Clinton: helped or hurt party?

[Deaniac20]

This topic is very widely debated. Some believe his centrism hurt in the long run, others feel that he made us a nationally viable entity again. He may have gone right on some issues, but compared to Bush it is like night and day. He was actually a lot more liberal than he appears to be. So what do you believe he did for our party? I think he made us nationally viable again, because he balanced the budget and the only reason Kerry had a chance is because people like Clinton according to approval polls. He also rid the part of th soft on crime image. However, I think he hurt us with NAFTA. That I think is part of the intrapartisan lock that got the GOP congress in 94, and it was another reason people voted for Perot and Nader. The DLC had its use in 1992, becuase then we needed centering, but I think he shoulda dumped it after his election. He did a lot of good for our country, and I think he helped over all, but could have done somethings differently.

[mattclearing]

1. Isn't that kind of a simplistic question for a complicated issue? n/t

[Egalitariat]

2. Our party was irrelevant before Clinton, and has been irrelevant

since. He presented an opportunity for us to grow in strength, and we promptly blew the opportunity.

We get to have a Democratic president about once every 2 decades, and we need to leverage it into real power the next chance we get.

Of course, it means we all need to be on the same end of the rope pulling in the same direction, and not have everyone pouting around because, although the Dem pres agrees with 99% of my personal agenda, I can't support him b/c of the other 1%.

[cornermouse]

6. Wait a minute there.

The people who went after Clinton, also smeared McCain, Cleland, and Kerry.

It would not have mattered which democrat got into the White House, they would have done it to them too and they will try to do it with the next democrat president.

They are people who have absolutely no ethics, no morals, and no conscience.

[salib]

7. Are you then saying that the Repugs would be more

"relevent" if they moved to the center? Seems like the moved the other way, yet they became more "relevent" based upon your analysis. BTW, I think the Dems came out ahead in terms of number of presidential years in the 20th Century. I would also argue, that the Dems are the ones where the relevent candidates for president are in the primaries.

[BUSH_IS_SATAN]

58. although the Dem pres agrees with 99% of my personal agenda

although the Dem pres agrees with 99% of my personal agenda

Isn't this statement part of the problem with this country. Maybe we don't need to be 100% concerned with our personal agenda, but rather do things that are good for the country. Exactly what you say is part of why I dislike Republicans. Many vote only to further their personal agendas. They know it is wrong, but it helps them in their tiny little lives. Doesn't Jesus teach us to help each other, not just ourselves? This is a hard concept for some, but I believe that when we help others and give more than we receive, it comes back to us in abundance. I believe Americans need to stop thinking always of me, and instead think about US.

[MissWaverly]

3. I think he will look better as time passes

now we see the end result of the moralists of the Republicans, a total ham fisted power grab with criminal overtones, a pre-emptive war which is some kind of modern mumbo-jumbo for an invasion of a nation we were not at war with. I think the Clinton era will be known as the rise of the neocons and their attempt to smear Clinton with Monica Lewinsky, which although regretable, was not related to his job as President and world leader. Looking back at the last 5 years, I find it ludicrous that Bush has not been held accountable while Clinton was demonized over nothing.

[Deja Q]

8. * is obviously worse, but I disagree with you on one point:

Clinton did the act in the Oval Office. Monica was just bait for a ploy made by the repukes but Bill should have been smarter if he wanted to screw up his marriage - which is definitely not our concern but it sure as hell DID impact enough of election 2000 to become Selection 2000. Far more than Nader's puny presence could have done.

[MissWaverly]

12. true, but it was pumped up & pumped up by the media

and although it was objectionable, it's not criminal, we are not talking about the wh being used for prostitution, although, this may be true in these evil days. FDR's mistress lived in the White House, I do not think that it took away from his presidency, though it's a miracle that it wasn't shouted from every roof top like it would be today.

[Ken Burch]

23. considering what we're talking about there

I wish you'd used a different adjective than "pumped."

In the context, it really sucks.

[funflower]

15. Clinton did the act in a lot of places

and we still nominated him, and people still elected him.

It's better than what's going on in the Oval Office now.

But you're right. He should have known better.

[Hippo_Tron]

22. Sorry but Monica impacting election 2000 is bullshit

The only people who lost in the Monica thing was the GOP. Clinton's approval rating was 78% on the day of his impeachment. That was *'s approval rating around the time of 9/11. Sure, his pants antics were embarassing but the GOP's antics were much more embarassing and ultimately it did us more good than it did them. It may have stopped the Clinton presidency from any major accomplishments in the last two years but Gore should've been able to go into 2000 championing the great economy and calling the Republicans a bunch of nutballs who are out to overthrow the government. Gore has nobody to blame but himself for that election.

[Apollo11]

31. Don't blame Gore

Hippo-Tron says: "Gore has nobody to blame but himself for that election." Sorry buddy - gotta rebutt your @$$!

What about Katherine Harris, Jeb Bush, and the 4 Supreme Court judges who made sure that W "won" Florida by any means necessary?

What about the clowns in Palm Beach County like DINO Teresa Lapore who misled thousands into mistakenly punching for Buchanan?

What about the Washington Post and New York Times spreading lies about Gore and misquoting him, making it look like he had claimed to invent the internet and discover river pollution single-handed?

What about Ralph Nader and Michael Moore telling progressive voters there was NO DIFFERENCE between Gore and W?

What about Bill Clinton who was a disgrace to his office? I'm sorry - but the CEO seducing a young intern and persuading her to perform indecent acts in the workplace is an abuse of power - period. The average American voter could not look at Clinton in 2000 without seeing Monica and her stained blue dress. You cannot measure the impact on the election - but it sure did not help Gore. It even forced him to pick a running mate (Lieberman) with the sole objective of distancing himself from Clinton's behavior. But still he could not escape Clinton's shadow the whole campaign.

OK so maybe Gore did not run the perfect campaign in 2000, and his performance in the televised debates was somewhat "stiff". But he did win the popular vote and would now be in his 5th year as President -were it not for criminal shenanigans down in Florida.

Do you also blame Kerry for the fact that Diebold and Blackwell helped "win" Ohio for Bush in 2004? That's like blaming the victim instead of the perp. Not my idea of justice.

www.algore-08.com
http://algore2008.net

[Deaniac20]

32. all right until

you blame william jefferson clinton, whose approval ratings were in the sixties throughout his second term, including 2000. The only reason Gore had a shot that year was because of Clinton's record. Gore picking Lieberman was the nuce around his neck, for two reasons. One, HE is the reason people went and voted for Nader because he is a DINO, and two, because he is Jewish and Pat Robertson will do anything to keep a Jew furthest from the presidency.

And regarding Kerry, he just plain lost. OK voting problems existed, but I have not seen any hard proof that Kerry won Ohio. I also think the argurment is further weakened by the fact he lost the popular vote. His loss margin was also quite a bit larger than Gores "loss" in Florida. 120000 votes is a little much to think a recount will change anything. The state has nowhere near as many blacks to disenfranchize like in Florida.

[Hippo_Tron]

36. Oh Gee, don't blame Gore for losing his own election

Gore had every resource in the world to work with and he STILL LOST. He was a strong VP for an incumbent President who had approval ratings in the 60's and had been responsible for a great economy. He had a fucking moron as his opponent who he could've easily destroyed in the debates but didn't. He had far more choices for plausible running mates than Kerry did and he picked Lieberman. Also, Rove couldn't manage to get the fundies out in the troves that he got them out in 2004.

You're right Katherine Harris and Jeb stole the election. But it shouldn't have mattered. Gore should have won Florida by a million votes. He should have won Ohio, he should have won Tennesee, he should have won Arkansas, he should have won Nevada, he should have won New Hampshire, and if he had run a skilled campaign he should have won Louisiana as well.

2000 should've been a repeat of 1988. Shrubya before 9/11 was an easier opponent to trash than Dukakis was and Gore had an even stronger incumbent President to work with than Raygun was at the time (Raygun was seriously weakened by scandals at the end of his presidency). Instead it was a repeat of 1960, except that the challenger wasn't a bright young charismatic senator and world war II vet. The challenger was a fucking moron who went AWOL from the national guard and had nothing going for him but his daddy's name.
9/11 changed chimpy into a serious candidate, but in 2000 9/11 hadn't happened yet.

[Apollo11]

38. Hey! -- Give Gore a break!

First of all - thanks Deaniac and Hippo_Tron for getting back to me on this. While I strongly disagree with your input - I accept it.

W was not such a weak candidate in 2000. He talked all that "compassionate conservative" stuff, promised to restore integrity to the White House (after Clinton's indefensible behavior), and reached out to hispanic voters. I don't see how Gore would have got more votes by going negative and "trashing" W.

And even with what went on in Florida, Gore got more votes (51 million) that W or any other candidate in the history of the USA (until 2004). So how can you say his campaign sucked?

On October 11, 2004 - three weeks before the last Presidential election - Congressman Pete King (R-NY) said "It's already over. The election's over. We won. It's all over but the counting and we'll take care of the counting." (HBO documentary)

Don't forget that 80% of the votes are counted by 2 private companies - ES&S and Diebold - both owned and controlled by conservative Republicans.

No paper trail means there is no way to know if election results are being hacked or adjusted by means of electronic or human intervention. There is no way to have a meaningful "recount" without voter-verified paper ballots.

The mainstream media, largely in the pockets of corporations who support Bu$h, is deliberately ignoring the important issues of voter rights, electoral integrity, voting systems being vulnerable to fraud, etc. The message coming from the mainstream media is that Bush won Florida in 2000, he won Florida and Ohio in 2004, and anyone who says different is a nut.

Too many of the Democratic politicians are afraid to push this issue because then the mainstream media will portray them as sore losers (like happened to Gore in 2000). And they must also be afraid that people will stop voting if they stop believing that their vote will be counted.

It's almost impossible for the Dems to win against a rigged system. And it's no answer to say "well - if our guy gets like 60% of the votes then there's no way the Repugs could steal the election and get away with it". That's like needing a 10-point lead to "win" a football game, when 1 point should be enough.

Now we have to count on the 2 Jimmys - Carter and Baker - to clean up elections. But it will only happen with a strong movement of citizens demanding clean elections. It will not happen if Democrats hide their heads in the sand and pretend that other issues are more important that whether our elections are being corrupted.

Check out these links for more background:
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2005/1086
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1225
http://www.donotconcede.com/
http://velvetrevolution.us/
http://www.democraticunderground.com/crisis/05/008_ep.html
http://www.crisispapers.org/essays-p/fraud.htm

[Hippo_Tron]

40. ES&S + Diebold were a post 2000 phenomenon

They were actually the RW's response to the 2000 debacle and an excuse to say that they were "fixing" the problem.

Gore actually got the second most votes out of anyone until 2004, Reagan got the most. But statistics like that mean less when you consider the fact that the US population is constantly increasing.

Bush had Clinton's blow job to run on, Gore had Clinton's 8 years of peace and prosperity to run on. Clearly the public cared more about the peace and prosperity because it showed up in Clinton's 78% approval ratings at the time of his impeachment.

Gore also had a crappy campaign team when he could've easily hired Carville and his guys. Gore should've beaten chimp with a mandate. At the very least, he should've been able to squeak by in the electoral college WITHOUT Florida.

[Apollo11]

43. Forgot about Reagan ...

... but 51 million is still a lot of votes. More than Clinton ever got, even with Carville running his campaign!

And the whole point of what happened in Florida in 2000 is that thousands of people who wanted to vote for Gore did not have their votes included in the official result for various reasons (starting with lists of felons, palm beach butterfly ballot, etc.).

The reason I link it to black-box electronic voting is that its not really fair to blame a candidate (whether Gore or Kerry) for losing a rigged election. And that's why I think that fixing the system and ensuring electoral integrity is so important.

[Deja Q]

4. Depends on the issue, but:

* NAFTA
* DOMA
* DMCA
* Revocation of the fed 55MPH limit
* Firing Jocelyn Elders
* 1995 welfare 'reform'
* 1996 telecom act
* Using the Oval Office for something X-rated
* Not following through on the universal healthcare issue, which has led many to bankruptcy, an issue I'd rather not talk about for a good reason...

Definitely did nothing to help. And those I remember off the top of my head.

His foreign diplomacy was second to none.

And despite it all he was RESPONSIBLE in balancing the budget, left decimated by 12 years' of republican recklessness. Even if it included issues like the 1995 reform.

Indeed, had Clinton hunkered down on corporate subsidies (McDonalds alone got half a billion for going to Turkey to peddle "Chicken" McNuggets) he would have helped the corporate welfare problem AND the federal budget a lot more.


edit: Spelling

[funflower]

5. Clinton was awesome.

NAFTA was good for a lot of working people on the coasts. Maybe it hurt in the rustbelt. The days of the mega-powerful unions aren't coming back anytime soon, so we dems are going to have to find another reason to exist or hope people will get tired of wars and just vote ABB.

Wish we could convince people that the environment mattered.

[Deja Q]

9. Convince the people it'll hurt their grown children the most.

If they really do give a fuck about their children and the future of the world, they'll do something.

For over 30 years we as a party have complained. Some has been done, but not enough. Thanks to peak oil, mommy nature might be taking the issue out of our hands. Let's just not nuke the planet in the process. We're all dead either way.

[funflower]

16. I'd like to think that would work

Remember that story about the frog in the teakettle?

[salib]

10. ROTFLMAO

Are you serious? NAFTA helping people on the coasts!?!? Unions are so irrelevant that we need something else like war weariness? People do not think the environment matters?

What bridge did you crawl out from under?

[Deja Q]

11. Re: Unions, he's got a point.

I've seen my union deteriorate over the last 3 years. They won't help people who they should be... but I won't go into details except I agree they ARE losing power.

[MissWaverly]

13. We're all losing money and power

The government and it's cost of operation grow daily, 1100 of the tax dollars I just paid have gone to pay off interest on the debt. Free speech is no longer free, the government reminds me of Jack and the beanstalk, it continues to rise to lofty heights where it's impossible to have input. Where would we be w/o the internet.

[funflower]

14. Dear Rolling....

People on the blue, blue west coast, at least, don't perceive that NAFTA hurts us. We depend on foreign trade, and unions have never really been very big here. I think that structural changes in the economy, along with the unstoppable forces of globalization, are undermining the power of unions in many parts of the country. The public employees unions have been hammered by budget cuts and the teachers are losing power due to decreasing birth rates.

Unions are not irrelevant, but they're not what they were fifty years ago, either. Also, some union types are attracted to the macho rhetoric that comes from the repubs, so, despite their money, the rank and file are not as loyal as we'd like to think. If dems exist only to protect unions, our base will continue to erode.

Poll after poll shows that the environment is nowhere near the top of most people's lists when it comes to presidential elections (they vote for the economy, security and moral values). If it were, Al Gore would have won hands down. I wish it were, and I'd like to convince people it should be. It's at the top of my list.

[salib]

17. On the blue, blue west coast...

"Every state and the District of Columbia suffered significant job losses due to growing trade deficits between 1994 and 2000. Ten states, led by California, lost over 100,000 net jobs."

http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/briefingpapers_bp118

[funflower]

18. The blue coast

What I'm tell ya' is that people who make microchips don't PERCEIVE this to be a problem they way people who make cars do.

Now I'm going back under my bridge or rock or wherever I came from.

[kevsand]

20. "people who make microchips don't PERCEIVE this to be a problem"

How many of ya are there left? Five, six, maybe seven or eight? You can probably have your caucuses in a coffee shop. How many companies still have significant microchip production facilities in the U.S.? Let's see, maybe Texas Instruments and, um, well, that's about it, isn't it? Does Intel have any significant production left stateside?

The reason the "people who make microchips don't PERCEIVE this to be a problem" is because the overwhelming majority of them live in Taiwan or Japan or Korea or mainland China, and it's been that way for well over a decade...

[Deaniac20]

19. Dont' forget

the total net gain of 22 million jobs during the Clinton years. And no it was not because of the internet, which helped outsource jobs. His total job creatiion is more than Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II COMBINED. I do think NAFTA was a mistake tho, more politically than anything

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ken Burch]

24. Where Clinton really could have helped, and did not

was in his response to the vicious rhetoric used against poor women in the welfare reform debate.

He could have used his own life story to refute many of those stereotypes.

He could have said "Listen, damn it, I was raised by a single mother who was sometimes on welfare, and I grew up, thanks to my own determination and the help of government when I needed it, to become a Rhodes Scholar, a law professor, governor of Arkansas and now PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

So if you're gonna talk trash 'bout my mama and me, I'm gonna ask y'all to step outside."

That's what Harry Truman would've done, and goddamn it, it would've worked.

Instead, Clinton allowed millions of working class women of all races
to be smeared and morally impugned without saying a word in their defense.

Yes, welfare needed to be changed. But it needed to be changed to jobs programs and day care centers, not just kicking poor people to the curb and leaving them to crawl away and fend for themselves.

Caving to Newt on welfare policy didn't gain Clinton a single red state vote, and it drove millions of poor people to give up on voting because they realized even Democrats weren't on their side.

That and the unwillingness to fight for single-payer health care were what created the long-term Republican Congressional majority and the collapse of the party on the state level in the Nineties.

Clintonism never elected anybody BUT Clinton.

[Deaniac20]

26. he pursued the healthcare

all the way until the midterm election in 1994. I believe that if he had done somethings differently like not having Hillary head it, launching an ad blitz to counter Thelma and Louise, and not diverting attention by appointing an IC woulda gotten it passed because he had 58 dems in that senate and a large house majority. But also, don't forget intrapartsian lock. With over 300 seats, his economic plan shoulda passed with EVERY democrat, yet it only passed by TWO votes. If he had passed heatlhcare, then no doubt would he have been reelected with 60 percent, and the Dems would kept congress. Its no ones fault tho but Bill's for appointing Hillary, Hillary, and the so called "liberal" media who diverted attentino with whitewater.

Oh and he didn't cave into Newt with welfare policy, remember in 1992 that he wanted to "end welfare as we know it"? But don't blame Clinton directly for the Health care debacle, on the dems who didn't cooperate.

[Ken Burch]

27. The use of "end welfare as we know it" was an act

of premature caving. He was trying to out-Reagan the Reaganites.
Clinton could have used that phrase for positive change, for real job training and jobs programs. He could have used it as part of a push to compensate for the damage done by redlining. But all he did instead was to leave all the Limbaugh/Buchanan/Gingrich slanders about the poor and especially about poor women unchallenged.

And the reality is, being right-wing on welfare reform didn't actually gain Clinton or any other Democrat a single vote. Ever. End of discussion on that one.

The answer was(and still is)to empower the poor and all working people, not demonize them and pit the unemployed and the workers against each other.

Welfare reform was Clinton's George Wallace moment.

[wyldwolf]

54. no, actually, it wasn't an act

He signed welfare to work acts while governor of Arkansas which, like the one passed while president, was modeled after JFK's proposed Welfare reform that he was never able to get through Congress.

“In our generosity we have created a system of hand-outs, a second-rate set of social services which damages and demeans its recipients, and destroys any semblance of human dignity that they have managed to retain through their adversity. In the long run, welfare payments solve nothing, for the giver or receiver; free Americans deserve the chance to be fully self-supporting... (the Welfare state has)largely failed as an anti-poverty weapon.” - Robert Kennedy

“No lasting solution to the problem can be bought with a welfare check.” - John F. Kennedy

Though Clinton's welfare reforms had their flaws, many fault Clinton not for the flaws of those programs but rather for implimenting welfare reforms period.

But I think calling welfare reform "rightwing" ignores the feelings on the subject from FDR, JFK, LBJ, Robert Kennedy, and Jimmy Carter.

Jimmy Carter???? Welfare reform??

WELFARE REFORM: To establish a streamlined, simplified welfare system with strong work incentives that promote family stability. To take those able to work out of the system and provide them job training and a job. To give those who cannotwork because of age or disability nationwide, fairly uniform benefits varying only accordingto the cost of living from area to area. - From Jimmy Carter's campaign brochure in 1976

[Ken Burch]

67. I wasn't saying welfare should have been left permanently as it was

But there were many alternatives to just unquestioningly accepting Rush Limbaugh's wet dream of a "welfare reform" bill
(and don't worry, I will try to avoid using Rush Limbaugh's wet dreams as a political metaphor ever, ever again...).

Robert Kennedy did criticize the welfare status quo, and rightly so.
So did the entire Sixties New Left, for Dylan's sake.

But the answer was to propose a PROGRESSIVE alternative, not legislation that was based almost entirely on punishing the poor for accepting welfare.

A progressive alternative would have included:

1)Full funding for real job training for all able-bodied people on poor.

2)A FEDERAL...JOBS...PROGRAM(one of the dirty secrets of welfare history is that welfare stayed as it did because "moderate" Southern Democrats would vote for welfare but not for jobs bills.

3)Free college tuition for the poor and the working class so that everyone could get the education necessary to escape the welfare trap.

4)Allowing people on welfare to accumulate savings. You can't get out of poverty without savings, and our welfare system should never have demanded that people try the impossible.

5)Amendments to allow two-parent families, in at least some situations, to get social assistance so that people in desperate poverty wouldn't have to divorce just to get food for their kids.
(This was a key part of Carter's welfare reform proposal, and the GOP scared the Democrats into not allowing it)
Clinton could have sold that one by saying "Listen, dammit, if we can subsidize tobacco, we can subsidize the preservation of families.
Or do Republicans think only middle class families count as families?"

There was never an excuse to sign the racist and punitive legislation that Newt and Co. sent to Clinton.
No one who supported it ended up voting for Clinton in '96 anyway.

And you had no call to assume that I was advocating the welfare status quo. I'm no poverty pimp.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

28. The trouble with his health plan was not Hillary, it was

that he tried to gain the cooperation of the insurance companies, which was like trying to gain the cooperation of the mosquitos in an anti-malaria campaign.

Instead of going for single-payer and negotiating down from there if absolutely necessary, he started by compromising. The result was a complicated system of "insurance buying cooperatives" and "managed care" that sounded terribly bureaucratic and hard to understand. What he needed was a slogan that could make a sound bite, and he ended up with a position paper.

He could have had something like, "Medicare, it's not just for old people anymore."

[kevsand]

29. I would have loved that.

Simple, direct, easily understood. You're right.

Part of the reason that his plan came out the way it did was because, as you say, they talked mainly to the industry insiders and experts. This was made worse by the fact that the meetings took place mainly behind closed doors, with no consumers or their advocates at the table. (Kinda like Cheney's energy commission.)

A lot of people blame Hillary for the way the task force was set up and functioned. She was, after all, the chair...

[Hippo_Tron]

30. Bottom line, he should've listened to Wellstone

[Deaniac20]

33. what did he say?

[kevsand]

34. I'm pretty sure Wellstone was for single-payer. eom

[Hippo_Tron]

35. Wellstone was the only strong advocate for single-payer

When they did a focus group, most people found the Clinton plan confusing and just to please him, they gagued their reaction to Wellstone's single-payer plan. They loved it.

Wellstone also urged Clinton to take a grassroots approach to pressure congress into passing healthcare, instead of buying votes with compromise.

[Ken Burch]

46. but as always

Clinton preferred to lose as a centrist than win by reaching out to the left and the working class.

Nothing mattered more to him than not admitting he might be wrong.

[DFLer4edu]

25. the best and worst thing ever to happen to the party

in the past 25 years is Bill Clinton. If had not been for Clinton we wouldn't have been so stong in the 90's, then again, if he had kept his penis in his pants, he could have campaigned with Gore and Gore would have won.

[Hippo_Tron]

37. Clinton got what he deserved for Monica

The only person that Clinton hurt with Monica was himself and his own legacy. Clinton wanted to leave a legacy. He wanted to be read about in the history books. Well he will be, but it will be a paragraph about his impeachment.

I still admire the guy and obviously I think that what the GOP did to him was awful, but there's no question that the Monica thing was just karma.

[Deaniac20]

41. I kinda think he punished Hillary

for fucking up his plan to cover every American with healthcare, because if you remember, he started with monica in 95-96, after the GOP took control of congress. He did not deserve any of what he got, except sleepign on the couch. I guarantee you of the 288 Republicans in congress, at least 144 have done what Big Dog did

[iconoclastNYC]

39. Triangulation hurt us.

The political consultants that took over the party, and the rise of the DLC hurt our party. We cannot be the party of the common american AND the party of big business. It just cannot be. Because of this enough people in 2000 stayed home or voted green to get Chimpy close enough to steal it.

So I dont know if you can blame Clinton. I think the blame lies with the peopel of the democratic party who let the leadership go in this direction.

We have to demand that our leadership reflect the will of the grass roots, and we are doing a much better job of this lately, and that gives me hope.

[wyldwolf]

55. I disagree

The Democratic party was rejected in 1994 because they had drifted too far to the left and out of the American mainstream.

An article in the Boston Globe took up the issue of Democratic losses a week before the last presidential election. When a party holds power for too long, Adrian Wooldridge, reporter for The Economist, said in the article, "it grows fat and happy, it also grows corrupt." The classic example, he pointed out, is the Democratic Party of the 1970s and `80s, which, spoiled by generations of congressional power, "became a party of insiders and deal makers without any sense of the principles they stood for and eventually collapsed" when they were turned out in 1994.

The more common explanation for the 1994 Republican Revolution, though, is that liberal Democratic ideals -- or at least the way they were presented -- no longer resonated with the majority of Americans. According to Ruy Teixeira, a fellow at the Center for American Progress and at the Century Foundation, the danger for the dominant party isn't ideological bankruptcy but ideological drift. "Certainly you can make the argument that, if a party's far enough away from the mainstream, if they don't lose they don't get enough impetus to correct their behavior."

Interesting that the point in the Democratic Party where the more liberal elements of the party held the most sway – the post McGovern era to the late 80s – is the time described by Wooldridge as our “fat, happy, and corrupt” period. Even more interesting is Teixeira, who has solid Democratic credentials, states the party had moved too far away from the mainstream during the period of massive electoral losses for McGovern, Carter, Mondale, and Dukakis.

I would rather our leadership reflect the will of the rank-and-file Democrats. A Gallup poll of Democratic National Committee members (in February 2005) showed that, by more than two-to-one (52%-23%) the DNC members want the party to become more moderate, rather than more liberal. That view is shared by Democrats nationally; in a January survey, Gallup found that 59% of Democrats wanted the party to take a more moderate course.

[Kire]

42. Deaniac20: helped or hurt party?

:banghead:

[Deaniac20]

44. whats your point?

[Kire]

45. no point

just a hard flat surface on my forehead

[wyldwolf]

47. Disasterous electoral losses before Clinton...

...extremely close loses after.

No, Perot didn't play a role in Clinton's wins.

[Deaniac20]

48. that is true

and the exit polls and Ross Perots positions on NAFTA and abortion proved that. However, one of the reasons the GOP tried to hard to take down Big Dog is because he had less than 50 percent of the vote because of Ross. Had Clinton not supported NAFTA, then he woulda had a bigger popular mandate to legislate because the anti-NAFTA pro-choice Perotistas woulda gone for Clinton

[wyldwolf]

49. I'm not following you on NAFTA...

...but the evidence suggests Bush and Clinton split Perot votes about evenly. So Perot was no factor because Clinton would have pulled a higher percentage and beaten Bush anyway.

[Deaniac20]

50. I mean that the reason he drew votes equally

was because of the liberal votes he got from anti-NAFTA people because NAFTA is the main issue that liberals and Clinton did not see eye to eye at all.

[Ken Burch]

52. You can make a case that had Clinton opposed NAFTA or renegotiated it

it on pro-worker terms, Perot would only have taken votes from Dole in '96.

It's a plausible theory, especially if Clinton had come out for single-payer health care and had kept calling for it after '94(also that, had Clinton been fighting hard for single-payer and had been willing to openly ally himself with the progressive wing of the party that '94 might not have been the nightmare it was.)

This might also have forestalled the growth of the Greens and the Nader presidential candidacies. Those events occurred because larger and larger numbers of progressives came to believe that they were no longer welcome in the Democratic Party.

And even this year, when millions of those progressives returned to the fold, it was hard to get them to believe that things had changed much.

It's time to stop punishing liberals, progressives and idealists.
The defeats of the 70's and 80's were not ALL our fault.

[wyldwolf]

53. you could make the case, but there is no evidence to suggest it

... at least as far as I've seen... I'd like to research it more.

Interesting theory though. It could be said then that if Clinton had opposed NAFTA or renegotiated it on pro-worker terms, Perot would not have run in '96 since NAFTA was his big issue.

I think Perot's chances were layed to rest when Al Gore (a big supporter of NAFTA), dismantled Ross Perot on the subject of NAFTA on Larry King Live, boosting NAFTA's poll ratings and pushing Perot's down.

[theboss]

56. If you only look at the top of the ticket

We used to have comforable majorities in the House, Senate, in state legislatures, and in state-houses. After Clinton, that is all gone.

[wyldwolf]

62. but that had little or no connection to Clinton

The main issue that hurt Clinton and the Dems in the 90s was Clinton's push for Healthcare. I'm sure your position isn't that he shouldn't have pushed for national healthcare.

However, the tides were turning against the Democrats in the House, Senate, in state legislatures, and in state-houses by the early 70s.

An article in the Boston Globe took up the issue of Democratic losses a week before the last presidential election. When a party holds power for too long, Adrian Wooldridge, reporter for The Economist, said in the article, "it grows fat and happy, it also grows corrupt." The classic example, he pointed out, is the Democratic Party of the 1970s and `80s, which, spoiled by generations of congressional power, "became a party of insiders and deal makers without any sense of the principles they stood for and eventually collapsed" when they were turned out in 1994.

The more common explanation for the 1994 Republican Revolution, though, is that liberal Democratic ideals -- or at least the way they were presented -- no longer resonated with the majority of Americans. According to Ruy Teixeira, a fellow at the Center for American Progress and at the Century Foundation, the danger for the dominant party isn't ideological bankruptcy but ideological drift. "Certainly you can make the argument that, if a party's far enough away from the mainstream, if they don't lose they don't get enough impetus to correct their behavior."

[dannyqrz]

51. nice

ya he was the shit but i agree with Nafta

[theboss]

57. Let's see: In 8 years, we went from being a majority party to a minority

We lost the House for the first time in forever. We haven't a prayer of winning back the Senate for at least another six years. We lost control of state legislatures and statehouses, which means we have a thin bench. The unions lost more power, which means we have fewer activists. The loss of the Solid South became cemented. His major accomplishments were free trade and welfare reform, hardly progressive notions. And corporations became the key donors to the party, making us nearly indistinguisable from the Republicans.

All in all, not a good 8 years for the Dems.

[Deaniac20]

59. such dumb logic

the reason we lost seats after 12 years of just being opposition, when push came to shove when Clinton came to the presidency, they saw REAL democratic ideas like healhcare reform, and taxes on the rich. Many conservative Dems voted against Clinton's tax hike on the rich. There were 57 Dems in the senate at the time, and only 50 voted for the tax hike. And don't forget the Dems who voted against the brady bill, which banned certain weapons. The reason we lost congress is because of Republicrats. There were many who were against healthcare reform, which is why Clinton couldn't sway the battle his way and find the 3 GOP votes that woulda ended the filibuster and passed it. The Whitewater non-scandal and the conservative media kept Clinton in the 40 precent approval rating range in his first 3 years, which brought about the Gingrich people to congress. People thought the economy was bad in 1994, even though he had created 4 million jobs and cut the defict 40 percent by then. The only reason we ever were viable again was because of Bill Clinton.

[wyldwolf]

63. which had little or nothing to do with Clinton

Sorry. But facts are facts.

The electorate became disallusioned with the Democrats in the late 60s, 70s, and 80s (when the more progressive element held more sway) and we were turned out in '94.

[Ken Burch]

64. And Clinton, with his refusal to say the words

"give me a Democratic Congress" when he was running for reelection in 1996 made sure that the Democrats would never recover from what he had done to them.

Without a Democratic Congress, Clinton's reelection proved meaningless. Nothing progressive whatsoever happened in that second term, and Gore's failure to win solidly when his victory should have been a certainty verifies the failure of Clintonism.

The moral is, power without principle is worse than not having power.

[Hippo_Tron]

60. I would like to point out that until Clinton, California was a red state

Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire were as well. New Jersey, Connecticut, Deleware, etc. were swing states. Basically, what we now consider the "solid blue" states were not solid blue until Clinton. Also, until Clinton, Florida and Ohio were pretty solid red states, Ohio in particular. Now they are both swing states.

Also, something to consider. A lot of the problems that we are facing now is because during the Clinton administration, the GOP learned how to hit rock bottom as far as dirty tactics go. The GOP under Raygun was still more civil than it was under Clinton and more civil than it is today.

[Robert Oak]

61. NAFTA, WTO, China PNTR, India

Trade...basically this was by and for multinational corporations
and is one of the biggest reasons we're in this mess today with
a 6% trade deficit and dramatically falling dollar.

He also alienated the working class so it became
"with abortion or without" choice between parties.

Good stuff: BUDGET DEFICIT, bureaucracy reduction, funding for innovation.

My feeling is the problem with America is they vote for "people they
like" versus policy...and because of that there is no democratic
or republican party..

there is one party, the corporate party and then a few rogue elements
on either side.

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

65. A little bit of both.

He was the most successful Democratic President since FDR, but he also brought a lot of baggage.

[dajoki]

66. must get smarter

if people would vote for their own interest we would win many more elections. but they are brainwashed by rightwing rhetoric and spin or are just so ignorant that they vote against themselves and don't even realize it. we need to stick with our values, but we must do a far better job of getting our message across.

[nnn]

68. helped

fo so