We have 1060 days until the next presidential election and establishment democrats are already “Ready of Hillary”. We haven’t even elected a new Governor yet! But okay, I guess that means I need into get into gear too…
It should be no news that Hillary Clinton is a moderate. But for those who haven’t been paying attention, Hillary Clinton is a former member of the “New Democrat Coaliton” . What is the New Democrat Coaliton? Basicly a coalition of Moderates that adhere to a philosophy called the “Third Way”.
If that sounds familiar that’s because a think tank called the Third Way made headlines recently for opposing the policies of Senator Elizabeth Warren and her fellow progressives. The think tank is a big promoter of the third way policies. Does it follow that Hillary Clinton is at odds with Elizabeth Warrens Policies? Not necessarily, but it certainly seems plausible.
Hillary’s husband, Bill Clinton was one of the flag bearers for Third Way policies in the US. Most people forget that President Clinton was considered a moderate, being proud of ending “welfare as we know it”.
So what is the New Democrat Coalition?
In the United States Congress there are three factions of the Democratic Party, divided into Congressional Member Organizations.
On the Right is the Conservative “Blue Dog Democrats”
On the Left is the “Congressional Progressive Caucus”
In the center, is the “New Democrat Coalition”
The New Democrat Coalition is pro Big-Business as you can see from the platform below from their website:
”
Who Are the New Dems?
- The New Democrat Coalition is the pro-growth, fiscally-responsible wing of the Democratic Party. We believe in policies that lead to American success.
- The New Democrat Coalition is a tech-savvy group of legislators who are tapped into the new economy. We understand that the technological changes in the private sector demand new approaches in government, and we’re ensuring that the voices of our tech and business communities are heard in Washington.
- The New Democrat Coalition’s members are the policy entrepreneurs of the Democratic Party. We share the core values that all Democrats hold, but we seek new and innovative ways to bring those values to life.
- The New Democrat Coalition believes in ideas over ideology. We are a solutions-oriented coalition that seeks to bridge the gap between left and right by challenging old and outmoded partisan approaches to governing.
- The New Democrat Coalition stands for the millions of Americans who feel unrepresented in today’s broken political process. We believe that the moderate majority of Americans are tired of the constant campaigning and partisan sniping in Washington, and we’re firmly committed to tackling the greatest challenges America faces today. “
The New Democrat Coalition’s centrist beliefs are also evident in their history. According to Wikipedia:
After the landslide electoral losses to Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, a group of prominent Democrats began to believe their party was out of touch and in need of a radical shift in economic policyand ideas of governance.[3][4] The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) was founded in 1985 by Al From and a group of like-minded politicians and strategists.[5] They advocated a political “Third Way” as an antidote to the electoral successes of Reaganism.[3][4]
The landslide 1984 Presidential election defeat spurred centrist democrats to action, and the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) was formed. The DLC, an unofficial party organization played a critical role in moving the Democratic Party’s policies to the center of the political spectrum. Prominent Democratic politicians such as Former Vice-president Al Gore, Vice-president Joseph Biden participated in DLC affairs prior to their candidacy for the 1988 Democratic nomination. [6]
The DLC espoused policies that moved the Democratic Party to the center. However, the DLC did not want the Democratic Party to be “simply posturing in the middle.” Thus, the DLC declared their ideas to be “progressive”, and a third way to address the problems of the 1990s. Examples of the DLC’s policy initiatives can be found in The New American Choice Resolutions[7][8]
Although the label “New Democrat” was briefly used by a progressive reformist group including Gary Hart and Eugene McCarthy in 1989,[9] the term became more widely associated with the policies of the Democratic Leadership Council, who in 1990 renamed their bi-monthly magazine from The Mainstream Democrat to The New Democrat.[10] When then Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton stepped down as DLC chairman to run for president in the 1992 presidential election, he presented himself as a “New Democrat”.[11]
So it is a fact that Hillary Clinton aligned herself with Moderates in Congress, and not Progressives.
Personally I would rather support a more progressive candidate for President than Hillary. I don’t see why people are already clamoring over her, and ignore her pro-big business mentality. I worry she won’t take on the big banks and income inequality, and by ignoring them, we will have another Great Recession.
So no, I am not “Ready for Hillary”
Let’s have a primary first. Isn’t that what democracy is about?
The Clinton Wars. I remember spending half of my time reading it mad at the right wing for its relentless Clinton fake scandal machine, and the other half mad at the Clintonites for the “Third Way” stuff Blumenthal so passionately defended.
OK, maybe it wasn’t 50-50, but I think the Third Way crowd has done at least as much as the post-Reagan GOP to shift the debate far rightward.
…moreso than in 2008 and she was my candidate then. I go back and forth depending on the race, but fortunately there are multiple offices and we can put moderates in some and progressives in others. I strongly support Elizabeth Warren in the Senate so I don’t think this is an exercise in mutual exclusivity. The centrists of our party have also largely proven successful politically and economically. I also don’t believe there is nearly as bright a line between the party wings as you seem to suggest. As I recall Clinton’s voting record in the Senate was pretty standard for a Democrat.
Is she still a hawk?
Is she still a Rubinite?
If the answer to either/or is “yes” then we need a contested primary rather than a coronation. Even if she moves assertively to position herself as a “no” on those questions, we should still have one just so she can be tested for the general.
Without irony intended, I must confess I’m a solid centrist when it comes to Clinton. I’m not as enthusiastic as her supporters are and not as paranoid or rabidly critical as her critics on the left. She was an excellent Secretary of State, accomplished Senator, and one of the most politically active and astute First Lady’s since Eleanor Roosevelt. She is battle tested and won’t back down from a partisan fight as Obama has repeatedly, she would rather make history than make friends, and she has Bill as a potent asset. She is also a strong centrist, strong believer in bipartisanship for its own sake, and Bill is as much of a liability as he is an asset. At the end of a day a truly contested primary could only benefit supporters, critics, and agnostics alike while benefitting the candidate herself most of all. Let’s ensure it happens!
The question is, is she the right candidate?
With Obama, we have had a Third Way President without Hillary skills and experience.
Who are the progressive candidates?
Of course, I lean a bit more hawkish and Rubinite (or at least more tolerant thereof) than many here myself, so those are less knocks against her for me. By all means, though, have a primary – people should have a choice.
I think the economics of the “centrists” (who really aren’t) have been an unmitgated disaster. Over the past 25 years wages have stagnated, inequality has grown, unions have weakened, job security has disappeared, retirement security has become a pipe dream for many Americans, and bipartisan deregulation has caused the largest economic crash in 80 years, the safety net has shredded. I hold “centrist” Democrats responsible.
They’re the ones who ensured that the Elizabeth Warren side of the debate, the one that actually corresponds to the interests of the American people, is completely out of the conversation. After the 1984 election, these DLCers said, “If you can’t beat ’em, copy ’em.” And our country has been far worse off as a result.
The “proof” that “centrist economics” was “successful” is that there was a dot-com bubble in the 90s. The “proof” that it’s winning politics is that Bill Clinton won with Ross Perot on the ballot and getting 20%.
I actually agree with Christopher that centrists governed decently in the 90s. The Democrats were out of new ideas by the 80s, still reeling from Vietnam and Civil Rights losses while also far removed from it’s working class base. Conservatism appeared ascendent and dynamic and we needed to meet it in the middle to win. I don’t think we could argue that Carter, Mondale, and Dukakis lost since they were insufficiently liberal. It would be like a conservative arguing today that Romney wasn’t conservative enough when the exit polls indicate otherwise.
That said, I think the tables have turned and the winds have shifted. Centrism was the appropriate response to Reaganism to get back into power. But now that Reaganism and neoliberalism as a whole, are spent forces, it’s time to move back to the populist left. Overwhelming numbers of millenials identify as social and economic liberals, want more state intervention and help, and we see Keynes and Polyani undergoing a revival on campus. Even Marxism is getting into the mainstream again with publications like Jacobin and n+1 getting a lot of millenials excited. Unions are viewed more positively. So I think the continuing to stay the course with Clintonian centrism for yet another 4-8 years underestimates the appetite of the electorate for true populist change. Clintonism had it’s place in the 90s, we should not have revived it under Obama and it should not continue to define the party. Quinn’s loss, Connolly’s loss, and the tepid response to Senator Booker show it’s spent. I will be more than Ready for Hillary, as long as she is ready to push our party and country where it must go.
I never said Carter, Mondale, or Dukakis lost because they weren’t sufficiently liberal. I do think Carter and particularly Dukakis, however, could have won if they’d run smarter campaigns.
That is a different thing, however, from saying that the Bill Clinton policies were good. They were not. They exacerbated major problems that started in the 70s and went into hyperdrive under Reagan. The fallout from that – a crash and an awful economy that isn’t working for huge numbers of people – is a large reason WHY there’s been such a shift in attitudes over the last few years.
I know no shortage of people who supported Obama in ’08 not because of Iraq, but because they didn’t want Clinton redux on domestic policy. Some of them remain skeptical, some are for Hillary now because they fear the GOP winning and thinks her prospects would be very strong to win. The “make Texas competitive” approach. (My gut is that Hillary would not, once push came to shove, come all that close to winning Texas. She might get to 270 but, if “winning” looks like the Obama years…)
I’ve still not heard anyone contest the premise that Clintonism removed anything to the left of Bob Rubin from our economic discourse. It really hasn’t come back in. Elizabeth Warren is chipping away at the wall, but her ideas (very mainstream with voters) are still treated as fringe in most media coverage. Name any political force that bears more responsibility for that than the Third Way/DLC.
To me Clinton always will be to the Democrats what Eisenhower was to the Republicans. The Republicans had their Goldwater conversion a few years later and started the next major era in American politics, with awful consequences. Time for us to do the same, for good.
The economic conditions and evidence such as the dot-com bubble were propped up by government policies such as Clinton’s budget and stimulus, which granted Dems paid a price for supporting.
I recall polls showing Clinton beating Bush before Perot re-entered the race.
I wouldn’t be bragging about it.
No movement on real wages. Family incomes going up only due to more hours worked and more women working full time. Flatline for more than 60% of the country. Sharp decline in union membership.
Great time if you were in the top 1%, pretty good if you were in the top 15 or 20%, awful for my family and many of our friends.
All of these Clinton states from ’92 are in play without Perot. If Bush had won them, he’d have been re-elected. At the least the dynamic would have been very different. In the last month it was pretty clear Clinton was going to win. It wouldn’t have been.
Ohio (21 EV): Clinton 40.2, Bush 38.4, Perot 21.0
NJ (15 EV): Clinton 43.0, Bush 40.6, Perot 15.6
Ga (13 EV): Clinton 43.5, Bush 42.9, Perot 13.3
Wisc. (11 EV): Clinton 41.1, Bush 36.8, Perot 21.1
Conn. (8 EV): Clinton 42.2, Bush 35.8, Perot 22.6
Kentucky (8 EV): Clinton 44.5, Bush 41.3, Perot 13.6
Colo. (8 EV): Clinton 40.1, Bush 35.9, Perot 23.3
Iowa (7 EV): Clinton 43.3, Bush 37.3, Perot 18.7
Maine (4 EV): Clinton 38.8, Bush 30.4, Perot 30.4
N.H. (4 EV): Clinton 38.9, Bush 37.6, Perot 22.6
Nevada (4 EV): Clinton 37.4, Bush 34.7, Perot 26.2
Montana (3 EV): Clinton 37.6, Bush 35.1, Perot 26.1
In any event, it doesn’t matter. It was more than 20 years ago Clinton was elected. By that logic Dewey or Eisenhower should have predicated their campaign on Hoover’s.
I am saying on politics, Clinton was the best we could do in the 90s. I’d argue that Obama had a clear mandate to govern from the center-left on all fronts, and choose to govern from the center on economics, the left on social issues, and the right on defense. He was really just to the left of Clinton on social issues, and actually to his right on budget and taxes and foreign policy.
I am skeptical that the “same but more competent’ approach will really work going into 2016. I think it’s important for Hillary to ditch her husbands’ policies, embrace his populist rhetoric, and turn on her inner LBJ. Some here like Christopher and sabutai are convinced she can do that, I was once convinced, but have found her post-SOS period to be less convincing in that regard. But she is as left as the Democratic electorate will make her, and it’s up to us to get her there. Even if we need to back another candidate in the primary in order to get her there.
I just strongly disagree with what seems to be your attitude of not giving him credit for anything. I cannot possibly believe that it was merely a coincidence that the Clinton years were the longest sustained period of relative peace and prosperity we have had. Stock market soring (more than the 1% invest), 20 million new jobs (we also raised the minimum wage and expanded free trade, and yes I do see the latter as a net positive), full employment, and almost non-existent inflation. My family was middle class and we did all right.
Think you were confusing me with Fenway there, I have a realist assessment of the Clinton years and think a lot got done. I tend to view him as a mixed bag overall. But he won twice and by big margins. I just think his policy prescriptions are inadequate for the era we live in now. I want our next nominee whether it’s Hillary or not to channel their inner Truman and Roosevelt and give em hell!
…and nested under his previous comment as such.
If Clinton had “peace and prosperity,” so did Coolidge. Peace: the Cold War ended and we had a lull. Prosperity: Mostly for the top.
Sure, yet somehow the 1% own half of all stocks, bonds, and mutual funds that are privately held, and the top 10% own 90%. It should be clear by now that a soaring stock market does not equal good news for average Americans. Hell, often the stock soars because well-paid people were laid off. If someone loses an $80K job but the mutual fund goes up $1,500, that’s not a win.
I recall the cartoon with Clinton making this claim and the waiter saying, “Yeah, and I have three of them.”
The Clinton bubble only looks good because of the hell that’s followed, most of which was either the continuation of trends Clinton did nothing to reverse (wage inequality, weak labor) or the chickens coming home to roost on his Greenspan-driven economic policy.
I used extreme terms to characterize the Clinton years and either JConway or Christopher correctly called me on it. Clinton was likely the only feasible Democrat for the 90s. Given the times, we were probably lucky. We can blame Clinton, but he was, after all, part of the conservative zeitgeist. Democrats were getting hammered on fundraising prior to the DLC and shift to the business-oriented right. Getting in bed with Wall Street was necessary. Now we’re stuck with them, like the GOP is stuck with their socially conservative wackos.
It’s not the past, but the future, we now need to focus on. We know what Bill Clinton was. We know what Hillary has been. But we don’t know what she will be.
As an astute Democratic politician, Hillary is surely aware of the populist wind that is blowing. Even Obama has spoken about inequality, and he has never struck me as a populist. Hillary may need to feel some pressure to see that this is a new century, but she will see it. We have to make sure that it doesn’t mean business as usual.