IF CLINTON WINS, WHAT WILL BILL DO WITH HIS DAYS?

Bill Clinton likely to play an active role

Bill Clinton has led the free world, stared down an impeachment and built a vast international charity, all while hobnobbing with a global who’s who of political leaders and business titans.

So, if his wife Hillary is elected, will Clinton be content picking out White House china patterns and arranging the seating at state dinners?

The answer seems fairly obvious, but exactly what he might do, what impact he would have — or even what he would be called — as the first male spouse of a U.S. president is a topic of fervent speculation.

“We are clearly in uncharted territory,” said Don Levy, a professor at Siena College in Loudonville, N.Y., who oversees an expert ranking of U.S. first ladies. “Bill Clinton clearly is unique beyond any description. He would be the first man in the role, and, by God, he is a former president of the United States.”

Melania Trump, on the other hand, would likely be his polar opposite in the world’s most-famous unpaid job, and not just because of her gender.

A woman with a minimal public profile, she recently said she leaves policy pronouncements to her husband Donald Trump and has predicted she would be a conservative first lady, focusing on cyber-bullying as a cause.

Bill Clinton would almost certainly not be hovering modestly in the background; his wife has already suggested he would play an active role, possibly by trying to spur job creation.

“He knows how to do it, (especially) in places like coal country and inner cities,” Hillary Clinton said in May.

Meanwhile, experts speculate that their daughter Chelsea could take on some of the more ritual roles, as other relatives who were not wives have done in the past.

Yet if there was once talk of voters getting a “two-forone” deal with the Clintons, observers and insiders now wonder whether Bill’s largerthan-life persona and baggage from his controversial presidency would make him an asset, or a liability.

Part of the concern is the Clinton Foundation, his main raison d’être since he left office and widely acclaimed for its work in the developing world. It’s also the focus of charges the couple inappropriately curried favour with foreign donors.

The Clintons have vowed to keep it at a distance, but the charity will likely still loom large.

“There is so much to their history that is controversial, that he’ll have to be extremely careful about,” said Anita McBride, chief of staff to first lady Laura Bush and a veteran of two other administrations.

“Creating the firewall to keep (the foundation) separate, it will keep the lawyers at the White House very, very busy.”

While Michelle Obama “won America over” and helped boost her husband’s popularity, it seems unlikely that Bill could tamp down the animosity some Americans feel toward his wife, said Levy.

Kate Andersen Brower, who studied the presidents’ better halves in her justpublished First Women: The Grace and Power of America’s Modern First Ladies, says Hillary Clinton confidantes laugh when asked if Bill would have an office in the East Wing, the residential part of the White House and traditional roost of more-passive first ladies.

He expects to be on the road frequently, a substantive part of the administration, she says.

Yet there would have to be a limit to his involvement — cronyism rules make a cabinet post impossible, for instance — forcing him into the role of spectator.

“Your ego can’t get in the way,” said Brower. “It will be interesting to see how he handles that.”

The relatively high-profile role played by a U.S. president’s spouse is fairly unique. Yet no job description exists, no law or constitutional section spells out the parameters, leaving individuals to make their own rules.

Wives have ranged from the Jackie Kennedy type, focused on ceremony and being gracious companions, to more like presidential “partners,” such as Eleanor Roosevelt, says Levy.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s outspoken wife gave speeches, made radio addresses, even held news conferences through her husband’s 12-year tenure.

Others have eschewed politics but promoted a pet cause: education and Afghan women for Laura Bush; childhood obesity for Michelle Obama.

In a variety of ways, “they play an extremely important role,” argues McBride.

As intriguing as Bill Clinton would be as first gentleman — or first partner or first dude — Melania Trump remains something of an enigma.

When her then-boyfriend considered a presidential bid in 1999, she told The New York Times she would be a “very traditional” first lady, akin to Betty Ford or Kennedy.

She confirmed in a speech Thursday she would take on the cause of online bullying, a perhaps ironic issue, given her husband’s penchant for social-media insults.

“If she becomes first lady … she would be the first first lady who’s ever posed nude,” said Brower. “But I think she would also be the most traditional first lady we’ve had in a long time, more of a 1950s housewife than anyone we’ve seen since Mamie Eisenhower.”