One Utah

In a lengthy chapter of his book, Glenn Hurowitz describes Bill Clinton as a gutless wonder. Hurowitz makes the case that Clinton’s entire political strategy was based on his personal dislike of confrontations. Clinton would go out his way to avoid confrontations, including compromsing one core progressive values. Clinton’s reluctance to confront his political enemies (and they were numerous) had the effect of convincing them that they could push him and push him and push him and get political victories and he would not fight back. They were right - Clinton only fought back and fought back hard when his political career was in danger. I think it was James Carville who described Clinton as the king of the counter punchers.

In a new article in the American Prospect, Ezra Klein describes Clinton’s political behavior:

His first-term legislative strategy was, in many ways, dismissive of the coalition beneath him. Many of the high-profile fights he picked — NAFTA, the Deficit Reduction Act, gays in the military, and gun control being prominent examples – were much more divisive for Democrats than for Republicans. They forced tough votes from vulnerable Democrats and angered crucial allies (notably labor). Health care, which was supposed to be the sweetener amid all this tough fiscal medicine, was epically mishandled, and became yet another black eye. In the 1994 midterm elections, Democrats lost more than 50 seats in the House.

Hurowitz makes this case at length in his book - Bill Clinton was unable to accomplish what should have been his cornerstone domestic goal - universal health care - because so much of his early presidency was consumed with issues that were guaranteed to cause his political allies to fall into disunty. NAFTA, to take one example, passed but its passage meant Clinton had to mend fences with Labor before he could get their support for other proposals.

By the time the Clinton administration turned its attention to health care, it was too late. His enemies had had time to not only rally and strategize, but to launch an effective campaign to sway the public. Clinton’s distant relationship with the progressive movement meant that natural allies who would have sided with him and could have helped defend the health care proposal no longer trusted him. To put it bluntly, the progressive coalition did not have his back since they felt he did not have theirs.

Clinton’s mode of operation during his two terms was primarily playing defense. Now, that wasn’t all his fault - the New Deal coalition was, at long last, coming apart at the seams. The Dixiecrats were finally openly switching allegiance to the Republicans. The Progressive movement in general was in a painful transition - the single issue groups that had long dominated were facing decreasing effectiveness badly. And the conservative movement - after decades of organizing and experimenting - finally matured as a political movement.

But Clinton’s style remained, defensive:

And that pattern continued throughout his career: Clinton proved masterful in repelling the onslaught when his back was to the wall, but the near-death experiences and unexpected comebacks that defined his career failed to provide him a solid base from which he could systematically build a movement or sell his beliefs. Clinton’s political genius manifested itself not in the construction of a greater and grander Democratic Party, or a new and expanded progressive majority, but in the sheer fact of his survival, and his ability to govern competently, and at times brilliantly, against such odds.

Clinton was also a personally incautious politician, who had real enemies. Whitewater may have been a specious scandal trumped up by his antagonists, but Lewinsky was not. And however unfair the Republican Party’s decision to attack Clinton’s private life, it was deeply selfish for Clinton to hamstring his own presidency, and all that he could have accomplished, by offering up such ammunition to his enemies.

I have been astounded since it happened that Clinton would have risked so much by having an affair with Monica Lewinsky. That incomprehensible act nearly destroyed Clinton and will forever tarnish his legacy. Monica was a moment of betrayal - a betrayal of trust placed in him by voters who may not have cared he had an affair but who could not comprehend his misjudgement in handing his political enemies the most powerful tool they needed. Monica united the conservative base, already seething with hatred of Clinton, and further divided the progressive base, already distrustful of him. His tremendous political gifts managed to keep him in the White House but failed to build a movement. Hurowitz, for instance, cites the much lamented Russ Feingold as the exemplar of a movement builder politician. Clinton’s gift, Klein reminds us, was for his personal survival:

His political talent has, historically, been for getting himself elected. He’s just not that good at getting others elected.

Bill Clinton is often blamed for Democratic losses during the 1990s. Clinton’s genius for politics wasn’t movement building and under his leadership (and the leadership of Clinton loyalists) the Democratic party fell into a period of disunity and electoral defeat. Clinton’s legacy is decidedly ambivalent among progressives who laud his responsible and effective leadership on the economy but who deplore his failures as a movement builder and institutional leader. The Clinton administration’s much discussed “triangulation” was as often used against Democratic office holders as on their behalf. The White House is perhaps the most effective megaphone in American politics and the Clinton Administration consistently missed opportunities to employ it effectively. The netroots and progressives look back at the 1990s not as an era of prosperity but as an era of missed opportunities and wasted talent.

Hillary - certainly a skilled speaker as I noted way back on election night 2006 - learned the lessons of the Clinton White House all too well. Her disastrous vote for the was in Iraq was right out of the Clinton play book - get the issue off the table quickly and avoid a fight. For progressives, who had long distrusted the Clinton’s progressive bona fides, it was the ultimate betrayal. Her name recognition alone would have vaulted her into unquestioned progressive leadership had she voted no on the Iraq was. Millions would have rallied to her leadership. Instead, she voted for a war sold on lies against the wrong enemy. It was an eminently pragmatic, political choice that reminded progressives they could not fully trust a Clinton.

I think the Iraq War, her failure to leader on that issue, created the opening into which Obama could step. It reminded the people whose support she most needed of the progressive failures of the 1990s and damaged her credibility.

This entry was posted Thursday, June 5th, 2008 at 1:33 pm and is filed under 2008 Election, Healthcare, Hillary Clinton, Human Rights, This Blog. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.