The Clintons have changed their tune. In 1992, Bill was a New
Democrat who campaigned to the soft-rock sounds of "Don't Stop
(Thinking About Tomorrow)." Fifteen years later, Hillary is
crooning "Yesterday."
After all, the senator from New York hasn't been shy about
exploiting Clinton nostalgia in her stump speeches. Campaigning in
Iowa last weekend, she took the old "two for the price of one" line
to a new level by promising to make her husband a roving ambassador
to the world. "I believe in using former presidents," the
Associated Press quoted her telling one crowd in Marshalltown.
Mrs. Clinton said that someone needs to stitch back together our
country's tattered world image after George W. Bush's presidency.
"I can't think of a better cheerleader for America, can you?" she
enthused.
But have no fear. While Bill is globetrotting, Hillary won't
just stay home having teas and baking cookies. She plans to revive
much of the Clinton domestic-policy agenda and sell it with the
same talking points her party used to great effect during the
1990s, from the federal budget to healthcare.
Take taxes, for example. Hillary says the wealthy once again
"aren't paying their fair share." She promises to rectify that
problem by raising their taxes at least back to the marginal rates
they paid under her husband's administration. When Senator Clinton
complains about the deficit, runaway federal spending is low on her
list of culprits but the soon-to-expire Bush tax cuts figure
prominently.
And so does class warfare. "Rich people didn't make this country
great," Hillary opined. "It was the middle class who made this
country great." It's the classic Clinton mixture of populism and
pretensions of economic centrism.
"We need to get back to fiscal responsibility," she says,
hearkening back to the budget surpluses the nation enjoyed the last
time her family lived at the White House. Senator Clinton doesn't
believe the reformist congressional Republicans -- the GOP has
changed its tune since the '90s too -- were at all responsible for
those surpluses, but she is convinced that her husband's 1993 tax
increase was. Perhaps in a very indirect way, she is right: That
tax hike was an important reason there was a Republican Congress in
the first place, alongside Hillary's own health plan.
Senator Clinton plans to bring back that artifact from the
previous administration as well. She doesn't seem particularly
embarrassed by her role in that political debacle. Indeed, her
website plays it up. "As everyone knows, Hillary's fight
for universal health coverage did not succeed," the Clinton camp
allows delicately. "But her commitment to health care for every
American has never wavered."
It wouldn't be Clintonian politics, however, without a little
triangulation. So Hillary has made a few feints to the right on the
cutting-edge issue of immigration -- but not too far to the right.
She advocates stronger employer sanctions on companies that hire
illegal aliens, the get-tough approach most compatible with the
liberal view of business. And she promises federal help to
communities that bear heavy fiscal burdens due to unchecked illegal
immigration.
Yet even here she borrows from Bill. The Clinton
administration's immigration enforcement record was in some
respects tougher than Bush's during his first term (the Clintonites
carried out more worksite arrests of illegal aliens and imposed
fines on more employers). For a while, it looked like the 42nd
president might support the moderately restrictionist recommendations of Barbara Jordan's mid-1990s
immigration commission, though instead he ended up signing a
tough-sounding bill that pleased neither side of the debate.
These seemingly disparate elements do add up to a coherent
message: Let's forget the ugly interlude of Bush's two terms and
return to the good old days when the Clintons were in power. Back
to budget surpluses and high-tech booms, back to when people living
in foreign countries loved American leaders. Back to a politics
that is reliably liberal when it comes to protecting abortion and
soaking the rich but not too soft on crime and sufficiently
solicitous of middle-class interests.
With Bush's approval ratings stuck below 40 percent and Iraq
fatigue setting in among Democrats and independents alike, it ought
to be an appealing message. What voter likely to choose a
Democratic primary ballot next year wouldn't prefer the policies of
Bill Clinton to those of George Bush?
Hillary may nevertheless be misreading her party's mood. Now
that they no longer have to defend him against Newt Gingrich or Ken
Starr, many liberals have come to view Bill Clinton as something of
a sellout. The entire New Democrat project was an attempt to adapt
to liberal weakness; the party's activists want to take advantage
of what they perceive to be a renewed liberal strength. The base
isn't looking for Sister Souljah moments this time around.
Nowhere is this dilemma more apparent than in Hillary's tortured
calculations on Iraq, the number-one issue for angry Democrats.
Senator Clinton still won't apologize for her pro-war vote because
her kind of Democrat wants to maintain at least the appearance of
national-security toughness when courting swing voters, but her
party's center of gravity is moving away from her.
Enter Barack Obama. It still remains to be seen if the freshman
Illinois senator has what it takes to weather a serious national
campaign. But Obama is someone who could rival Bill Clinton's
status as the Democratic Party's biggest star. And he can through
his personality project a contrived image of moderation that
Hillary can only attempt through her proposed policy
prescriptions.
In politics, nostalgia can only get you so far. Or as the sage
members of Fleetwood Mac might put it: Yesterday's gone,
yesterday's gone.
topics:
Taxes, Health Care, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Business, Federal Budget, Abortion, Iraq, NATO, Immigration
