No picture this time.
We’ve heard lots of talk about “electability”. We’ve heard lots of discussion about “flip-flopping”, about whether or not Americans are ready to elect a self-professed socialist, and of course we’ve had numerous horse-race stories and conversations.
I’d like to see us address the EFFECTIVENESS of whomever we elect.
Being right on the issues, and being unable to make substantive progress on those issues, strikes me as a prescription for a failed presidency. Deval Patrick was right on a LOT of issues (in my view, on most issues in fact). Sadly, he was singularly ineffective at turning those issue statements into concrete progress.
As we watch the GOP continue its death-spiral into lunacy, it seems to me that it becomes increasingly important to ask ourselves which of our candidates is most likely to be able get the most done once elected.
This is different from a legislative scorecard — I’m interested in how persuasive a candidate has been, and how likely is that candidate to be persuasive if elected? I think that one of Bill Clinton’s strengths was his skill at getting his agenda enacted, by hook or by crook. I think that Jimmy Carter’s greatest weakness was his apparent inability to do the same. I think the jury is still out on Barack Obama.
I’m offering this post because I don’t see many discussions about this here or in the larger media. I invite the BMG hive-mind to explore the topic — here are some discussion-starters:
1. How important is effectiveness, and how shall it be measured?
2. What impact does Congress have, and how does relate to our choice?
3. What impact does the media have, and what does that say about our candidates?
You’re asking good questions, and I know which direction you are coming. Hillary would be quite skilled at the bureaucratic fights that are expected to ensure trying to get anything done with a Republican Congress.
Because, as things stand, it looks like Hillary is the general election favorite, while Republicans are set to increase their lead in Congress.
Having a Sanders as president guarantees consistency, and gridlock. it’s not impossible that a President Sanders will learn to deal with the enemy – i.e., make deals, which means compromise, and centrist policy.
In terms of big initiatives on the scale of Obamacare, however, we won’t see that with either Hillary or Sanders, I think – at least not initially.
But Hillary is capable to find middle ground with Republicans on college costs, I think, perhaps even on healthcare costs and insurance premiums as a next step to Obamacare.
One has to wonder, however, whether the expectation that Hillary is more perception than reality. The presidency is an executive office – and the best indication for success and skill in that post comes from past executive office, in Hillary’s case as Secretary of State.
So how did Hillary as Secretary of State?
Trouble is, I don’t recall any big breakthroughs she had. Instead, the record is that of caution.
Compare, for example, with the record of John Kerry – the pressure he put on both sides in the Palestine occupation, the deal with Iran, the constant travel and talks and rearrangement of strategy. Or compare with other past Secretaries of State – a Colin Powell, a James Baker.
I don’t think that any Democratic president will find middle ground with the present GOP on anything, unless it means pre-emptively giving Republicans what they want in return for nothing. Obama’s big failure was how he kept trying to meet in the middle, when it had long been obvious that there want’s anyone there to meet. That Congress isn’t changing, so at this point I could care less who can work with them.
At this point I want a president who will take the GOP Congress on and beat it, and then beat it again, and then allow the GOP to beat themselves a few times just for good measure. By that measure, I expect HRC to be more effective, because that is what she and Bill have been doing for nearly 25 years, most recently at the Benghazi hearings that blew up in Rep. Gowdy’s face.
Hillary needs to design her campaign to enter with a Democratic House as the goal. Obama has been a successful president, but without that first term he would not be, regardless of his great skill, infinite grace, and skillful use of the powers of the executive in his second term.
Bill Clinton had a good economy to create laurels for himself, but beyond that aside from keeping us off the far-right shoals (which is nothing to sneeze at if you are part of an ostracized minority group), that was his main achievement.
Congress runs the country domestically, not the President.
Bill Clinton started with a terrible economy. It took the catastrophe of 2008 to make the disaster wrought by George H. Bush look “good”. Bill Clinton presided over a transformation of the economy from bust to boom. That was the largest single reason that he was able to transform a massive (for its time) federal deficit into a federal surplus by the time he left office (a surplus that George W. Bush IMMEDIATELY negated).
and the new taxes enacted under Pres. Bush that prompted the right-wing rebellion against him, as well as some good timing with the late 90s tech bubble.
I credit the balanced budget to Clinton, plus the 1994 Gingrich Congress, which gave some stuff to Clinton (after he won a few rounds) but also kept the Dems spend instinct in check, which for those few years resulted in pretty good governance.
Alas that GOP Congress is long gone– it had no interest in Keeping Bush the Younger’s spend impulse in check, and has now largely been replaced by non-conservative right wing nihilists.
Presidents get far too much credit (and blame) for the economic activity which happens under their watch. NAFTA provided a burst of activity which brought in more taxes and prosperity ensued. (During that time my company had tons of overtime to produce excess product. That product went to warehouses so the machines could be removed from Mass and sent to Mexico). The same thing will happen if the Pacific agreement is passed.
All of these economic bursts of energy are temporary however. There will never be a period of growth which does not lead into a retraction of growth. Remember the reason for cutting the Fed funds rate, when unemployment falls below 7% it would go back up. Unemployment is under 7% but the artificial stimulus of the rate cut is still in place. The next president will pay for this (whoever he or she might be). The wisdom of the ages, 7 years of growth, 7 years of famine is always ignored.
An article by an Indian statistician (not an economist) predicted the housing market crumbling. In 2-3 years we will hit another recession (4-5 if TPP temporarily extends the good times). The next president will be blamed and people will long for the days of Barack’s stewardship (even though Republicans control the House as they did for Clinton).
One of his primary tactics was making much of his agenda a Republican one. It made enacting those parts much easier, and is the reason he was the Republicans’ most-hated Democrat — he stole their platform.
One reason I have trouble with this premise is that it failed so miserably for Barack Obama. He spent most of his presidency doing just that — making nearly all of his agenda a Republican one — and was even more reviled by the GOP than Bill Clinton.
In my view, this premise assumes that the Republican agenda was static, and my recollection is that it was not. It looks to me as though the Republicans have been hurtling rightward, pulled by the most extreme elements of the GOP base. In the areas where Bill Clinton co-opted a “Republican” position, I think it was actually a FORMER Republican position that had been left behind by the advancing right-wing horde.
In any case, surely Barack Obama has demonstrated that attempting to embrace a Republican agenda is now completely useless. Today’s GOP will literally cut off their nose to spite their face.
I was interrupted before I could finish my thought. …he [Clinton] was the Republicans’ most-hated Democrat — he stole their platform. Then Obama came along, and he was even more hateable, by being a Black man from the North. They weren’t going to let him enact their agenda without a fight.
was post-Clinton. Most of that 1994 Congress were legitimately conservative in some kind of consistent ideological sense. I believe that they abandoned conservatism for Pres. GW Bush, and from that point lost almost all sense of it. Once conservatism was kaput, right-wingism is really all they had, so they keep doubling down on it.
I have thought that Dems would do well to stop using the word “conservative” to describe Ted Cruz et al. and should use only formulations of “right-winger.” [Arghh, kbusch]
There is precisely nothing even remotely “conservative” about attempting to wreck the financial system of the country (and the Western World) in an attempt to enforce a political position at gunpoint.
Sorry. In fairness, it’s rarely acknowledged that Bill Clinton kept us out of war except for an important (and successful) humanitarian intervention in Bosnia.
With our military-industrial complex, keeping this country out of war is no small feat. Bill Clinton did that.
Okay, fredrichlariccia, fine, you’re right. Peace matters. I think Obama has a much more difficult period to manage though.
It certainly has been a rough ride for Barack Obama. I think it may take some time and perspective to work out how much of that was because of right-wing GOP nonsense and how much of that was because it took Mr. Obama most of six years to figure out that he was not going to win over the GOP by appearing statesmanlike or by caving before negotiations even began.
Bill Clinton did not have a cooperative congress. So far, Mr. Obama has not been impeached. So far, the GOP witch-hunt has targeted Hillary Clinton rather than Barack Obama (was this a stroke of genius on the part of Mr. Obama? A noble sacrifice by Ms. Clinton?).
I agree that Mr. Obama has had a VERY difficult time. I suggest that Bill Clinton was MUCH better at finding ways to moot, subvert, or co-opt an equally recalcitrant Congress during his administration. Bill Clinton, by pretty much any measure, was many times more effective than Barack Obama.
Hillary Clinton is not Bill Clinton. I have no clue whether she has his skill. I have serious doubts about whether Bernie Sanders has any comparable chops at all. I remain curious about Mr. O’Malley in this regard.
If I could vote for Bill Clinton for president in 2016, I would do so. I voted for him as a write-in in 2000, 2004, and 2012. In my view, it is America’s loss that he cannot serve as President again.
I think that our next President will face an even more oppositional Congress than Barack Obama faced. One of the three Democratic candidates must handle that hostile Congress.
To me, the answer to the question of which one is best suited for that is glaringly self-evident. Your mileage may vary. 🙂
He made the ride rougher by a policy of appeasement during his first term. He did not work well with his own party and did not maximize the opportunities he had while democrats controlled congress.
To go further into admittedly counterfactual territory: Had he been firm he might have marginalized the Tea Party. A bigger stimulus and a more-bullet-proof Affordable Care act would have created facts on the ground very favorable to a progressive agenda.
I do not mean to shift blame from the real bad guys but nobody gets a pass on this stuff and there are important lessons to be learned going forward.
I was trying to avoid a digression into the failures of Barack Obama.
If he were allowed to run for a third term, I would still support any of the current Democratic candidates over him. I do not think he has been a successful president. So much so that I think he’s on a trajectory to display Jimmy Carter as the most ineffectual Democrat of my lifetime.
The legitimacy of his presidency was questioned from day 1, he had unprecedented levels of opposition to what he wanted to do and a good chunk of blue dogs reluctant to take on their financiers. I don’t see how ACA could’ve been done any differently, maybe a little bigger or smaller on the margins, but single payer had strong Democratic opposition. It’s the equivalent to blaming Deval for DeLeo killing his revenue bill.
Where he did make mistakes was valuing bipartisanship as an end rather than a means to an end. The end should always be passing progressive policies. If bipartisan means can achieve that great, if strong partisan voting can achieve it, that’s great too. Conservatives understand this, that the goal of winning elections is to govern and out your policies into law. Liberals tend to vaccinate, adhering to some higher creed where we have to use the right means to achieve our ends so our hands aren’t dirty. Obama fell into this trap and it hurt him.
He has also been a disaster for education. Ask any teacher and they will tell you neither party has heir back anymore. I am actually more confident that Hillary will be to his left on that domestic issue, along with healthcare and some economic issues. I also think she intuitively understands the goal of governance as I outlined it-to pass progressive laws no matter the means.
Carter was ineffective with a Democratic Congress.
I think that your third paragraph neatly sums up what made WJC effective.
I have grown more confident in HRC in this regard over the summer and fall. Mostly because she has spent much of that time running circles around the GOP House– even on issues (the damn email server) where I think they are right on the merits. And culminating in their Wile E. Coyote hearing last month, at which she kicked their asses.
The GOP Congress– the same one that will exist in 2017– had a months-long elaborate plan to cripple the seeming Democratic front runner, and wound up vastly strengthening her candidacy, and gave her hours and hours and hours of free campaign commercial.
I also recall her initial “carpetbagger” campaign for Senate, which began with a “listening tour” in the heavily Republican parts of the state, which blunted her opponent’s advantages there. Then, when the guy practically charged her at the debate, she handled it deftly, and then cruised in the election.
I am not the biggest fan, to be honest. But I do think that she has a pretty good record of waiting for, or even causing, Republicans to over-reach, and then seizing the opportunity thus created, jiu-jitsu-style, which suggests to me that she has some pretty good advice from Bill, or perhaps that he took some pretty good advice from her.
I guess what I am saying is that all indications are that she is her husband’s match in the chops department.
Frichlariccia, you’d better temper your defense of the Clintons lest you be kicked off of this site for being not in keeping with what the patron of this particular post expects to hear. In fact, I suspect our tictoc id boring him right now.
On the contrary, differing opinions keep comments from being boring. Freedom of speech is good – saying the right thing at the right time, even better!
🙂
The common wisdom is that Clinton would be much more effective than Sanders. Sometimes I think that is clear, but other things make me worry.
As we’ve already seen, the current Congress hates (yes, that’s the word for this) Clinton more than any other candidate, and probably much more than Obama. The level of antagonism and obstruction may be worse than we’ve ever seen. Sanders may face the same amount, but we haven’t seen nearly the same level of hatred for him yet, and Sanders has been building relationships in Congress since 1991. Will either be able to work with Congress? I don’t think that is at all clear.
Another concern I have is that, given Congressional gridlock, a Democratic president may have to use executive orders and other activity to get things done. I don’t think there is a doubt that Clinton would use that angle more and more creatively than Sanders would. If that happens, we’ll be continuing the troublesome expansion of executive power that exploded under Bush. Some may be willing to accept that, trusting that a Dem will use that power appropriately, but when President Ryan or Rubio (or whoever else may follow) is using the same power in terrible fashion, how can they be reined in?
Moreover, on the use of executive power, I have deep concerns about how a Clinton administration may wield that power on many important issues – especially use of military force, government secrecy, and citizen privacy. I think Clinton would get more stuff done, but I’m very worried about what some of that stuff may be.
The Globe has a great look at his log record of pragmatic policy achievements with Republicans at the Mayoral level, he has also been called an able
Legislator by the likes of John McCain and Richard Burr. He believes in convergence, he doesn’t water down his commitment to working class economics, but he finds pragmatic ways to put those principles into practice.
I’d like to know what his actual record of accomplishment is in the Senate. I don’t have a clear idea of that. Anyone?
National Journal where the McCain and Burr quotes come from, largely on veterans issues.
Matt Taibbi’s 2005 profile where he follows him on the House and shows how he gets the name “amendment King” because of all the amendments he has gotten passed.
I think the thing to remember about Bernie Sanders is that he isn’t too far to the Left to work with Republicans. He is an Independent populist with a record of building bipartisan coalitions (The Amendment King). He is precisely who can best work with Congressional Republicans. I recommend the National Journal article posted by jconway.
And since we’re discussing effectiveness in itself apart from principals and broader goals, then I’ll also point out the sad fact that Sanders would not be forced to contend with unfair sexism directed at him from the same Republicans who have let racism anger them so for the past 7 years. I was proud to help elect a President of color in 2008, but the price was to stir up white resentment that led to the obstruction of our leader’s effectiveness at any cost. There are plenty of reasons to elect such a strong and intelligent woman as H Clinton but expecting Republican cooperation isn’t one of them.
Clearly H Clinton is very skilled and savvy, but simply being more moderate doesn’t mean she’s more effective. She is smart put that spin on it, but I don’t buy it.
…doesn’t mean something equally stupid as race or gender won’t be used as an excuse, like being Jewish or Socialist. Bill Clinton was about as good ole southern white boy as they come and he was accused of every felony in the book, including rape and murder. I’m not optimistic about GOP cooperation with any Dem POTUS. What we need right now is someone under no illusions in that regard, who will fight and rally the people to push the agenda.
People in Florida were telling me that Clinton was a “Communist” while others showed up at demonstrations with posters saying “CNN – Communist News Network.”
I actually think Bernie has a lot more experience than his detractors give him credit for, I also think it is more likely that Hillary views this role as a partisan one more than her predecessor, her husband, or her primary competitor which could be good or bad.
Seeing as how bipartisanship eluded Obama despite all his best efforts to foster it-I am leaning towards good. Kick DSW to the curb and bring back the 50 state strategy. Those two commitments might be more important to long term progressive gains than any policy promises. That said, if Bernie can build a grassroots army capable of taking down Hillary and winning a general that is a force to be reckoned with. So-the party will decide.
My opinion of their respective effectiveness is based on what I see them do under fire, together with their history. It is not based on their gender or self-proclaimed strengths or weaknesses.
The GOP jettisoned any notion of statesmanship, cooperation, or working for the common good more than two decades ago when Bill Clinton took office. The attacks launched against Bill Clinton were baseless, personal, and hypocritical. They did the same when Barack Obama was elected.
No Democratic candidate will gain ANY cooperation from the GOP if elected. No reasonable candidate or voter should expect any cooperation. Being “moderate” has nothing to do with being effective, nor does being “extreme”.
I watched Hillary Clinton handle herself in the first debate, and I watched her handle herself in eleven hours of withering GOP abuse. I also watched Bernie Sanders in the first debate.
What I saw in Hillary Clinton is a person of STEEL, long accustomed to maintaining her composure under fire and well-versed in how not to fall for baited traps, when the best response is a roll of the eyes, and when to calmly and concisely remind the questioner of the facts and of the indisputable conclusion from those facts.
I have seen no such behavior from Mr. Sanders, and that’s why my support has shifted to Ms. Clinton. Being “moderate” or being a woman has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
I strongly disagree with that statement, particularly in making the hard votes against DOMA and the Iraq War that other Democrats were too timid to make at the time. I am taking nothing away from Hillary or contrasting your statements in her support, I largely have agreed with your assessments about her debate and Benghazi performances, and they have also convinced me as a prior skeptic that she can be a capable President. That said, I strongly feel Bernie is a man of principles made of steel.
There is no doubt that Clinton is very tough, there is also no doubt that when it comes to high profile public events, she is the most experienced and coached person to ever run for office.
Those type of skills matter a great deal, but I agree with you that there are other things that matter and can show toughness, but they are the things the public doesn’t really get to see (and they also happen to be the vast bulk of a President’s work).
My worry (and I think yours as well) about Clinton has nothing to do with her toughness. It has to do with what she (and, probably more importantly, her choices for top advisors and cabinet) chooses to be tough on.
I agree with your characterization of Bernie Sanders on those issues.
What I’m getting at is more amorphous than that. What I don’t think any of us have access to is what was happening behind the scenes in those votes. We don’t know what either Mr. Sanders or Ms. Clinton were doing to influence colleagues and the administration.
I like the voting record of Bernie Sanders, much more than that of Hillary Clinton. I think we need a president who can effectively move our agenda forward in the face of unrestrained, unprincipled, and — frankly — irrational opposition.
Until and unless Mr. Sanders shows me more skill at navigating the thickets of such opposition, I think Ms. Clinton has the edge. I actually think this is where her experience as Secretary of State strengthens her. She has sat a negotiating table with similarly hostile and irrational counterparts and still made progress. In my view, she was more successful in that role than Mr. Kerry. I’m not talking about a paragraph on a resume, I’m talking about what actually transpired while she held the office. I think her effectiveness as Secretary of State is the main reason the GOP so passionately attacks her.
The ferocity — and utter irrelevance — of the GOP attacks against Hillary Clinton persuade me that they see the same formidable President that I see.
I don’t have the answer. I think you are probably right that she brings a considerable amount of policy implementation experience to the table. I also suspect, like with Elizabeth Warren, that Bernie’s influence could rise in the Senate after this campaign and those two could be a great team on legislative issues.
I think the evidence of the profound and quick organizing success his campaign has had, the small donor success, and his vision of campaigning and organizing the working class across the country would make him a far more effective DNC Chair than DSW. Perhaps even a full time one if he feels the Senate won’t get anything done.
At the end of the day I just can’t picture him across the table from another world leader or as a Commander in Chief like I can with Hillary, and as a foreign policy voter, those are big questions for me. By the time either of our states votes, I suspect my vote for Bernie won’t be decisive one way or the other, but she definitely is more prepared to be President. I don’t think that was ever the argument.
I hope she does take foreign policy advice from Bernie and others advocating a less interventionist course of action. It’s her greatest strength from an experience standpoint and also a great weakness since so many of her preferred policy’s have had sharply negative outcomes from Iraq to Libya.
But I think Humphrey would’ve been a better President than Gene, even if Gene was more correct on Vietnam. And I suspect the same dichotomy could be at play here.
Obama has been decidedly less than awesome on this particular thing.
Syria: chemical weapons are a red line, no they aren’t, we wont intervene, maybe we should, maybe not, I dunno– has contributed greatly to all of the awful things in that part of the world.
Libya is much the same. I would also add the months and months and months of “considering” Afghanistan.
We took the trouble of getting Poland into NATO, and might have done something more to ease their anxiety once Russia started invading post-Soviet states.
Etc.
Obama looks OK on foreign policy only by comparison to GWB, but that’s a low bar, to say the least.
Neither will be effective. Congress passes maybe 50 bills a year. Why not? You need 60 votes to get anything done in the Senate, and half the House. You need the president. And Anthony Kennedy. At the maximal time of Democratic influence since the advent of the personal computer, it took months, parliamentary maneuvering, and two Supreme Court cases to pass a health care reform so mild it was a Republican idea.
The system is broken, and I can’t imagine the awareness and verve it would take to reform our system. The Founding Fathers designed an 18th century system that we still revere today. I don’t care how good a driver you are, you won’t get a Yugo to keep up with a Ferrari.
First step in fixing the system, I think, is to fix the federal budget process.
President Obama had one of the largest grassroots volunteer armies in history and a rare filibuster proof majority and ended up losing both by viewing compromise and bipartisanship as ends, rather than one of many means to an end. He also tried to stay above the partisan fray, forgetting he is his party’s leader in addition to the leader of the country.
Hillary won’t make either of those mistakes. As for Bernie, if you give him an army he will deliver a revolution. I am confident they both have a better understanding of how people power and partisan power work, and will take the last 8 years as a teachable moment.