Does Bill Clinton hold any blame for the current division in our Party?

[kentuck]

Did his Third Way or "triangulation" help or hurt our Party? Did his move to the center "alienate" many of the traditional liberal voters within the Party? Did his signing of Nafta, GATT, and the trade treaties strain the traditonal alliance between the liberals and moderates within our Party?

As for Al Gore, I think he is a populist at heart but as VP, he could not really go against the wishes of the President. The VP is there to do the bidding of the President, more or less. His present alliance with Dean, in my opinion, is nothing more than his desire to see the people take control of our Party once again. He thinks Dean may be the person that has the best opportunity to do that. Whether or not that will be true remains to be seen.

It will be interesting to see if Bill Clinton gives Dean an enthusiastic endorsement if Dean is the nominee or if he endorses someone else before that. In a way, I think it is true that there are two divisions within our Party at the present time. However, who do we blame the most for that? We can discuss whether it is Al Gore's fault or Bill Clinton's fault or our own fault. After all, we voted for them and it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Our own damn fault

We let those at the top divide and conquer

Tehre are two factions the eternally defeatist (DLC Type)

And the fiery Democrats, which are also the people

Also we bought into the idea that we were too damn liberal for the
country

By the way, note Rove is gonig to use this... he claims that Dean
is too damn Liberal... WTF over?

[Catherine Vincent]

2. No.

n/t

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

3. He moved to the right to save HIMSELF, thus undercutting our party

Every decision he ever made was for himself. Not to mention he sold out every single American worker with his NAFTA crap.

Gore was and is hardly better, if at all.

[Ninga]

4. Maybe, just maybe that is why Gore

endorsed Dean. Things change, people change.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

6. Dean was and is hardly any better

Clinton, Gore, Dean - a bunch of neo-liberal, pro-NAFTA, pro-GATT "New Democrats".

Better than Republicans? Sure.

[KoKo]

5. I still hold with the view that Dems had been in the wilderness and to get

Poppy out we needed a candidate who could do it with charisma to counter Poppy's ineffectual Presidency. We were afraid that Poppy could be a two-termer and after Reagan's two terms and Carters media trashed Presidency and Dukases "Image as Snoopy" we had to have someone who was a centrist with charisma.

Thank God we had Clinton. He was the only one who fit that description and he at least held off the BFEE for 8 years! Can you imagine Baker/Bush and the other messes we would be in if Poppy ("The Snake," as Saddam referred to him) had controlled this country for four more years?
That would make 16 years of Repug rule.

Some might argue that re-electing Poppy would have brought the whole mess out into the light sooner. That the PNACers and the RW would have been exposed earlier.

But, as for Clinton, I have many problems with his compromises and in some cases his "give aways." But the RW Machine and the BFEE were on his tail throughout his Presidency and I'm conspiracy oriented enough to think that Mz. Monica was a plant. So, it's only "second guessing" at this point.

Clinton never made our country look like a Dictatorship to the World and I never was afraid the whole time he was President. There's probably much we don't know, but I will give him a break and move on to try to undo what he did willingly or unwillingly and what the Repug Party has done to us since Nixon.

[DemCam]

11. Yes and love this sentence

"Clinton never made our country look like a Dictatorship to the World and I never was afraid the whole time he was President."

Those are my sentiments exactly and grieved for that comfort as soon as Gore failed to stand up for himself.

In fact, if Mr. Gore is unhappy about not being President, it is only indirectly the fault of Bill Clinton. The truth is, none of us really loved Gore with the same passion that those of us who loved Clinton did. And it was that lack of passion that made the difference in his inability to prevail. Not only did he fight will loaded cannon...we as Democrats failed to bring our artillery.

Bill Clinton's fault? Hell, no, because we know Bill wouldn't have not fought the good fight and led the charge.

I know that the true left never loved Clinton...and perhaps had as much distaste for him as the far right.

But this split has existed for a long time...maybe forever...and every time we elect a Left candidate, the Democratic Party loses, which we seem to like to do when we have incumbent Republican presidents.

<b>Question: were you better off under our last far-left President?

[CMT]

7. except on the presidential level

the democratic party lost ground during the Clinton years. We lost congress in '94, we went into the minority with governorships, and we lost ground in the state legislatures. I don't necessarily blame Clinton for this, but it is an interesting fact.

[Gin]

10. I agreed with him on everything but NAFTA...I am a centrist...

does it matter???? Clinton is no longer an issue.

I am a Democrat...I wants fiscal responsiblilty and social programs....

The party is only split if we allow it to be...I dont care who gets the nomination..I am voting Democratic...The goal is to get rid of shrub.

If we all quit fighting...and stay focused on the end result...we will be victorious.

I favor Dean....but will vote for and support the Democratic nominee...no matter who that person turns out to be.

Lets focus on the end result. Happy Holidays.

[DemCam]

15. I agreed on Nafta

and hated the Tobacco lawsuits. So where does that place me in this party?

My issues that place me in this party are the social issues, and like you, I think fiscal responsibility is a necessity.

And I am not for Dean because I just can't see his uniting appeal like Clinton could pull off. If he is the nominee, I will certainly support him because I want Bush out, the sooner the better because I can't bear to think about what they will do in the next four years to every social program we have, to fiscal responsibility, to other nations. Too hideous to contemplate...so I try not to.

[IrateCitizen]

8. I used to say yes, but now I say no -- it's OUR fault

Bill Clinton was just like anybody else who aspires to the Presidency -- he is a person with a massive ego. Any politician who reaches that point doesn't get there primarily on their honesty or morality -- they get there on their ambition, first and foremost.

That being said, most people who were center or left were just so happy after Clinton's inauguration that the Reagan/Bush I era was behind us, that we didn't keep the heat on. We trusted him to do the "right thing".

Then the right wing came after him. And since the overwhelming majority of noise was coming from the right, it was perceived that the center actually lay to the right. And that's what Clinton went after -- the center.

I don't blame Clinton because I recognize what he is -- a person whose primary motivation is his own ambition above all else. He's a professional politician, after all. It was our collective fault for not using that trait against him, for making him concede to the left and produce real and lasting reform.

[Iverson]

9. not very much

The serious division (as opposed to superficial divisions) in the Democratic Party is a product of competing ideology. Bill Clinton is only one person. He may be an exponent of one side (the DLC) but was individually skillful enough that he tended to reduce rather than exacerbate divisions that were already well in place.

The "third way" only attaches to him because he was the President, but if not to him, then it would be ascribed to someone else. It's not his signing of NAFTA, GATT, etc. that exacerbated divisions, but rather a mentality that made those things desirable at all within the Democratic Party.

Blaming a person isn't your real challenge here.

[AntiCoup2K4]

12. If Clinton's running the DLC and/or DNC then he deserves part of the blame

For every disaster in the last 3 years, and rumor is that McUseless works for the Clintons.

However, what's wrong with our party also has a great deal to do with the asskissers in Congress, including the so called "leadership". Voting for the war, for the Patriot Act, for the corporatization of Medicare under a Fraudministration as tied to pharmaceuticals as they are to oil.

These tutu wearing kissasses do this party and this country absolutely no good. And that much ain't Bill Clinton's doing, though Hillary has been involved in much of it..

[AP]

17. Bush and the Republicans are formidable -- they're dirty fighters and they

are rich and they have the media on their side.

Clinton is fighting an uphill battle. I think the fact that Democrats are even in the hunt is a testament to Clinton's talent for rallying the party around winnable themes.

Doesn't anyone remember the state of the party pre-1992? Mondale? Dukakis? Tsongas? Come on folks.

[janx]

13. Clinton has absolutely nothing to do with this. The wingnuts

are spreading this like crazy with some help from Joe Lieberman, who invokes Clinton's name often.

Clinton is waiting to see who will be the nominee. Then he will endorse that person.

[Robbien]

14. I do blame him.

He and Hillary have claimed the DLC for themselves. They didn't loosen the purse strings to support democratic candidates in state and local elections since they grabbed the purse in l992. They are sitting there on a pile of our money. We are out here all by ourselves without leadership or a contribution solicitation machine.

Money counts in these elections and they have all of ours.

ABC dissed our candidates and where is our leadership on this? Not with us. They have other priorities.

[DinkyDem]

18. Hammer, meet nail head

The Clintons have been running the party for themselves, keeping themselves in the spotlight, and keeping any new star from emerging.

Some of you need to take a look at yourselves. You need the Clintons to tell you who you are. You need them to tell you how to think. Some of you are completely brainwashed and hypnotized. (Clark supporters, anyone?)

The Clintons have done it all for the money from the very beginning. Now Hillary has carpet bagged to NYC, where the most money is to be had. And yet some of you sit around thinking that the Clintons are the Great Stewards, all the while the ship has been sinking with them at the helm.

Wake up, snap out of it, and take the Party back for the People. The Democrat party belongs to us, not the Clinton Big Money Whores!

I know some of you are crying now.

[cigarstore]

20. Right on!

[dolstein]

16. Do you think the world began in 1992?

You certainly act like it. The Democratic Party's decline has been a long-term problem dating back to at least 1948. Bill Clinton certainly helped reverse that decline in terms of national public opinion. Only a certified crank would dismiss the significance of winning the popular vote in three consecutive presidential elections -- something the Democrats hadn't accomplished for half a century. But the unfavorable regional trends in the South and rural West were something that even Clinton was unable to halt, although one might speculate about how things might have been different if Ms. Lewinsky had never entered the picture.

In any event, the fact that the greatest Democratic losses have come in the most conservative parts of the country pretty much rips to shred the argument that the Democratic Party's problem is that is isn't liberal enough. Now that may be something you can't handle, but it's the truth.

[cigarstore]

19. Hurt-Short term gain only (eom)

[corporatewhore]

21. again i think that bill clinton was a good republican

I am on the production team of an indy tv series (have to brag have had our pilot shown on free speech tv)I got the oppertunity to film a woman from iraq who was here with help from voices of the wilderness to get medical treatment for her son who had one hundred pieces of shapnel inside of him.Her other son died.I cried while i filmed her speak of the death of her child and so many other children during sanctions.Most of the production crew assumed this happened george hw bush but it happened under clinton (1999)I also believe that his approval of nafta etc was like giving the finger to not just the liberals of the democratic party but alot of conservative republicans who see free trade for what it is the out sourcing of american jobs to sweatshops .I dont see this as limited to clinton in the democratic party but for the majority who totally ignore us who speak out against war even when it happens under a dem to those of us who find the brutalization oflatin america to enforce trade policies like plan puebla de panama appaling , to those of us who suffer under economic oppression when our jobs go away and the democrats who ignore the blatant human rights violations comitted by the israelis

[randr]

22. What division

I think the "division" is a myth perpetrated by the right. Did we call the repugs divided when McCann and Bush were running against each other?
The primaries are a test run of sorts to see how well the candidates and their ideas fair in competition.
If you think you are ready to abandon ship if your favorite politician is not selected by this process, don't let the door hit you on your way out.

[Hope4]

23. It will be interesting to see who wins this war, Clinton or Gore

I can understand how people like Bill, but I have never understood why we want Hillary. I have seen nothing she has done as a leader and only problems.

I think they are trying to block anyone that will not be under them. Let us see what happens with Dean and if they go after him.