Refight the Nineties?

By historical standards -- or any other -- the Democrats have an excellent set of presidential candidates from which to choose this season, and I look forward to campaigning enthusiastically and without reservation for our nominee. But this does not mean that we should be suppressing the discussion of differences, and it is in this framework that I think it is important to express my discomfort with a major theme of Senator Obama's campaign.

I am referring to his denigration of "the Washington battles of the 1990's" and, usually implicitly but sometimes explicitly, of those who fought them. My unease is compounded by the very explicit note of generational politics in his approach. I should note that I cannot be accused of self interest in taking exception to those who lament the baneful influence of baby boomers on our current politics, having myself been born well before the boom. Indeed, being much too young to claim membership in the greatest generation and even being a couple of years short of being a depression baby, I am reconciled to being part of a fairly large birth cohort that goes undesignated in our pop sociology. But since I do not have much intellectual respect for generational politics, I can live with this chronological anomie. I say that because generational politics presumes that I should have a different set of political values today than I had in the sixties when I began my political activity. But I cannot think of a cause that I cared deeply about then that I felt it appropriate to abandon as I aged, nor an important issue in which I had no interest then, but which now gets my attention.

This brings me to my particular concern with Senator Obama's vehement disassociation of himself and those he seeks to represent from "the fights of the nineties." I am very proud of many of the fights I engaged in in the nineties, as well as the eighties and before. Senator Obama also bemoans the "same bitter partisanship" of that period and appears to me to be again somewhat critical of those of us who he believes to have been engaged in it.

I agree that it would have been better not to have had to fight over some of the issues that occupied us in the nineties. But there would have been only one way to avoid them -- and that would have been to give up. More importantly, the only way I can think of to avoid "refighting the same fights we had in the 1990's", to quote Senator Obama, is to let our opponents win these fights without a struggle.

It would have been nice in the nineties not to have had to fight to defend a woman's right to choose whether or not to have an abortion, and I would be very happy if that fight ended tomorrow. I was troubled when Newt Gingrich and his right wing band took over Congress after the election of 1994 and sought to put an end to programs to deal with continuing racial discrimination and the resulting inequality, and I am even more distressed that we have to continue to fight that battle against a Republican party largely opposed to all of these efforts -- consider the Bush Justice Department and its role in dealing with people's right to vote. As a gay man, additionally, I would have been delighted in the nineties if our conservative opponents had been willing to recognize our rights to be treated fairly under the law, and I would have saved a lot of time, as recently as this past year, if there was not continued strong right wing opposition to the "radical" position that people should not be denied jobs because of their fundamental nature, or that hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity should be treated less seriously than those based on racial or religious prejudice. These are three of the major fights in which I was engaged in the nineties, and I literally do not understand what Senator Obama means when he says that he does not want to keep fighting them. I know that he understands that those who were opposed to all three of those causes in which many of us deeply believe in the nineties continue their opposition, and I do not understand how we can avoid fighting those battles other than by conceding them, which I know he does not advocate.

In some cases, Senator Obama does not seem to remember what some of the fights of the nineties were. I agree that it would be a good thing to have the 2008 election be in part "about whether to...pass universal health care" but that in fact is one of the central fights we had in the nineties. The effort of many of us to pass a universal health care plan is precisely one of the battles of the nineties, and it seems to me one that we very much want to keep fighting. Again, the only alternative to fighting it is losing it by concession.

Another major fight of the nineties which seems to me essential -- not simply relevant -- to the current election is tax policy. Few fights that we had in the period when Senator Obama is denigrating our battles was more important than the successful effort to pass President Clinton's tax plan in 1993. That battle was so hotly fought that it contributed, sadly, to the Republican takeover the next year, because a number of the Democrats who had voted for a progressive tax plan which made the tax code less unfair and provided important revenues for important programs lost their seats because of it. I make no apologies for having fought that fight, and in fact I hope that whoever is the President of the United States in 2009 will take up the battle against excessive tax cuts for the wealthiest people in the country, both as a matter of fairness and as a matter of being able to afford fundamental programs essential to the quality of our lives. I also remember fighting hard during that period for the rights of working men and women to join unions, and while we lost that once the Republicans took power in '94, we did score one victory when we were still in the majority in passing, in a "bitter partisan battle," the Family and Medical Leave Act -- the need for us to wage that battle is once again as strong if not stronger in 2008 than it was in 1995.

Finally, I do take pretty strong exception to Senator Obama's evenhanded denunciation of "the same bitter partisanship" of the nineties. It is true that American politics became much more partisan in the nineties, but that was primarily the result of the successful right wing takeover of the Republican Party, embodied at the time--he has since become a little more moderate for some tactical purpose--by Newt Gingrich. Again I do not think those of us who fought back against Gingrich's poisoning of the atmosphere should apologize for that. If anything, the apologies should come from those who were too slow to respond. It was Gingrich and his right wing allies who decided to inject a much harsher note of partisanship by explicitly rejecting the notion that the Democrats were honorable people with whom they disagreed, and instead decided, as Gingrich's own printed and taped materials argued, to portray us as treasonous, corrupt, immoral and otherwise vile. And when Gingrich was forced by his own flaws to step aside, Tom DeLay took up those cudgels with a little less rhetorical flourish but with an even heavier hand. If Senator Obama was denouncing the outrageous tactics of Gingrich and DeLay, I would be very much in support of his comments. Instead, he evenhandedly denounces the "bitter partisanship" of that period and seems to me to be distancing himself equally from the Gingrich/DeLay attack and the efforts of many of us to combat it. The comment calls to mind the marvelous words of John L. Lewis, at a point when Franklin Roosevelt pronounced a plague "on both their houses" with regard to a significant labor dispute. "It ill behooves one who has supped at labor's table and who has been sheltered in labor's house to curse with equal fervor and fine impartiality both labor and its adversaries when they become locked in deadly embrace."

As a Democratic Member of the U.S. House of Representatives today, I close by noting that there does appear to me to be a strong contradiction between two of the criticisms we sometimes receive. One is the approach taken by Senator Obama, which I have just tried to describe, which expresses distaste for too much fighting and too much anger, with too little effort to govern in a way that bridges differences. But contrary to that, I often hear that we Democrats in the Congress have not fought hard enough, that we have not stood up enough for what we believe in, and have been too prone to conciliate. I personally do not think that either criticism is justified, but I know as a fact that they cannot both be true.

I fully agree with Senator Obama that we should be arguing for the policies we advocate and the values from which they derive in a manner that appeals to the broadest possible segment of the public. His own ability to do that is one of our great assets. But I worry when people on my side underestimate the difficulty of our most important work, and I believe that is what Senator Obama does when he dismisses our efforts to fight the right wing in an earlier period because it suggests to me that he does underestimate the difficulty of the job. I think the best way to summarize my concern is that if you tell people that we should not be willing to refight the battles of the nineties -- including many very important ones that we are far from having won -- and if you tell people to refuse partisanship, you may be inviting people to leave the battlefield to those with whom we have the biggest differences. Racial fairness, reproductive rights for women, an end to discrimination against sexual minorities, universal health care, the right of working men and women to bargain collectively with employers -- these battles we waged in the nineties remain essential to our vision today, and I do not understand why we should either be embarrassed about having fought hard for them, ten, fifteen or twenty years ago, or why we should not be determined to keep fighting until we have achieved success.

Comments

[daveny]

So it sounds like you're looking for someone to get elected president of the Democratic party -- not president of the USA. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way... and when it does, we wind up with Bush.

[KeysDan]

A serious misrepresentation that is occuring as a result of the equal footing given to the bitter partisanship decried by Senator Obama is the conflating of the Bush and Clinton administra­tions--tha­t both are responsible for the sorry state of affairs in which we reside. While this grossly inaccurate characterization of the Clinton administration may be serving Senator Obama in the short-term, given his chief rival, at the moment, was part of that experience in name and deed, it may result in some voters feeling that it really does not matter which party is governing, as they are all the same. A cry heard in 2000 in chosing between Bush and Vice President Gore. If nothing else, the Clinton administration held back the right-wing's concerted efforts to repeal progress since President Roosevelt. New CEOs, to be successful, understand and appreciate the history of their organizations so as make changes and corrections where needed and to build on the gains. So, too, Senator Obama will need to grasp Democratic history if he hopes to make a difference as president.

[WoollyB]

Yo, Barney, you're missing the point.
I don't want to be like the GOP playing their current game of "Quien es mas macho?"
This is about transcending the Beltway mentality to go out and capture votes. That's why, in a typical politician's speech, you'll hear a hundred numerical statistics to prove a point; Barack doesn't talk politico-speak. The secret of Reagan was that he didn't either.
This isn't about shrinking from the big fights, Barney. It's about changing the political dialogue. Or, do you think Pelosi and Reid are doing a very good job communicating with the American people? Take a minute, Barney, and read Gary Hart's comments in HuffPo and you'll get the idea. And believe me, nobody fought the good fight harder than Gary when the times called for fighting.

[eshalom]

Obama's condescending dismissal of the previous generation is contradicted by his boast of attracting 47 foreign policy advisors from the Clinton administration. If elected, Obama, whose real gift is that of a motivational speaker, will be in the same position as Bush, isolated in a bubble and completely dependent upon a circle of confidantes from - horrors - the previous generation!

[Researchguy66]

It's the hubris of youth. There are no lessons from the past worth learning. Anything we can imagine, we can do. We can merely hope it into existence.

Been there before...r­emember the balloon drop with Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop Thinking about Tomrorow" playing in the background? It's harder than it sounds to make real change happen.

[felixrandom]

nothing happens unless you get several more seats in the senate and the house. then you need to remove the burrowing appointees since they owe their jobs to a criminal conspiracy. if that collection of seats appear, congress must prosecute the criminals or risk ceasing to exist. so those of you who have held the fort to now need to drop that other shoe first chance you get.

whoever wins the presidency will be significant. what congress does will be more so. get the emails, jail everyone who avoided the reporting laws, romp on it. rehire a bunch of those folks driven out. now surely that's sufficiently partisan..­..........­...

in one sense obama is right. we need a unified front and the stakes are sincerely high.

[StephenDedalus82]

Thank you. I'm tired and scared of the rhetoric about ending partisanship. The Republicans started the unpleasantness Washington now experiences, and by blaming both parties equally Obama is doing a favor for the enemy. What is the "postpartisan" solution to healthcare, education, climate change, etc...? Surely he knows the Republicans won't roll over and play dead just because he says so. However you interpret Obama's message, it's as empty as can be.

[clevelandchick]

The Clintons lost the Congress in the 90's. We got NAFTA, Outsourcing, the rise of Enron, Welfare Reform that created a large new demographic in our country called The Working Poor, etc...We had a president that compromised on progressive values at every turn.

Check out the excellent post by David Morris at Alternet for a realist look at what the Clinton 90's really were:
http://www.alternet.org/story/72336/

Something John Edwards said in New Hampshire and at the last debate really resonated with me. He said that if the issues are just political, philosophical or intellectual for the person in office they will be willing to cave and cut a deal. But if the issues are personal to that person in office they will fight tooth and nail to do what's right for the people. We did not get that from the Clintons or the members of the DLC in the 90s.

We the people cannot take any more deals or compromises when it comes to what's best for us. The economy we have now is not only George Bush's fault - he didn't sign NAFTA.

[DemandTruth]

Really. To hear Mr. Obama & our old friends, the Mass Media tell it, you'd think Congress has such a low approval rating because the Democrats haven't capitulated enough!

You know the only reason Republicans & the media are screeching for bipartisanship & compromise is because they KNOW they're about to lose ALL their power, and now they want the Democrats to share. To hear the beltway pundits and Republicans talk, you'd think it was the Democrats who are fostering all this partisanship & divisveness. Please remind me again: which party held meetings (the Peoples' business) in the basement to hide them from the opposite party in congress? Which party decided to rule by the "majority of the majority"? Is it the Democrats who call the opposite party treasonous & traitorous & terrorist enablers & "phony" & "godless", etc? every chance they get? Just who is fostering this divisiveness anyway?

The Democrats have bent over backwards in the last year to "compromise" with Republicans. And what has it gotten us so far? Well, let's see: Republicans & their propaganda machine the MSM still constantly smear, bash, misrepresent & lie about Democrats. 100.00/bbl oil. More tax breaks for huge corporatio­ns/industr­ies. The Patriot Act. The Military Commissions Act. Illegal spying and other lawbreaking with NO consequences. Habeus Corpus STILL not restored. Etc, etc.

You can go ahead & vote for Ms. Corporate Lackey or Mr. Capitulation, but I'm voting for a fighter. THE fighter. They (yes, you know who) say he's angry. Well, if you're not spittin' angry at what our little Warmonger King and his merry band of enabling Republicans have done to this country in the last decade, you're not paying attention!

Go John Go!

[Janco54]

I think the point is being missed.
The Republican's, with malice aforethought, decided to "take down" Bill Clinton. They created the most partisan atmosphere they could, were derisive of everything he did or tried to do, they filed charge after charge even if they knew nothing was going to stick.
That's what the 90's were. We can't afford to go through that again.
And we will if Hillary is elected. Nothing gets done. The country goes further down the drain.

[jackpinesavage]

I think what Sen. Obama is appealing to (or trying to appeal to) is that during the nineties, partisanship took over completely. Rep. Frank discussed the issues, and does so quite well; however, where we fall on issues and where we stand with parties are two very different things.

The sticking point is that people don't describe themselves as liberal or conservative, they describe themselves as Democrat or Republican. At which point they generally say something stupid and derogatory about the other party which they think is hilarious.

Liberals and Conservatives can get along, find common ground, and work together. We wouldn't be here today if they couldn't. (the fringes will always be full of hate, they should be kept at the fringes) But Democrats and Republicans don't seem to be able to get along or get anything done, at least not the ones who put party affiliation above/before political conviction.

Many of us (myself included) can still tell the difference between a liberal and a conservati­ve...but i'll be damned if i can find a fundamental difference between the two modern parties.

[FiveSenses99]

Hillary seems to be fighting the dirty battles against anyone who dares to stand in her way. Democrat or Republican. It seems Hillarys motivation is only Hillary; Its certainly not this country of ours. She has lost my vote for one, for I am tired of always voting for the lesser of two evils and I am sick of the dirty tricks and the politically tested personalities that only prove to me, that when the going gets tough, she will sell out to the highest bidder and leave the american public in the dark yet again.

This young, gay, disillusioned person is going to be purposefully staying home on election day 2008, and will be finding something better to do, until the democrats finally nominate a politician that is going to earn my vote. I will purposefully embody myself as the lazy young person equiped with cynicism, a nice fat coach, some potato chips and nice bottle of beer. I will engage in active inaction.

[rudyinbama]

Thanks Barney for some sanity.

[certainot]

all those battles you mention and more and today's global warming and iraq- all these battles with the right were made much harder when reagan killed the Fairness Doctrine. many should have been over and done in a rational civilization.

but the uncontested repetition of the talk radio monopoly that reaches 50-70MIL Americans completely distorts democracy by giving the largest soapbox in the country to an extremist minority and makes bipartisanship IMPOSSIBLE.

many of the battles continue to be fought only because the talk radio monopoly allows the right to control the overall media flavor of America, while progressives tune in music and strategize in a vacuum.

[elkabong]

Congressman Frank,

I admire you as one of the smartest, most dedicated members of Congress.

I agree with most of what you've written, here but here's what I don't get:

When Democrats were the minority party, Republicans hardly allowed you into the process. They wouldn't even consider a Bill or an Amendment if it didn't have the support of a majority of Republicans. They often broke the rules; keeping votes open long enough to pressure their colleagues for votes; disallowing hearings. Relegating Rep. Conyers to the basement. When it looked as though Democrats were going to filibuster, they threatened the "nuclear option" and Dems backed down. Alito and Roberts were confirmed without much of a problem.

Now that the Dems are the majority, Repubs filibuster everything the president doesn't veto.

Why does it seem that Democrats bring knives to a gun fight?