No, the Democrats Have Not Moved Further Left Than Republicans Have Moved Right
When Barack Obama first appeared on the scene as an underdog challenger to Hillary Clinton, conservatives welcomed him as a refreshing, relatively moderate alternative. Then they decided Obama was actually a left-wing extremist, in comparison to the moderation of the Clintons. As Hillary Clinton prepares to take the helm of the Democratic Party, the Republican task is now to formulate a new line, according to which Obama moved his party to the left, and Hillary Clinton threatens to move it even further left. Peter Wehner, a former Bush administration strategist, makes the case in the New York Times today. His case is not strong.
Wehner asserts, “Mr. Obama is more liberal than Mr. Clinton was on gay rights, religious liberties, abortion rights, drug legalization and climate change.” The part about gay rights is correct. The rest lack any substantiation. On climate change, the Clinton administration attempted to impose a carbon tax in 1993, but failed, and supported the Kyoto Treaty but faced overwhelming opposition in the Senate. Obama, claims Wehner, “has focused far more attention on income inequality than did Mr. Clinton, who stressed opportunity and mobility.” Actually, both Clinton and Obama stressed inequality and mobility alike. President Clinton endlessly promised to make the rich “pay their fair share,” while Obama has stressed opportunity and mobility.
“In foreign policy, Mr. Obama has shown himself to be far more critical of traditional allies and more supine toward our adversaries than Mr. Clinton was.” These are the exact same criticisms conservatives made of Clinton during the Clinton administration. The neoconservative Richard Perle in 1996 lambasted “the nearly chronic tendency of the Administration to abandon any policy that encounters even mild opposition, guarantees that adversaries are not deterred — nor are allies assured.” The centerpiece of the conservative claim that Obama criticizes his allies is Israel, and the actual basis for this is that Israel’s government has abandoned its support for a two-state solution, a fact Clinton himself has likewise acknowledged.
Wehner asserts that “Obama’s inner progressive has been liberated,” citing “his veto of legislation authorizing construction of the Keystone XL pipeline,” but allowing his approval of oil drilling off the Alaska coast as an “exception.” Another, more accurate way to put this would be that Obama approves of some fossil-fuel projects but not others, just as Clinton did. (Clinton infuriated conservatives by vetoing drilling in the Arctic Wildlife National Refuge, the Keystone Pipeline of its day.)
The Democratic Party’s social profile has certainly changed under Obama. The country is more diverse and socially liberal, and the party has changed with it. But the notion that Obama, who staffed his administration with Clinton-era advisers, has fundamentally abandoned Clinton’s ideological approach to the role of government is lacking in any evidentiary support. Obama has enacted more dramatic policy changes than Clinton did, but this is not because he had dramatically different goals, but because he had dramatically more success in enacting them. (This, of course, is another reality Wehner has repeatedly denied.)
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/05/democrats-havent-moved-farther-than-gop.html
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, war on terror (drone strikes)... in these areas, Obama is sadly close to his Republican predecessor. And I've seen no indication that Hillary would be much different.
