Open Letter to Senator Obama: What Exactly in the Clinton-Era Nineties Did You Not Like?

Dear Senator Obama:

I admire your campaign theme that aims to look to the future, dedicated to real change, and to rising above partisan politics. The reason I am supporting Senator Clinton is that I believe she stands for all those things too -- but is more experienced than you and ready to be president from day one. Though I have doubts that you are as ready as she is, I certainly believe you are more ready than any Republican running.

But one thing you keep saying confuses me. As you campaign on the theme of change and looking to the future, I have heard you frequently say that you don't want the country to go "back to the nineties."

So my question is: What exactly about Bill Clinton's presidency in the nineties do you not want to go back to? Could you please be specific?

-- Do you not want to go back to the days when Bill Clinton took billions of dollars of inherited deficits and converted them to one trillion dollars of surplus?

-- Or not want to return to the creation of 23 million new jobs and the most extended period of growth and prosperity in many many years?

-- Or not return to a time when America's relationships with the rest of the world were positive and inspiring -- leading to peace in Ireland, the end of genocide in Bosnia, and inspiration to the third world for American values of human rights and democracy?

-- Or not see the first Democratic president reelected to a second term since FDR; who had finally positioned the Democratic Party as competitive to win the presidency, winning over his two elections such "red states" as Georgia, Colorado, Montana, Tennessee, Arizona, New Mexico, and Kentucky; and who brought the Democratic Party from a party that had lost five-out-of-six presidential elections mostly by landslide parties to a mainstream party of the middle class who could compete for the presidency once again?

Most Democrats would love the next Democratic president to be as successful as Bill Clinton was. Do you agree? President Clinton's job approval rating when he left office in January 2001 was about 65%--one of the highest approval ratings for a second term president since modern polling was invented. Is that what you don't want to go back to if you were elected as the next Democratic president?

I know you are referring to the "divisions" of the nineties that you don't want to re-live, and there certainly were plenty of them. But do you blame Bill Clinton for the hyper-partisanship of the Gingrich-DeLay Congress? For the tens of millions of dollars spent by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr investigating a 20-year year-old land deal, in which even Mr. Starr finally concluded after all that money and all those innuendo headlines that the Clintons were not responsible for any wrongdoing?

I hope you are not blaming the Clintons for the virtually entirely partisan House impeachment vote, resulting in Mr. Clinton's acquittal in the Senate -- where even a Republican-majority controlled Senate could not muster a majority vote for conviction.

Yes, there were serious hyper-partisanship in the congress in the nineties -- mostly, from the Republicans. But I assume you are not giving credence or blaming the Clintons, or specifically, Senator Hillary Clinton, for that divisiveness? Or are you? If so, many Democrats would be disappointed to hear you say that explicitly.

I'm not saying all was perfect during the Clinton years. Senator Clinton is the first to say many mistakes were made -- for example, as she often says, she learned from her mistakes in the way she handled the national health insurance proposal. But Senator Clinton understands and is committed to a campaign looking to the future, with the experience to make real change happen.

By the way, I was proud to be a Democrat seeing you, John Edwards and Senator Clinton last night on the MSNBC Las Vegas debate. That high level debate focused on the issues. This is what Democrats want. We also believe accurate information about each of your past records, statements, votes -- and non-votes -- is neither "negative" campaigning nor personal attacks.

They help voters make more informed decisions about each of you. Better now to air all facts about your records than let the Republicans use their attack and "swift boat" innuendo machine in the fall with just a few months till the general election.

Sincerely,
Lanny J. Davis

Originally posted at The Hill's Pundits Blog

Comments

[fitCTmom]

I have never been a conspiracy theorist but, I truly think Lanny Davis put this blog up to see the reactions he'd get. Kind of like mining for talking points you know what I mean? "Hey Hillary, most people in the blogosphere are saying xyz...Can you work that into one of your answers?"

[Chachi]

How about this:

I don’t want to go back to the administration that brought us NAFTA?

I don't want to go back to the scandalous money raising schemes of the 90's. Al Gore in the Budddhist Temple, renting out the Lincoln Bedroom, etc... In short, I don't want to go back to an era where the Clintons did everything they could to consolidate power, raise money, and dole out favors to their friends in order to benefit their political future.

I don't want to go back to an administration that damages the credibility of the Democratic Party, and makes it harder for us to criticize Republican corruption, when we're involved with those types of scandals and when the President pardons a known criminal like Mark Rich in exchange for donations to his presidential library.

I don't want to go back to a time where everything seemed good because no major disasters were occurring at home or abroad, but which didn't do anything of significance to avert those disasters from occurring shortly after the 90's were over. What did Bill do to counter al Qaeda? What did Bill do to help the ever deteriorating situations in Afghanistan or Pakistan during his presidency? What did Bill do to quell terrorism?

Tell me, is the best we can do 4 or 8 years of seeming normalcy in the world and good economic conditions at home; but with an extreme partisan culture in Washington which will then likely result in a Republican taking office in 2012 or 2016 which could then leave us, at that time, in the same position we were in, in 2001. How will that move our country forward to a drastically new direction which will help us avoid in the future ending up exactly where we are right now?

The Clinton style of competent leadership through triangulation, and calculating every political move, while being less than honest with the American people, resulted in a pretty good 8 years for the country. But, in no way did it accomplish anything of significance that really changed the country for the better.

[Overd0g]

Aren't you forgetting about the horrors of NAFTA, welfare reform, and the failure to impose socialized medicine? Don't you remember that the "prosperity" was largely the outcome of the .com bubble, which burst just as he left office? How about the bombing (an aggressive act, unapproved by the "international community". Also the sleazification of the White House was simple disgusting. Overall, he wasn't bad, but there were big negatives.

[MyThought]

There has never, never been a "perfect" presidency - never. But when the positive override the negatives you have a pretty good presidency. Clinton's accomplishments override the negatives.

About Rwanda, etc - the "whole world" is to blame for letting this happen - the whole world is responsible. To blame on man is ridiculous.

Scandals? Nearly EVERY president has had sex scandals - Ike, Jefferson, Kennedy, etc. etc. They just didn't report them in the old days - so that argument is just plain junk. Besides, it didn't hurt his ability as president.

One thing your are forgetting - even if some partisans in the US don't like the Clintons - the rest of the world does and what a great start to mend fences. A poll was taken asking many countries who'd they like to see in the White House - a resounding majority would like to see Hillary Clinton in. Speaks volumes.

Remember - when Bush got in the rest of the world couldn't believe Americans would vote him in a second time - they were obviously right.

[bwarren]

Here's what I would say to Barack Obama:

I think you should run as the Republican candidate for President. In the past 50 years, the Republican presidents seem to be more in line with your management style. The fact that you admire Ronald Reagan so much only reinforces what I have suspected for a few weeks now. You, Barack, are more in tune with the Republican party than with the Democratic party.

I, for one, would like to see a true Democrat win this election. Like an earlier poster, quoting Eugene Debs said, "I would rather vote for what I want and lose than vote for what I don't want and win".

I don't want a motivational speaker telling me it is morning in a America. I want a President who is able to make it morning in America. I believe we have at least two Democratic candidates that can do this. Neither one of these frontrunners is Barack Obama. The Republican field, however, is open.

[johnpherson]

GATT, NAFTA, Telecommunications Act of 1996, Hundreds of thousands dead in Rwanda, Scandal....

[Macready]

yuck . . . bill isn't running for president in case you have gotten confused . .. hillary is and she her voting record has been clearly in favour of the chimp's policies particularly in the Middle East . . . and in case you missed it Bill campaigned for lieberman when he ran as an independent and not for the progressive Democratic candidate . . . and you probably missed this too in 2006 Bill praised the chimp's poodle dog tony bliar at the Labour Party Conference . . .not only is 2008 not 1992 it seems that in the course of that time bill has changed and not for the better . . . he seems to have aligned himself more firmly with the DLC and the status quo . . . did you know that bill and tony bliar have the same billionaire corporate backers??? but there are other reasons for my saying yuck yuck yuck to your letter . . .the illegal invasion of Iraq has changed the world forever . . . America needs to change its policies towards the Middle East and towards israel . . . bill's record here also indicates the status quo and please no "pie in the sky" talk about a budget surplus .. . there is no no anyway is going to balance the US budget let alone get a surplus when the Iraq war is costing billions a day . . . get real . . .

[mawrm]

Bill Clinton is NOT on the ballot for 2008. I don't know about you, but I vote according to a very simple time-tested principle- I look at the name on the ballot and evaluate their policies, their principles, their accomplishments and vote for them. I don't weigh very heavily who they're married to, who their father or mother is, I look at who they are and what they have done. If we evaluated all presidential candidates based on their proximity to a successful president as you are doing, then our political system would favor the sons, daughters, wives and relatives of these people. Sounds like at minimum nepotistic, at worse advocating a monarchy to me.
We have to end this cowardice and regressive thinking of "if only we could go back to the good ole days", because the fact is the world is changing and it takes fresh minds with different experiences and perspectives to tackle the problems our nation faces. Americans voted for Bill Clinton in the 1990s precisely because they wanted that new face and new perspective. We are now in a whole new millenium and we need leadership that reflects the thinking and visions of this new era - the old methods of solving yesterday's problems will not necessarily work today. While experience is great, it's judgement that really matters and it's the hope that experience has informed judgment. One can decide among the candidates who so far has demonstrated the best judgement in matters critical to the welfare of this nation? America has been at its greatest when it has chosen to embrace an uncertain but promising new path - that's how we got started, that's how we ended slavery and Jim Crowe, landed a man on the moon, ended the Cold War, etc. In all cases, if folks and their leaders had chosen to cling blindly to the thinking, mentality and the ways of their predecessors, we would not have made these accomplishments. We respect the accomplishment of Bill Clinton and his era. We just recognize it's time to move on and pass the baton!

[JacktheBlogger]

Hey, I'd trade in all seven years of W. for just one more day of the love, peace, happiness and prosperity of the 90s!

[foreffectivegovernment]

Lanny,

I am not a psycologist but I have been a student of human nature for 50 of my 68 years. I supported your analysis of the Bill Clinton Administration in a previous blog.

After reviewing the vile remarks of some of these comments, I determined there are two categores of individual submitting them.

1. Those who are "lifelong Republicans" and are bashing Hillary and Bill for political gain. They bought into the Republican policies espoused by Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush and falsely believe these failed policies benefit them.

2. Those are Democrats that were fooled into voting for George W. Bush because of the wedge issues of abortion, homophobia, gun control, and lower taxes.

Both groups feel the shame associated with responsibility for our current situation and must salve their conscienses by supporting a minority candidate.

These are the only justifications I can see for favoring Obama over Hillary in this Presidential race. I plan to support the Clintons and hope that no swiftboating issues arise in the future that can stop what I feel is a certain voctory in the general election for the Democratic Party.

[FogBelter]

Let's see Lanny ... how many jobs did NAFTA and joining the WTO bring to the United States? How much better off are we since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 accelerated the growth of Media Monopolies? How much better off is a single mother who now has to work two minimum wage jobs and reduce her school age children to latch key lives because Clinton's Welfare Reform set her free?


Oh, and that Prosperity, which relied on the Dot Com Ponzi Schemes, Kiting of Property Values through flipping schemes, and the accelerated use of CDOs and CMOs ... the 90s were the times of Cotton Candy Prosperity ... and we're enjoying the bitter aftertaste today.


Lanny, you're absolutely right, the 90s were great ... as long as you don't analyize them too closely.

[RichLiberal]

Hey Lanny, great to have you back on board. You've been gone too long. The big question is not why does the right hate Hillary, that's obvious, she and Bill are serious threats to break the spell of BS the right slings non-stop.

The real question is why does the left hate Hillary. If you listen to what they are saying - they want to "put the controversy behind us". i.e. they do not like the fact that they have to be exposed to the right wing smear campaign. They conveniently assume it must be the Clintons' fault, ow why would a nice man like Rush Limbaugh say all those bad things about them.

The truth is these people are cowards. They do not want to stand with one of their own and face the attacks of the common political enemy. I'm not saying I'm the bravest person in the world, but I do not cover my fears by tut-tutting whatever small failings the Right Wing MSM Smear Machine may uncover in their cynical attempts to destroy the true leaders of the working people.

[suki21693]

Isn't it funny how we are supposed to believe that nothing done during the Clinton 90s contributed in any way to the mess we are in right now?

Yeah, the 90s were pretty great, and the 00s have not been so great. How much of each is Clinton to be commended/condemned for? That is a reasonable area for debate.

[vbond]

Lanny, you know full well that Obama was referring to the poisonous partisan environment in the nineties (and since).

You erroneously conflate his desire to get beyond this environment with condemnation of the Clintons.

They had plenty of entirely reasonable and understandable reasons to be partisan, if only in defense against the very real "vast right-wing conspiracy." Of course, Bill then exacerbated all of this by doing wrong in the Oval Office.

It is far from entirely their fault, but the Clintons (and, as this campaign makes abundantly clear, it would be "the Clintons") could no more lead this country past the partisan world that was spawned in their time in The White House than Hubert Humphrey could have "gone to China", as Nixon, the hard-bitten Cold Warrior did.

The additional fact that neither Ton Delay nor Newt Gingrich could not do it either (as if they'd be motivated to) is cold comfort for your case.

You, of all people, understand this political and - at this point, cultural - reality, your admirable fealty to the Clintons notwithstanding.

You have actually answered your own question... you just don't seem to want to hear it.

[Zuni]

uh,,,how about a stupid judgement scandal that absolutely helped put our current President in office...yeah,,I think I did not like that