Looking back on the Clinton years

A recent report from The Third Way shows why Democrats need to move to the center on social and national security issues, but it will done with the Moveonner Left and the Deaniacs yelling, kicking and screaming. The Daily Kos keeps pushing the idea that Democrats should follow Lincoln's strategy in the election of 1860. Perhaps, they want a Civil War between red and blue states. It just doesn't make any sense for Democrats to just scream louder. The Moveonner Left nut cases have given me a renewed appreciation of the Democratic Leadership Council although I still disagree with their advocacy of free trade. Given the insanity of the Kos crowd, it is easy to look at the "New Democrat" era of the Clinton Administration with nostaglia. A more careful and objective look at that time will show it was filled with not only accomplishment but also missed opportunities and failure. We need a Democratic nominee in 2008 that can appeal to the center, but a somewhat different approach than Bill Clinton took while campaigning and in office.
I think almost anyone would agree that the Clintons are very shrewd politically. While I have never been a big fan of Bill Clinton (if only Sam Nunn had been our nominee instead in 1992 !), he was certainly more in touch with mainstream America than the many failed Democratic nominees that we have seen in the past thirty five years. It should be kept in mind that Clinton did not win a popular vote majority in either Presidential election and was basically a product of Ross Perot's strong independent-Reform Party candidacies. Perot pulled 19% of the national vote in 1992 and 8% in 1996. Even Perot's weaker eight percent showing the second time around was quite strong for a third party campaign and pulled many more votes away from Republicans than Democrats. Furthermore, Democrats lost control of Congress in 1994 and never regained a majority in either house under Clinton. The ideal Democratic nominee-President would have been a Bill Clinton with character and more populist on economics and somewhat more conservative on social issues than the 42nd President.
Clinton's decision to raise taxes on upper bracket taxpayers in 1993 helped to return our nation to a balanced budget although the tax incease was obviously unpopular in some circles. The family medical leave legislation passed at Clinton's urging was not only good public policy, but also great politics. Clinton's support of welfare reform helped Democrats by reducing the perception that we support "welfare cheats." The fact that Clinton had signed death warrants as Arkansas Governor and was willing to criticize the hateful lyrics of "gansta" rappers (if only on the campaign trail in 1992) helped to put Democrats more in the Middle American cultural mainstream. If Bill Clinton had been able to keep his pants zipped with the staff and taken a more populist approach to approach to economics, I think he would have left office with great public respect and personal popularity that would have likely benefited his party for at least a generation.
Clinton's support of NAFTA and GAAT in the long run hurt low and middle income workers and alienated working class voters from the Democratic Party. Campaign contributions from the rich angry at the tax increase and insurance companies concerns about a national health care program not doubt helped fill the campaign coffers of Republicans to win Congressional control in 1994, but I do think the alienation of working class voters over NAFTA and culutral issues was a major factor in the Republican sweep of that year. Republicans had made gains under Nixon and Reagan in winning working class white voters at the Presidential level using cultural issues and Cold War concerns, but many of these voters had returned to support Clinton in 1992. The enthusiastic backing of NAFTA by Clinton-Gore basically told these blue collar voters to get lost and they started voting Republican at the Congressional level and below based upon the social issues.
While Clinton's framing of abortion as something that should be "safe,legal and rare" was preferable to the strident language of many pro-choice advocates, he did little to build bridges to pro-life voters. In fact, it was the Clinton campaign that was behind the snub of Bob Casey at the 1992 convention and pro-life Democrats felt increasingly alientated during Clinton's tenure which included a veto on late term abortion bans. Clinton's strong support of the assualt weapons ban in 1994 mobilized pro-gun rights voters aginst the Democratic Party - many of these voters are working class white males - a group that we were starting to win back in 1992. If Clinton had insisted on environmental and labor standards in trade agreements, taken a more incremental approach to health care (starting with health insurance coverage for every child in America), stayed away from gun control and done more publicly to seek a true middle ground on abortion, avoided stepping in the "gays in the military" controversy in the early days of his administration and exercised greater discretion in his personal conduct, I think we might have a Democratic majority in Congress and a quite different political environment across the nation today.
Links to articles about The Third Way report:
Democrats Are Advised to Broaden Appeal by Robin Toner
10/07/05 New York Times
http://tinyurl.com/8jp46
Democrats urged to broaden appeal by Nina Eason
10/07/05 Bostone Globe
http://tinyurl.com/adgxn