General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The Big Dog's Big Lie [View all]Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)Bill Clinton was a product of his time. He was a moderate president for a moderate nation still in the shadows of the Reagan Revolution. Had he not run to the middle in the mid-90s, he would likely be remembered as a one-term president and the Democrats might not even be a competitive national party.
Look, I'm not the biggest Clinton cheerleader on this forum, but I'm not going to whitewash history here. When Clinton won election in 1992, he was the first Democrat in twelve years to do so - and only the first Democrat to be reelected since FDR. The Democrats had an abysmal stretch of candidates from 1972 to 1988 and were blown out in three of the last four presidential elections. Their lone win, Jimmy Carter in '76, lasted all of four years and ended in disaster ... with most Americans signing off on the idea that Carter was one of the worst presidents in modern American history. Sure, I don't think that was a fair characterization of his presidency ... but perception wins out in politics and the Democrats had lost their best shot at defining the political landscape. Because Carter was seen as ineffective (oddly, Carter is praised on DU, even though he, too, kicked off the wave of deregulation ... and ultimately did little in terms of legacy), it led to the Reagan revolution and forced the Democrats back to the political wilderness.
Clinton managed to push the party back into the mainstream. You can complain all you want - but the fact is: Democrats were not winning presidential elections prior to Clinton. In '88, four years prior, they completely bungled a very winnable election. Dukakis held a double-digit lead on Bush and blew it. Rarely does that happen - rarely does the challenging party lose that big of a lead. Generally, it's the incumbent who drops ... not the other way around. No one thought Bush was going to win that election in early 1988 - Reagan's popularity had taken a hit because of Iran/Contra, Bush was seen as a poor impression of Reagan himself ... a boring, bumbling fool who had about as much charisma as a wooden spoon. Worse, the Republicans had held the White House for 16 of the last 20 years.
The Democrats still lost - and badly. It wasn't even a narrow defeat. Dukakis got his ass kicked. He was embarrassed.
Clinton changed that. He got the Democrats' foot back into the door and allowed them to prove they could lead. It's similar to Eisenhower and the Republicans in the '50s. They had no credibility on the national stage during the 30s & 40s - but he changed that. Eisenhower entered office as the first Republican president since Herbert Hoover and managed to alter the perception that Republicans were all failures. It helped. He made the party more moderate and acceptable to the people. Prior to him, no one could - not Dewey, Willkie, or Landon.
Had Clinton stayed to the left, failed to compromise on key issues, he would've been voted out of office in 1996. It didn't matter how good the economy was looking at that point (and people forget that the economy in '96, while improved, had yet to really take off) - if he was viewed as a typical tax & spend liberal, he was done. We saw it in '94 and with his dismal approval throughout early '95. Most wrote Clinton's political obituary two years out because they didn't foresee him bouncing back. But he adapted and saved his presidency.
I know some liberals would not have cared if he lost in '96 - but had he lost in '96, to whomever, whether Dole or someone else who runs, the only two Democratic presidents in most our lifetime would have been Carter & Clinton - two one-term presidents that had little impact on anything. That perception would have haunted the party for a million elections.
As is, Clinton is the Party's credibility. Americans like him ... they trust him. They look at him and see a successful president. That wasn't always a guarantee and something the Democrats had lacked since Kennedy was taken down by an assassin in Dallas. The Republicans are finding just how difficult it is to not have a credible leader out there pumping up their candidate. And the more distance the American people put between them and the Reagan era only makes their prospects that much more difficult. Like the Democrats in the 80s, the Republicans now struggle to find a successful face to point to nationally. It certainly isn't the Bushes.
So, in that regard, we owe a lot to Clinton. Because without him, this party probably would not have much in the way of political success on the national stage. The Democrats were destined to be lost in the wilderness forever - or at least for a good long time. I know some have a hard time believing it possible ... but then go look at how many Democrats held the White House between Andrew Johnson and FDR. You won't find many. There's a reason for that.