I encouraged Bill to take a meeting with them. He did so and became a star. (Along with Will Shortz, Merl Reagle, Jon Stewart, Ken Burns, Indigo Girls, Mike Mussina, and others.)

So, it was a natural, I guess, that Will asked Bill and me to team up for the celebrity co-write series. Still, I was totally honored. Will's "assignment" to us was a themeless puzzle, but he made it clear that he wanted something in the puzzle to reflect Bill's life and work. I hope we hit the mark.

Bill wrote the clues. I tweaked them a bit and sent them back to him for review. He circled a few of my tweaks and wrote, "Too easy and boring--might as will print the answers in the puzzle!" So, I backed off. And left the editing to Will.

I'm digging this celeb series. I particularly like when the celeb puzzle reflects something about the person — very cool to get "It's the ECONOMY, stupid!" I vividly remember that phrase (or something like it) from the Bush Sr. / Clinton race — what power those four words had.

I was surprised that DON'T STOP didn't get clued in relation to the Fleetwood Mac song, one I associate strongly with Clinton. Maybe that would have made it too easy?

Fun to see GI BILL too. Made me think of a President Clinton action figure, in a box set along with Duke, Snake Eyes, and Sgt. Slaughter.

Did I miss any Clinton references? It was enjoyable to scour the grid and clues, searching for any Easter eggs like DON'T STOP.

A couple of good feature entries too, like MISHMASH crossing MADMAN. Along with MAIN MENU, I wondered if there was an M* M* mini-theme somewhere in there?

There was more crossword glue than I like holding the grid together, though. It's common to get some ALEG, TSO, ARA, AER, COS — these are fairly minor. DRAWEE … it is in the dictionary, but I'd guess that a large majority of constructors (and solvers) would prefer not to get entries like this. And ILOILO is a common constructing crutch, given its favorable alternation of consonant / vowels.

All in all, too much iffy short fill and not enough great long fill for my taste — I have very high expectations for themelesses these days. But it sure was fun to search for those Clinton-specific references. It would have been great to get a few more entries like BUBBA (perhaps clued as [___ Gump Shrimp Company] to hide the reference to Clinton's nickname), TENOR SAX, FOLKSY, etc.

ADDED NOTE: Judge Vic clued me into the mini-theme (highlighted below). How neatly those split up into crossword symmetry! I wish those had been hinted at though, or shaded — apparently all four of Judge Vic's test-solvers missed the connection, too. I fear that the five of us won't be the only ones.