Redstate

The Party's problems are only tangentially related to Bill Clinton.  We lost the South (a natural change), but we also gained alot in the suburbs, among women, and among fiscal conservatives.  The Party's problems post-Clinton is that our leaders were spineless, didn't stand for anything, and not focused on building the Party from the ground up.  Everything was about raising money to try to compete against the GOP.  It will be another 10 years before we'll have the infrastructure in place to take the Senate and House.

"I admit he was great when it came to self-interest, but what did he really do for the Democratic Party other than paint over cracks in the party long enough for him to not have to deal with the cracks?"

That is precisely the problem.  Sure, there were loony lefties when Clinton was president but they were not running the show.  The paint is gone.  What has been revealed is the likes of Mike Moore, Ted Rall, International ANSWER, and a whole littany of yahoos that mainstream America won't touch with a 10 foot pole much less vote for.

Whatever his faults, Clinton showed the Democratic Party the ideological path it needs to follow in order to win national elections in an era of conservatism.  Being economically centrist and appearing socially moderate was a successful formula.  (Though, due to the war on terrorism, those are not the only issues that need to be considered.)  In addition, he had the political talent -- particularly his oratorical skills and charisma -- to pull it off.  Either one or both of those things have been missing, and, as a result, have cost them at the ballot box.  I think his presidency was an anomaly -- a Democratic President in a period of Republican dominance.  I really don't believe he could have lead them out of the wilderness due to the fact that the electorate is center-right, which is not the disposition of his party.  

Clinton talked a good game of morality but what did he do with his office? He sweet-talked an intern into letting him diddle her with a cigar. He pardoned convicted criminals of the worst sort. Personally I have more respect for someone who is liberal but who lives a good moral life and does not cheat on their wife and hands out favors to criminals and thugs based on the size of checks they write for him.

He was never that center-right anyway. He vetoed the partial birth abortion bill 2-3 times.

He was never that center-right anyway. He vetoed the partial birth abortion bill 2-3 times.

You define the right-left axis based solely on abortion?

I think by any reasonable standard, Clinton was center-right on economic issues* and center-left on social issues -- with occasional left-left swings to appease the Democrats socially liberal base.  (But don't forget the Sister Souljah moment.)  

The Democrats' problem is that they haven't found a candidate who can credibly repeat the formula and/or have any charisma.  Wooden lefty populists and Brahmin Senators from Massachusetts are not traditional winners in this universe.  As a result, the Democrats lost twice against a candidate and then president (Bush) who is less than completely appealing.

von

*Indeed, I think it fair to say that -- with the help of a Republican Congress -- Clinton/Gingrinch were notably to the right of the Bush/DeLay on financial markets.  Clinton also had the benefit for much of his term of the best U.S. Treasury Sec. of the last twenty-or-so years.

"*Indeed, I think it fair to say that -- with the help of a Republican Congress -- Clinton/Gingrinch were notably to the right of the Bush/DeLay on financial markets.  Clinton also had the benefit for much of his term of the best U.S. Treasury Sec. of the last twenty-or-so years."

That should be financial matters.

Personally, I'm pretty satisfied to see you equate the political right strictly by the abortion issue.  However, my own amusement aside, saying that the center-right unaminously supports abortion puts groups like Republicans for Choice and Log Cabin Republicans (Gay rights) on the political left.  Is that what you meant?

...who delayed the decline of the Democratic Party by the sheer force of his political charisma.

I base my view of center-right on what a majority of the public supports. Not that the public is always right, but they are right more often than they're wrong. The public as a whole supports benefits (which stop short of changing marriage) for homosexuals and homosexual couples as well as allowing gays to serve openly in the military, they support stricter immigration controls, they support more mention of religion in politics but do not want to be a theocracy, and they strongly oppose partial-birth abortion. Bush is to the left of the public on some of these views (like the guest worker program and free trade) and to the right on others. I do think gay rights and abortion are very different issues and I have very different opinions on them, although I know you and most other Republicans may feel differently. I don't have a problem supporting a fair amount of gay rights but I just cannot support abortion, most importantly I do not trust the mouthpieces of the abortion movement and the lies and the fear they push on young women who are making a mistake they cannot take back.

I don't really think Clinton's own beliefs were a match to the public. I think Clinton just did and said anything at any given time either to please his political base or to deflect attention from himself. He ran as being in favor of gays in the military but he caved on the issue as soon as he got into office, then signed DOMA, because he didn't want to grapple with the public over the issue. He ran as wanting to make abortion safe/legal/rare, but he repeatedly vetoed a ban most of the public supports because he knew the media would distort just how vile partial birth abortion is and he knew that he couldn't afford to alienate the huge NARAL/NOW base which now runs the Democrat Party.

That is how I viewed Clinton. He said one thing and did another, anything to get elected and to stay in power. All he cared about was being popular with the public and building a so-called legacy, and pleasing his big criminal donors, whereas President Bush sticks to the line no matter what the public views. I don't really consider the President center-right either. I think he's right-wing, and he's proud of it, and even though we disagree sometimes, I have respect for his honesty and his firm stance. I never respected or trusted Clinton, I was always afraid of something horrible happening when he was in office. And then of course 9/11 happened only months after he left, so I guess my fear may have been right.

What I meant to say at the end is that if I had to classify Bush I'd say he's right-wing, but I prefer not to classify in any left or right category. I think he's a President of all the people, even though the Democrats like to pretend that he was somehow beamed in via flying saucer.

willy tried his best to the dems as a whole to move to left of center from left of left of center :) As you said, he managed to keep the loonies locked up.  Once he was gone they all hit the crack pipes again like good addicts.

Lest we forget Mr. Clinton's opportunistic rise hinged on the following: 1) Ross Perot's 19% in the '92 election, 2) an inept Republican leadership response in '96, 3) a very temporary tech-driven bubble economy, and 4) an adoring media.

Considering Mr. Clinton's continuing inability to influence Congressional elections, I suggest that Mr. Clinton's "gravitas" as leader of the Democratic is more hype than substance.  Mr. Clinton has one quality that endears him to the party faithful ...... he is without doubt their premier fundraiser and he possesses a finely-honed ability to pick the pockets of those with more money than conscience.  

Of course, many Republicans liked to pretend Clinton was sent directly, do not pass go, from Hell.  For what it's worth.

I agree with the pithy analysis, although the whole bit about raising money is certainly a Clintonian aspect as well.  Perhaps our leaders focused on the wrong parts of the legacy.

Clinton stopped the Republican presidential juggernaut, which covered 20 of the last 24 years of the presidency.  He gave us 8 years of judicial appointments and policy decisions, enough to at least offset the flood tide of Republicanism a little bit.  If the country is indeed on a conservative trajectory, he managed sail into the wind with a left-of-center policy perspective, even in the face of a hostile Congress.  He co-opted Republican positions and gave them a decidedly Democratic flavor.  

He also forced the Republican party to remodel itself to the left (you think compassionate conservatism isn't a reflection of Clintonian triangulation?).

Of course, he also aggravated the culture war by his indiscretions.  And he is the direct cause for the breaches of 1994 and 2000 which let the barbarians in the gate.  Al Gore, for all his foibles, wins in 2000 if he doesn't have the scandal bs to run against.  1994 never happens without the universal healthcare scare.

In the end, the biggest problem with Clinton's strategy was that it resembled Buddy Ryan's "46" defense.  It only works with the perfect personnel.  Edwards might be in the ballpark on the charisma, Gore was close on the brains, and Kerry sure had the fund-raising, but wrap it all together PLUS be the first black president?  I don't know if we can dance on the winds of public opinion while still pushing a progressive agenda without Bubba's knack of making it all seem workable.  

Blame Ross Perot for forcing the Republican Party to the wall on the gap between rhetoric and reality, perhaps, or for making poppy lose his cool, but don't tell me Perot voters would have gone lockstep to Bush I.  I can make a better case for Nader stealing 2000 with his much smaller national percentage.

I'm not sure the Republicans had a weapon in their arsenal capable of taking Bubba on in 1996, but be nice to Bob Dole.  He may be my all-time favorite Republican (yes, even more than McCain, despite the liberal thing for him).

The economy stuff...shrug.  We can argue for days about cause and effect of presidential policy and never get an answer, so I won't try.  Let's just say if there's a Reagan boom there's a Clinton boom, and vice versa.

Media.  Bah humbug.  The adoring media didn't do him any favors in 1994 with universal1 healthcare coverage, and they sure as hell played ball with you guys when Ken Starr decided to Capone the President.  I would attribute whatever excess favorability you find in the media to a more a product of his charisma and media manipulation, which is a skill, not a gift from the outside.

Clinton made me a liberal.  I was a little Ronnie-Reaganaut until the 1992 election, when I figured out I didn't agree with much of what the Republican party had to say.  That 1992 convention - yeesh.  I saw Clinton speak in Freedom Hall and felt like I had been touched by the hand of God.  The closest I ever came to that experience politically was recently when Obama came by to try and shore up Mongiardo, and it was still light years away.  So I guess you could say I'm biased.

I do not know whether Bush I would have prevailed over Clinton in 1992, even if Perot were not in the race.  The problem with Perot voters was that they were so fickle; their allegiance shifted with the political winds.  I do know this, though, that they were not and have not been reliably Democratic voters.  In 1992, Clinton received 43%, Bush 38%, and Perot 19%.  In 1996, Clinton received 49%, Dole 41%, and Perot 8%.  By any measure, the standard vote for a Republican presidential in the post-Perot era would be W's vote share in 2000, which was 49%.  That's startingly close to the combined share of the Perot and the GOP votes in '92 (47%) and '96 (49%).  Perot indeed had an impact, and a negative one at that, on the Republican candidates in 1992 and 1996.  Otherwise, Clinton would have successfully co-opted them, especially in 1996, to have created a majority.  The Perot candidacies, and with them the attendant Clinton Presidencies, were a result of a temporary fracture in the GOP governing majority at the Presidential level in the 1990s.  It was only the result of the disastrous government shutdown gambit by Gingrich in 1995 that enabled Clinton to get back in the game.    

Dole was a horrible candidate.  He was our John Kerry, without the benefit of a contentious war to prop up a weak candidacy.  If a stronger candidate had run, say Colin Powell, I don't think we would be speaking of a second Clinton term today.  

The media loved Clinton.  Heck, something like 90% of them voted for the guy -- twice.  Don't tell me that level of bias doesn't creep into coverage, because it does.  I'll never forget how much Judy Woodruff gushed on CNN the night Clinton won the 1992 election.  It was as if the Berlin Wall had come down.  

I admire the sense of humor and literary skills of anyone that can use the phrase "touched by the hand of God" with the names Clinton and Obama all in the same paragraph. My compliments.

Considering the election results for Congressional, state Governorship and state legislative races since '94 ..... let's just state the obvious. That is, Wm. J. Clinton has been the best thing to happen to the Replublican Party since Ronald Reagan's 1976 speech at the Republican National Convention.