N2272V

This is great reading for those Democrats in the room who thought Clinton was good for their party. This analysis pretty much hits the nail on the head.

Clintonism, R.I.P.

How triangulation became strangulation
by Chuck Todd

With the 2004 election past and the losing party's ritual period of self-appraisal about to yield to George W. Bush's second term, the Democrats appear to have learned two small lessons and to have missed a much larger one. Of the two small lessons, one follows naturally from the other: first, the election demonstrated that the Democrats are becoming less competitive in much of the country, and second, it suggested that they cannot hope to regain the presidency or control of Congress until that changes. The reason they've lost ground, we've been told ceaselessly, is that many Americans believe the party is deficient in "moral values" and cast their votes accordingly. There is some debate about whether values played the decisive role or just a minor one — but no debating that something is wrong.

What's been missing is a discussion of how the Democratic Party arrived at this point; that requires a broader view, encompassing both parties' most recent periods of triumph and focusing particularly on the major difference between the evolving political legacies of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. As a candidate each sought to distance himself from his party's reigning image — Bush through "compassionate conservatism" and Clinton through a "third way" approach between liberalism and conservatism. Each succeeded well enough to win two terms. And each is now viewed within his party as something close to the ideal.

The difference is that Bush measurably strengthened the Republican Party along the way, whereas Clinton worried mainly about his own political fortunes, to the detriment of his party. Every election under Bush has resulted in Republican gains in Congress; in sharp contrast, Clinton assumed office with his party in control of the House, the Senate, and a majority of governorships, and left it with none of those advantages. Since Clinton, Democratic losses have deepened and broadened to include both subsequent presidential races, in which the Democratic nominees dutifully adopted Clinton's strategy of centrist triangulation. The results so starkly apparent on November 2 should prompt a question that, though still heretical to Democrats, is worthy of being posed here: Is it time to retire Clintonism as a political philosophy?

The modern Democratic Party looks at Clinton's presidency as a period of unquestioned success, and its perceived lessons continue to hold tremendous sway. Foremost is the belief that the party's path to victory, blazed by Clinton, lies in packaging liberal or centrist ideas into easily digestible bites that together constitute a core set of values — in a word, Clintonism. At its best this approach allowed Clinton to dissociate himself (and, by extension, his party) from many of the unpopular liberal policies of the past, steering a course between traditional liberal and conservative positions with bold and often controversial plans for highly charged issues such as race, welfare reform, and free trade, and in the process managing to neutralize many of the old criticisms. At first, as with all that is new in politics, those accustomed to the old way of doing things treated these ideas as if they were radioactive. Clinton eventually proved them wrong. But political ideas have a half-life.

It is hard to overstate the reverence in which Clinton is held by professional Democratic operatives, many of whom served in his administration and today constitute the party's major powers. This group has hewed faithfully to the tenets of Clintonism, staunch in its belief that Democratic candidates can neutralize troublesome issues simply by triangulating, as Clinton did, and prevail with a list of issues nearly identical to the one Clinton touted. But as Al Gore, John Kerry, and countless lesser Democrats have tried this approach and failed, one thing has become clearer and clearer: the success of Clintonism was due primarily to the period in which Clinton governed and to his remarkable political skills — not to the electoral strategy he bequeathed to his party.

The latter has proved disastrous. And its cost cannot be measured merely in lost campaigns. Absent Clinton's high-profile foes — at the outset of his presidency, a paleo-liberal congressional leadership on one side and radical-conservative revolutionaries on the other — the habit of splitting the difference on difficult issues comes across as crassly political, more so when one lacks Clinton's unique personal charisma. The more John Kerry attempted to do this (on national security, gay marriage, Iraq), the more the effect was magnified, until the long-standing criticism of Clinton — that he didn't really stand for anything — became the definitive charge against Kerry. In the end Kerry, like his party, seemed to draw exactly the wrong lesson from Clinton's example, mimicking his tactics and politics with liturgical precision, but never managing to replicate the sense of a new direction that carried Clinton into office. The result was a candidate and a party with apparently no core set of values.

For those who don't share the faith — Republicans, for instance — Clintonism is in fact a code word for moral ambivalence. In this sense, too, Clintonism proved poisonous to Democrats in vast swaths of the country. To take just one example: Erskine Bowles, of North Carolina, lost another bid for the U.S. Senate primarily for the offense of having served as Clinton's White House chief of staff. And although it has been largely overlooked, perhaps the most remarkable statistic from the 2004 election is the record of those candidates for whom Clinton campaigned: all eight lost.

The Democrats' plight is not unprecedented. Following Ronald Reagan's presidency the Republicans spent a similar time in the wilderness, in similar fealty to a great leader. Although George H.W. Bush did win a term, the Republican Party was basically adrift for the decade after Reagan — robbed of Reagan's great adversary after the collapse of communism, yet still hampered by the impression that it was harsh and uncaring on social issues. That changed only when Karl Rove and George W. Bush arrived and at last pushed the party beyond the grip of Reagan and his strategists. In the bloodless aftermath of the 2004 election the Democratic Party has shown scant awareness of a crisis — and shedding its addiction to Clinton could take just as long.

In the old Soviet Union the politburo had the ability to destroy all traces of a previous Party leader if his specter suddenly became troublesome. There are two ways the Democrats' Clinton problem can be solved. One is if Hillary Clinton runs successfully for the presidency in 2008, redeeming Clintonism as both a tactic and a philosophy. The other is if the party severs ties to Bill Clinton and those most closely associated with him, relegating him to the mythic status Reagan achieved, as someone whose great symbolic power for the party faithful can be celebrated and invoked — but only from a safe distance.

In the coming weeks and months George W. Bush will start trying to make good on a series of campaign promises that are every bit as daunting as were Clinton's efforts to reform welfare, expand health care, and balance the budget: Bush will attempt to partially privatize Social Security, rewrite the tax code, and limit plaintiff awards in lawsuits. Whether history ultimately judges these to be momentous successes, like balancing the budget, or colossal failures, like Clinton's attempt to reform health care, remains to be seen. What is clear already is that they are new ideas of the sort long absent from the Democratic Party. One can also surmise that, as controversial as many of them may be, voters prefer them to the ideas of an opposing campaign that once again seemed as though it was run in the service of nostalgia.

Just after the Republican triumph in the midterm elections Bill Clinton himself arrived at a moment of clarity for the Democrats when he declared that it is better to be "wrong and strong" than "weak and right." The irony, of course, is that Clinton rarely practiced as president what he now preaches as statesman. But if the Democratic Party is to draw a real lesson from the election and halt its own decline, it will heed Clinton's advice rather than the example of his presidency.

Hapag-Lloyd

Jim, just curious: do you type these long eulogies and monologues yourself, or is there a right-wing source that provides them "ready-to-post"?

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Planecrazy

I thought this was a forum for discussing diecast model airliners?

I learned a long time ago that neither of the above listed political parties are ANY benefit to the working classes of this country. Everytime I think positively of Republicans they do something greedy and every time I then look favorably on the Democrats they do something stupid! The citizens of this country are being screwed by BOTH of them and there is no political force representing us.

Therefore, I just want to think of cute little airplanes and keep my mind off of our piece of s**t government!

N. Eberhard

Sorry, I don't have time to read that verbose posting.

JustPlaneCrazy

Then, why do you read the 'off topic' section?

N2272V

This particular article was cut and pasted. I don't expect any Democrats or Liberals to take the time to read it though. They may learn something from it and get brain cramps.

This actually comes from a middle-of-the-road web site called The Atlantic Monthly which would be more liberal leaning.

Carry on!

N2272V

DUH, that is why this is posted in the OFF TOPIC forum. It's for ANY topic. Don't get a brain cramp reading this please.

Speak for yourself gomer. I get all the representation I need.


Mind? You do give yourself way too much credit. That spoken, you know what the best part of this so-called piece of shit government is? YOU CAN LEAVE ANYTIME YOU LIKE. Don't let the country door hit your dumbass on the way out!

Carry on!

mittelholzer

By the way - WHO IS NEWT GINGRICH?

STEVEJ

Newt Gingrich
"The important thing you have to understand about Newt Gingrich is that he is amoral... There isn't any right or wrong, there isn't any conservative or liberal. There's only what will work best for Newt Gingrich. He's probably one of the most dangerous people for the future of this country that you can possibly imagine. He's Richard Nixon, glib. It doesn't matter how much good I do the rest of my life, I can't ever outweigh the evil that I've caused by helping him be elected to Congress."

--L.H. Carter, former political adviser

richie154

Stage III.

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mittelholzer

Sounds interesting - but I still do not know who he is.

STEVEJ

GINGRICH, Newton Leroy, a Representative from Georgia; born in Harrisburg, Dauphin County, Pa., June 17, 1943; attended school at various military installations; graduated from Baker High School, Columbus, Ga., 1961; B.A., Emory University, Atlanta, Ga., 1965; M.A., Tulane University, New Orleans, La., 1968; Ph.D., same university, 1971; teacher, West Georgia College, Carrollton, 1970-1978; elected as a Republican to the Ninety-sixth and to the nine succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1979-January 3, 1999); reelected to the One Hundred Sixth Congress but did not take his seat; minority whip (One Hundred First through One Hundred Third Congresses); Speaker of the House (One Hundred Fourth and One Hundred Fifth Congresses).

Just a little in-sight into the man Jimbo would like to be president....

Sex on the Desk - Oral Sex is More Easily Denied
Several newspapers are now reporting that Newt Gingrich is dating and basically living with Callista Bisek, a "willowy blond Congressional aide 23 years his junior." Biske, 33, has been spending nights at Gingrich's apartment near the Capitol and has her own key. In an amazing act of hypocrisy, Gingrich was apparently dating Bisek all during Clinton-Lewinsky adultery scandal, even as he proclaimed family values and bitterly criticized the President for his adultery.

Reporters and other Washington insiders have known about this relationship since 1994, even before Gingrich became Speaker of the House, but did not have any solid proof to report. In 1995, Vanity Fair magazine described Bisek as Gingrich's "frequent breakfast companion." Gingrich was married to Marianne Gingrich during all of that time, and just filed for divorce in August 1999.

Newt is apparently trying to create a new hybrid form, Christian adultery. According to MSNBC, Bisek sings in the National Shrine Choir, and Newt would often wait for her at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, listening to her sing while he read the Bible.

This is hardly the first time Newt has cheated, either. "It was common knowledge that Newt was involved with other women during his [first] marriage to Jackie. Maybe not on the level of John Kennedy. But he had girlfriends -- some serious, some trivial." -- Dot Crews, his campaign scheduler throughout the 70s. One woman, Anne Manning, has come forward and confirmed a relationship with him during the 1976 campaign. "We had oral sex. He prefers that modus operandi because then he can say, 'I never slept with her.'"

Family Values? Pressing Wife for Divorce in the Hospital:
"He walked out in the spring of 1980.... By September, I went into the hospital for my third surgery. The two girls came to see me, and said, "Daddy is downstairs. Could he come up?" When he got there, he wanted to discuss the terms of the divorce while I was recovering from my surgery." - Jackie, his first wife.
Dead-Beat Dad:
The hospital visit wasn't the end of it, either. Jackie had to take Newt to court to get him to contribute for bills, as utilities were about to be cut off.
Draft Dodger:
Though he relentlessly pushes military spending and talks like a bigtime hawk, Gingrich avoided the Vietnam War through a combination of student and family deferments. (He married one of his teachers at age 19.)

Problems With Women?
Newt pressed his first wife to sign divorce papers while she was still in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery. He also graciously said "She isn't young enough or pretty enough to be the President's wife." But his second marriage hasn't been that smooth either. Newt and Marianne have been separated - "frankly", she told the Washington Post in June 1989, "it's been on and off for some time."
Does Newt have some kind of problem with women? He has said that he read a book called "Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them", and "found frightening pieces that related to my own life.".

House Banking Scandal: Newt Bounced 22 Checks
Remember the House Banking scandal, where so many congressmen wrote rubber checks on government money? Newt hopes you don't, because he bounced 22 himself, which almost cost him reelection in 1992. His vote for the secret House pay raise, and the chauffeur who drove him around Washington in a Lincoln Town Car, didn't help.

mittelholzer

Wow- a "great" candidate for president. Here in europe we do not care too much about the sexual life of politicians. It is important they are doing a good job and do not stupidely spend the taxpayers money or put it in the own or their friends pockets.

Any chance he will win? I think good ol' Hillarywould be better wouldnt she?

PH-LKK

Heck, in Europe it would be scandalous if a male politician did not have a mistress.

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STEVEJ

The religious fanatics (moral right) from the "red states " have a great influance over this administration but ever wonder why DNA testing doesn,t work in those states? Most of the "sinners" in this country along with the rest of the planet were pleased that Bill got a BJ, the radical hysterical right still can't accept it.(envy,jelousy, stupid, who knows?). Of course the "Christian Adultery " pioneered by Newt gives them all an out.

Will he win?......depends on how Rove decides to steal the next election. Might be hard to do from a jail cell.

mittelholzer

Personally i am preferring guys like Clinton who are doing more or less a good job and what he was doing with Monica (and maybe others) did not hurt anybody at all. Guys like Bush who start wars, imprison people and fill the pockets of their own and their friends with the taxpayers money are much more a problem and a danger for the nation. By the way - did George W. Bush now give a statement to the mother of a killed soldier who is - so I heared - living in a tent in front of his farm and asked the reason why her son had to die?

N2272V

Good thing you put all the laughy faces after such a rediculous post lest anyone take this absurdity serious.

Carry on!

Chansen

He probably died since he volunteered his services to the country. He must have had a choice to stay civilian or go into service. So I take it that you are a US tax payer? mittelschnauzer

N2272V

Not surprised with these statements. Basically I would expect a looney like you to like someone like Clinton. He was a MAJOR embarrasment and most NORMAL people do not think it is okay to have sex with an intern. In almost EVERY major American Corporation you get fired for things like this.

Clinton's MAJOR accomplishment, which all Conservatives like me can are thankful for, was to make voters see the lunacy of his administration and put Republicans in charge of the House and Senate for the first time in over 30 years.

Rather than post such absurd nonsense, show me one shred of CREDIBLE evidence where anyone is "lining" their pockets? IN addition, the people who were imprisoned were terrorists thugs and combatants. I suppose you are on THEIR side looney tune. I am also assuming that you have no issues that they cut off the heads of their prisoners.

Spare me your upside down logic moron.

He had already met with her months ago when her son was killed. She doesn't care what Bush has to say about the way she is dishoring the memory of her son. She only cares about taking the absurd position that Bush should withdraw the troops immediately which even the Democrats in Congress do not agree with. Only loonies who don't get it like Moveon.org can support such nonsense. The majority of Americans do not stand with her, they feel sorry for her watching her be used by those who are out of touch with reality.

DER.

Carry on looney tune. Your absurd statements and political opinions continue to display the idiotic and illogical point of view that people like you have on things you know very little about.

STEVEJ

Perhaps a quote from ole Jimbo himself may be appropriate concerning this woman.....

." Brave people who speak the truth and stand up to these thugs are a threat to them."

N2272V

With every posting you get dumber and dumberer. You're a laugheable moron. No one was "pleased" that a sitting President committed adultry in the Whitehouse with an intern. Most corporations have ethics violations against this sort of action and would have fired this idiot.

Only a total moron looney like you would think there was anything to be proud of with such immature actions by someone in charge of the most powerful country in the world.

This absurd statement speaks volumes of the level of inannity you are willling to stoop. Geeze Steve, do you really work at being this stupid, or does it come naturally?

You're definately living on another planet. Keep posting this nonsense Steve. You make my case with each one.

Dimsissed looney tune!