Third Way Moderate Democrats Confident Clinton Would Govern From the Middle

[portlander23]

Moderate Democrats Confident Clinton Would Govern From the Middle
Leaders of centrist think tank Third Way say they hope she won’t make the same mistake Mitt Romney did.
Eric Garcia
National Journal

On the cam­paign trail, Hil­lary Clin­ton’s tone has be­come more pop­u­list, but mod­er­ate Demo­crats are con­fid­ent she would gov­ern as a cent­rist.

“The evid­ence is in: Pop­u­lism has simply tanked with the middle class,” Cow­an said in his open­ing re­marks. In par­tic­u­lar, he cri­ti­cized re­cent pro­pos­als such as rais­ing the min­im­um wage to $15 an hour, im­pos­ing a single-pay­er health care plan, and “giv­ing more So­cial Se­cur­ity be­ne­fits to well-off seni­ors.”

Many of these are ideas that Sanders has cham­pioned. Third Way’s email about the event tar­geted the sen­at­or from Ver­mont, say­ing that “many of the ideas offered by Bernie Sanders and the like would be ru­in­ous for the eco­nomy without help­ing the middle class,” and speak­ers at the event said pop­u­lism would hurt Demo­crats’ chances to win elec­tions on both the na­tion­al and state level.

“If you cross that in­vis­ible line and go too far left or too far right, you end up where Mitt Rom­ney ended up,” Cow­an said in re­sponse to a ques­tion from Na­tion­al Journ­al. “We’ll leave it up to (Clin­ton) to de­cide what la­bel she’d like to stick to her­self, wheth­er it’s a mod­er­ate, wheth­er it’s a pro­gress­ive who gets things done—sounds like a mod­er­ate to me.”

“Nobody ever lost an elec­tion be­cause they’ve gone against trade,” said Wil­li­am Da­ley, former Com­merce sec­ret­ary un­der Bill Clin­ton and Barack Obama’s former chief of staff, at the event. He noted that Third Way sup­ports the TPP.

But Cow­an poin­ted out that while he and the or­gan­iz­a­tion backed the TPP, Clin­ton’s new­found op­pos­i­tion to the 12-na­tion agree­ment was not cross­ing a line. He said that in 2008, both Obama and Clin­ton op­posed trade agree­ments.

Da­ley said Clin­ton would gov­ern as a mod­er­ate.

“If she wants to pass any­thing, yeah, def­in­itely, be­cause, I think she is a doer,” Da­ley told Na­tion­al Journ­al. “You can’t gov­ern as pres­id­ent just by ‘Eat it.’”

Elaine Kamar­ck, one of the cofounders of the New Demo­crats and a seni­or fel­low of gov­ernance stud­ies at the Brook­ings In­sti­tu­tion, said she thinks Clin­ton is very much a Third-Way-type politi­cian.
“She’s very cog­niz­ant of not let­ting your polit­ics cut off what’s go­ing to be a gov­ern­ing agenda,” Kamar­ck said. “And so that’s what she’s about, and she’s very con­cerned about gov­ern­ment.”

In late 2013, Third Way clashed with War­ren and oth­er pop­u­list pro­gress­ives, writ­ing an op-ed call­ing plans to ex­pand So­cial Se­cur­ity “ex­hib­it A of pop­u­list polit­ic­al and eco­nom­ic fantasy.”

While Clin­ton is the front-run­ner for the Demo­crat­ic nom­in­a­tion, it’s not clear how she would cam­paign as the nom­in­ee or how she would gov­ern as pres­id­ent. Third Way Demo­crats hope she puts the pop­u­list rhet­or­ic she has ad­op­ted of late to the side and gov­erns, if elec­ted, from the middle. Pro­gress­ives want the op­pos­ite—to see her pop­u­list po­s­i­tions mani­fest them­selves in a gov­ern­ing agenda.

Related:

Clinton Supporters: Should she follow Third Way's order to reject The Left and move to the Right?

Third Way Democrats warn of 'economic populism' and Bernie Sanders

Third Way President: The evidence is in, populism has tanked with the middle class

Lobbyist: Hillary Clinton will become Mrs. Wall Street if she’s elected

Not so fast! Clinton Now Re-Opens Door to Supporting Obama Trade Deal

[Scuba]

1. Matters not, she'll never win.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. Well, duh.

Anyone who actually believes any of her pretend appeals to the left is simple-minded or naive.

[Doubledee]

3. The middle?

I believe she would govern from the middle of Wall Street and the middle of the Pentagon. I further believe her track record clearly shows this to be true.

[WillyT]

4. K & R !!!