“The Clinton era did not produce a stronger Democratic Party. To the contrary, it’s legacy is the philosophy that principles don’t matter, that what counts is reading the mood of the electorate and being nimble enough to adjust to changing voter preferences. This counsel probably cost Al Gore the Presidency. The former Vice-President, who’s a person of deep personal morality, got tragically bad advice. He ran a campaign based upon issues, rather than on principles. Surrounded by Clintonistas, Gore attempted to win with a Clinton-style campaign, forgetting that he lacked Bill’s charisma. Gore hid his true character from the electorate. Forgot that he is a values-based Democrat.”
bob burnett– “busting the clinton ghost“
in today’s political arena, i don’t think that the politics of expediency are exclusive to the democrats, although they seem to have perfected it. the truth is that it doesn’t work for anybody except for bill clinton. i can understand how the democrats (at least their current leadership anyway) are tempted by the idea that they should say and do anything they have to do to regain power in washington. it’s a flawed idea. principles do matter. the average voter wants a representative who will stand up and fight for their values. we want someone who navigates by beliefs, not by polls. we want someone who says what he or she will do, and keeps those promises to us. am i promoting some kind of idealistic alternative universe? i don’t think so…as long as we, the unelected, stay engaged in the process of accountability that is required of citizens taking part in this great democracy.
so, how are the democrats doing with reading the mood of the electorate? the polls suggest that many americans have an unfavorable view of president bush and specifically of the UAE ports deal, which is currently in danger of being ditched completely. everyone wants to be re-elected, and they are scared to death of any fallout from bush’s unpopularity. bush-bashing is politically popular, and as long as that continues to be true, they will continue to engage in it. the republicans are also complicit in helping the democrats torpedo the president. it doesn’t matter to any of them that the president may be absolutely right on some of the things he’s doing…all that matters is saving their own skin. this is deplorable.
the question is: what do the democrats believe in? what principles can they stand on? although their far-left fans may cheer as random drive-by attacks on the president are leveled at him, that’s no way to win elections. despite what the average moonbat may have you believe, bush won in 2004. he beat john kerry despite his unpopularity and despite the american people’s uncertainty about iraq. if the democrats think they can win back congress with a message of “i’m not bush”, they are sadly mistaken.
bill press is a smart guy, even though i disagree with him politically. that’s why i’m surprised that this is his advice to the democrats. just run as the anti-bush…and that will be enough to win, says press. press writes about some issues where he feels that the democrats can capitalize on perceived bush weaknesses, and then suggests that all they need to do is run against bush, instead of using some of those issues to promote better ideas. i disagree with bob burnett when he says that gore lost because he focused on issues, rather than principles. i think that issues and principles are not that far divorced from each other. what you believe determines what you will do and what you will say.
it’s not enough for republicans to say, “america is less screwed up with us in charge”. it’s not enough for democrats to invoke the scary spectre of how much they believe george w. bush has ruined this great country. it’s judgment time for both houses. the first party to have a platform other than saying “we are better than the other guys are” will be the party that wins in ’06 and ’08.
Technorati Tags: bill press, democrats, liberals, george w. bush
I have yet to see any grand scheme of the Republican Party. They had one back in 1994 when they swept into Congress, but that “plan” was quickly abandoned in favor of catering to the far-right, corporatist elements in the party which has led to a complete destruction of the country’s economic future, a destabilized military, one city (so far) destroyed because of mass incompetence, and the first major terror attack on our country because they ignored the warnings.
And at this point, they’ve screwed up so thoroughly that, yes, it would be incredibly easy to sweep many seats in Congress and possibly control of both houses, by simply pointing out how badly they have ruined things and that Democrats could not possibly do any worse.
I remember a Clinton aide saying:
“Leadership is finding which way the crowd is going – and then running to get in front of them.”
Both parties seem stuck in this manage by focus group mentality.
I agree – real leadership will prevail.
Brad,
I have never ever excused the Republicans on spending. I think that they are wrong to be so careless in that area, and I hope that the ones who are complicit in that are defeated in November, even if it means the Republicans lose control. It might wake them up. Tax cuts need to be balanced with spending cuts, and I have yet to see any significant proposed cuts in spending. That’s the reason the economy is where it is, although I don’t believe that it is as bad as you seem to think that it is, even acknowledging that Bush hasn’t done so well with the deficit.
I haven’t seen the evidence of a destablized military. If it is as you say, then the Republicans can’t take all the credit (blame) for that. I am somewhat conflicted about Iraq right now, but I don’t think the same is true of our military men and women who are serving there.
There’s a lot of blame to go around for what happened in New Orleans. Bureaucracy always screws up, no matter which party is running it. I don’t excuse the mismanagement of Katrina, but I don’t believe that Republicans and George W. Bush should take all the blame for that…some should be given to Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco as well.
As far as 9/11 is concerned, a pretty good case could be made that the Clinton administration dropped the ball on intelligence and the possibility of capturing Bin Laden, but what we need to focus on now is not who is to blame for 9/11 (other than Bin Laden and his accomplices)…but how we can better improve our response to prevent future attacks.
Allan,
That’s a great quote. I think it describes Clinton’s philosophy quite well.
The economy is booming for the top ten percent of wage-earners and, of course, corporations. For the rest of us, it hasn’t been this bad in a long time, and there’s no fuzzy math that can hide the facts.
Bush has locked down our military in a “quagmire”, making his thinly veiled threats against Iran irrelevant, except of course when he cuts and runs later this year. Recruitment is way down and well below the original quotas that existed before they were reworked so that they could “appear” to meet them.
Mistakes were made all around during Katrina, of course. Before the hurricane, Nagin and Blanco did not adequately prepare the area for evacuation. However, doing nothing at all for five days, ignoring frantic calls and e-mails from local leadership while the situation progressively worsened is obviously solely on this administration. And it turns out after the fact that Brownie was the only one in the administration with his head on fairly straight. That’s a pathetic commentary. And still now, Bush is talking a good game about giving the area all the funding they need, yet NOTHING is being done in the area. Where do you think that money’s going? Look who got the contracts. Here’s a hint: It starts with “H” and ends wth “alliburton”.
The fact regarding Clinton’s supposed guilt in allowing 9/11 to happen is becoming a tiresome Republican talking point with no basis in fact. If you really want to go backwards, we could blame Reagan for arming them, couldn’t we? But let’s look at reality. Clinton and his team stopped numerous attacks on American soil, all of which have been extensively documented. His team even tried to warn the new administration of the threat al Qaeda posed. But they were too busy lying about supposed vandalism and stolen silverware, and they allowed the largest attack on American soil ever because they ignored obvious warnings.
That is, of course, if you believe that al Qaeda was responsible for it.
As for preventing future attacks, I don’t think you have to look much further than the FBI when they say that Bush’s overreaching, illegal domestic spying is tying up crucial resources and destabilizing our national preparedness.
Brad,
I can’t speak for all Americans, or even for many Americans who are struggling financially right now with the current state of our economy. I don’t question that these struggles are occurring and that people are out of work. That’s unfortunate, but personal experience is not an objective measure of economic progress.
The numbers that a lot of people consider indicators don’t give me a clear direction on this question. The unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.8%, which is not that much of a jump, and in addition to that, compares favorably with the numbers during Clinton’s 5th year in office. According to the BBC, 6 in 10 industries added jobs and there was also a slight increase in average hourly earnings. On the other hand, we have a widening trade deficit and a slight fall in productivity for American workers. So of course there could be some improvement in this area.
To those who are unemployed or struggling financially, the technical definition of whether the economy is terrible or not just doesn’t matter, because they only believe what they are experiencing. Again, I’m not arguing that the overall numbers are as good as they could be, or that Bush’s policies have always been beneficial to economic growth. All I’m saying is that the reviews are mixed at best on the economy, and that the truth is somewhere between what I think it is and what you think that it is.
We disagree that Iraq is a quaqmire, although I do acknowledge that progress isn’t being made as fast as we would all like toward helping Iraqis exist independently of our military.
I agree with most of your assessment of the Bush administration’s handling of Katrina. It does appear that Michael Brown was more competent than we all thought he was, but some of those emails sure didn’t put him in the best light. I mean…worrying about your wardrobe choices during a natural disaster??? So the evidence that Michael Brown had some clue what he was doing definitely surprised me. It does suggest a conflict of interest giving a contract to Halliburton to help with Katrina recovery.
Would it be better to have opened up the bidding to more groups for the Katrina contract? We can agree on that as well, but it didn’t happen. You know there are other Halliburton fans out there as well as Cheney and Bush, don’t you? Some Democrats even…like former stockholder Michael Moore.
I’m not blaming Clinton for 9/11. That’s not my argument. The reason that I brought it up is that you seem to want to put the blame entirely on George W. Bush for 9/11. Neither man is entirely to blame. It’s pretty clear that for a long time in this country, we didn’t take terrorism or terrorists as seriously as we should have. Many presidents have been negligent in that aspect of their foreign policy, and there have been consequences to those choices.
I’m not qualified to analyze the FBI analysis of the NSA program, but I still disagree with its conclusion. Thanks for your comments. We will just have to agree to disagree on most of these issues.