Clinton/Obama

[Drunken Irishman]

This is not an anti-Clinton post. I respect Pres. Clinton and felt he was a pretty solid president. Obviously there are things he did throughout his presidency that I did not like. However, overall, I think it played an important role in American politics and ultimately made the Democratic Party relevant again on the national stage.

That latter point will be the focus of much of this post. Because I've seen many DUers clump Pres. Obama with Pres. Clinton as the DLC-wing of the Democratic Party. This is often used to disparage the president by suggesting he isn't a liberal - or even a Democrat. In fact, one poster likes to claim that Pres. Obama is a Reagan Republican.

Now Clinton had his political faults (this isn't about his personal issues) and I think they did hinder the growth of the progressive ideology at the moment it needed leadership the most. However, it also aided the movement by positioning the Democrats as legitimate presidential contenders again. That's important because I think many on the left forget how downtrodden the Democratic Party was in the 1970s and 80s.

Liberal candidates - candidates that would garner universal support here on DU - failed nationally. Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis. They were all good men and most likely all would have made exceptional presidents. But they never became president. Each candidate was tagged, rightfully or not, with the dreaded liberal label and it stuck.

McGovern went down in one of the largest landslides in American history. So did Mondale & Dukakis. The Democrats were getting slaughtered in every presidential election and their lone ray of hope - Jimmy Carter - barely managed to beat Gerald Ford. The same Ford who, for a good amount of his short presidency, fended off criticism about his pardon of Nixon.

By all accounts, the Nixon downfall should have been the downfall of the Republican Party. The fact that, an election cycle later, they regained the presidency in a landslide puts to context just how badly off the Democrats were.

What Clinton offered was a new beginning. Yes, it was rooted in moderate politics and it ultimately led to moderate governing. But it also won back the White House and gave the Democrats their first two-term president since Franklin Roosevelt.

That's a helluva a stretch, don't you think?

So when the left derides Clinton for his pragmatic policies, I'm inclined to remind them that had it not been for that pragmatism, George Bush probably manages to eek out a win in 1992 and the course of American politics, again, dramatically shifts.

On the other hand, however, I also sympathize with their disappointment in Clinton. He was, after all, the first Democrat to win the White House in over a decade. There were hopes that he would reinstate a good portion of the Democratic principles that were the foundation of the New Deal era.

It didn't happen. Clinton was not a New Deal Democrat. His policies were an extension of the times. And the reality is that in the 70s, 80s and 90s, America had grown tired of the government. It was that mindset that delivered the presidency to Ronald Reagan and established a new era of government that deregulated about everything and anything one could deregulate.

It isn't entirely Clinton's fault because the mindset wasn't just in Washington. It flowed through the streets of every American town and city and it's what defined the Reagan era.

It also is what gave back the House to the Republicans in 1994. Clinton did try to do what no president in American history has ever done and that was to overhaul and reform the nation's healthcare system. Unfortunately, America was not ready for it. They still bought into the fears of Big Government and his healthcare reform was just another brick in the Big Government bureaucratic wall.

Clinton failed.

So now we're hearing similar statements about Pres. Obama. He's Clinton-like. He's in the back pockets of special interest. He's, as Michael Moore said about Clinton, the best Republican president of our time.

He is, without question in their mind, from the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party.

Except he isn't.

The only comparison between the two presidencies is that they both tried to establish healthcare reform. Clinton failed. I don't think Obama will.

Beyond that, though, Pres. Obama's White House is vastly different than the Clinton White House ideologically.

In Clinton's first year as president, he failed to find enough votes to even get his original stimulus package off the ground. He didn't have it. Moderate and conservative Democrats like Sam Nunn essentially told the president that it was not going to happen. Clinton was forced to radically shift his economic policies - the bedrock of what he campaigned on - because he didn't have the votes.

We discuss how Obama's stimulus was pruned to get the votes, but it still happened. And by all accounts, it has worked.

That same year, 1993, Clinton introduced Don't Ask, Don't Tell as a compromise measure. That was, even at the time, a very divisive policy and one we're still dealing with today. Pres. Obama has openly come out against it and is working with members of congress to finally overturn it - even though many continue to fight him on it.

Then there was this...



That's Pres. Clinton signing into law the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act. It was essentially the welfare reform Republicans had been fighting for since the days of Lyndon Johnson. It ushered in an era where a Democrat was unraveling the foundation of Johnson's Great Society.

Then there was the Telecom Reform Act & Financial Services Modernization Act. The latter played a big role in the financial crisis we're now just barely getting out of.

To be sure, Clinton didn't deregulate at near the rate as Reagan/Bush, but he still prescribed to the same economic mindset that less government control over the private sector the better. Clinton was, without question, a free market Democrat. I see no evidence to suggest Pres. Obama believes solely in the free market.

Beyond that, though, Pres. Clinton also signed into law the Defensive of Marriage Act. He regrets that, along with Don't Ask, Don't Tell, but it doesn't change the reality that they were established during his presidency.

But the most striking difference just might be the understanding of government and its place in America.

I am led to believe, regardless of what Bill Clinton thinks now, that he was a proponent of smaller government. This is why, in his 1996 State of the Union speech, Clinton proclaimed http://www.cnn.com/US/9601/budget/01-27/clinton_radio/">the era of big government was finally over.

I see nothing from Pres. Obama to indicate he believes government is inherently bad. In fact, I think he's been open about believing the exact opposite. His acts as president suggests this. Or at least suggests he isn't entirely at the level of Pres. Clinton and many DLC Democrats.

The bottom line is that Clinton was a good president for his time. He could have been great, but it's entirely possible the times made it difficult for the type of leadership the left really wanted.

Pres. Obama is not a leftist. He is, in my mind, a pragmatic liberal. Not a moderate and certainly not a conservative. He might upset many on the left - but he's also pissing off a whole portion of the opposite ideology.

Obama is not Clinton. Clinton is not Obama. Comparing the two ignores history and most importantly, reality.

[Cha]

1. Thanks for this bit of History, DI..

They clump them together because it's the lazy way.

[DFLforever]

2. Bravo for your synopsis,

I wish we could recommend in this forum.

[goclark]

11. We can always kick it for more to see

Excellent post

[TheBigotBasher]

3. I'm not sure it was how Liberal the candidate were.

The battle of ideas in the 80s was won by the Conservative right, there is no getting away from that. The public did believe that Government was too large, taxes were too high and that the West was sinking.

Stagflation was a problem that could not be solved by Keynesian economics..

The cold war appeared to be increasingly hot. The US had no understanding at all of the Middle East..

Thatcher and Reagan won the battle of ideas by promising to role back the State.

The back of stagflation was broken by 1981/82. Life was a pile of crap if you were poor under Reagan but if you had managed to jump any any rung of the ladder during that time the ride up certainly felt exhilarating. The cities, especially the early start of the stock boom were exploding.

Against that back drop, there was the ever growing build up of the military and promises of nuclear missile reduction from the US and Soviet Union.

The fear of communism was a useful sales tool. Great for Middle America.

You could have run Jesus Christ as the Democratic candidate. Of course you had the dirty tactics (Willie Horton) but that just pushed the numbers way beyond massive loss to wipe out.

George H Bush walked in on the back of the "success" of Reagan. Relatively low inflation, a booming economy for a lot of people (people forgot about the unemployed), lower taxes (people believed tehy were lower even though they got raised) and a reborn American pride.

The break up of the Soviet Union, Tiananmen Square, the fall of the Berlin wall, all helped to secure in the mind that the ideas of the right had won.

GH Bush wanted to control the deficit and walked back on no new taxes. That became unforgivable. Then as with a bad relationship the bad things previously ignored during the good days became issues. Unemployment. The poor. Health care. There is a saying in politics. The opposition does not win elections, the government loses them. GH Bush confirmed that.

Bush and Clinton however ushered in a period of management politics. In the UK reflected by Major, Blair and even Brown. There was no driving ideology, it was about the management of the economy. Everything else could fall in to place. This was ruined by the Neo-Cons, but it is something that the Western economies are returning to.

The language is harsher now in the political world because the differences are smaller. There are no new great economic ideas.

[Drunken Irishman]

4. Good points.

I do think there were competent candidates on the Democratic side who could have won in the 80s. Reagan was vulnerable entering 1984 because the country wasn't entirely sold on his economic policies. A year prior, he had hit the lowest approval ratings of his presidency as unemployment exploded in the wake of his polices.

Now, I think Reagan was destined to win re-election and nominating a moderate Democrat, like Lloyd Bentsen, probably wasn't the total game changer the Democrats needed. However, I don't think it would've been the behind the woodshed beating the Democrats eventually saw. Maybe a bit closer and with it being closer, who the hell knows what happens.

As for 1988, that is an election I believe the Democrats should have won. For most of 1988 - from the start until about August - Dukakis led Bush. He built a 20-point lead on Bush to the point where Republicans were all but writing him off. Then they dropped Willie Horton and the GOP convention proved to be very successful. Add that with Dukakis' liberal image and him riding around in a tank, and things started going Bush's way.

By the end of summer, Bush was walking away with the race.

In my mind, Dukakis just wasn't a good candidate. Good guy, no doubt. Probably would've been a good president (surely better than Bush). But he didn't have it to run a national campaign. He summed up what was wrong with the Democratic Party of the 1980s. They seemed too aloof, at least the party leaders, and Dukakis struggled to fight that image. To be sure, Bush wasn't any better. Bush was just a conservative Dukakis. He had about as much charisma as a dead horse. There wasn't much there to excite the voters, which is probably why he fell behind so quickly in that race. Without Reagan attached to his hip, he couldn't succeed.

But he had some things going for him. A lot of it is what you mention. In 1988, things hadn't turned on the Republicans yet.

Which explains why he easily won that election. Dukakis mounted a good fight early, but didn't have the tools to get through the most crucial point of a campaign - the summer months. When things started really getting important, he was down double-digits and could never crawl out of that hole.

Everything else is history.

I'm inclined to believe, though, Bush was beatable in 1988. We just didn't have the guy.

[Number23]

7. BB, I just saw your locked thread in this forum

It's getting pretty ridiculous around here, isn't it?? Y'all better love me now because in a few weeks, I will become as scarce as reason and common sense around here.

By the way, this is a fantastic post.

[Kaleva]

5. "but he's also pissing off a whole portion of the opposite ideology. "

His job approval ratings amongst Republicans is down to almost single digits which keeps his overall rating around 50%. I don't look at that as a bad thing.

[nevergiveup]

6. This is really well done and very informative.

Thank you.

[Drunken Irishman]

8. Thank you for reading. :)

[Cary]

9. In the words of Gil Scott Heron. . . .

Well, the first thing I want to say is Mandate my ass!

Because it seems as though we've been convinced that 26% of the registered voters, not even 26% of the American people, but 26% of the registered voters form a mandate or a landslide. 21% voted for Skippy and 3, 4% voted for somebody else who might have been running.

But, oh yeah, I remember. In this year that we have now declared the year from Shogun to Reagan, I remember what I said about Reagan. . . meant it. Acted like an actor Hollyweird. Acted like a liberal. Acted like General Franco when he acted like governor of California, then he acted like a republican. Then he acted like somebody was going to vote for him for president. And now we act like 26% of the registered voters is actually a mandate. We're all actors in this I suppose.

Things do tend to go in cycles. A lot of factors were in play and I think the ideological aspect of it might be a little over played.

Carter did not run a good campaign against Reagan in 1980. Not sure exactly what went right for Reagan in 1984 but whatever it was, obviously Bush was able to ride it in 1988. I think Nader explains some of 2000 but, really, Gore should not have distanced himself from Clinton. Gore, IMHO, defeated himself in certain ways (even though he actually won). Republicans were more determined?

2004, for some reason Kerry did not resonate, or perhaps the voters were saying to Bush that he screwed up so badly that he had better get in and fix the effing mess he made?

2008 showed us what we could do if we showed up in force and made our voice heard. The only thing that can scuttle us now, IMHO, is our own stupidity. Unfortunately, as we see right here at DU, there is plenty of that going around. :(

[Uzybone]

10. Excellent post. Thank you.