Hillary and The Clinton Legacy
"We know how to do this," Hillary Clinton says on the campaign trail, "we've been here before." Clinton argues she represents both the "experience and the change," but from the campaign's beginning, she has presented herself as a restoration, offering a way back to the sun-filled years of peace and prosperity of her husband's presidency.
That she's benefited from her husbands' political legacy goes without saying, but what is striking is how irrelevant -- if not simply wrong-headed -- his policy legacy is to the challenges we now face.
The Clinton years gain luster in contrast to the foul catastrophes of Bush misrule. Hillary has benefited greatly from the experienced political team, the money and machinery put together in those years. She's inherited widespread support among African Americans and working families, who remember the rising wages and high employment of the last years of Clinton (before the dot.com bust). Her husband is a beloved, if yet undisciplined, surrogate on the campaign trail. Each Bush debacle reinforces her claim that "we can make this work again."
But the signature initiatives of the Clinton years -- NAFTA and the corporate trading world, budget surpluses, repealing welfare, posing tough on crime, reducing the size of government, proclaiming the "era of big government is over" -- are part of the problems, not part of the solutions that the next president must face. And as a candidate, Hillary has had to distance herself from many of her husband's core policies.
Corporate trade accords and deregulation of capital and banking were a centerpiece of Rubinomics, the Clinton economic policy of former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. But banking deregulation contributed directly to the mortgage and credit crisis. Unsustainable global deficits have decimated U.S. industry and undermined the dollar. Our economy is dependent on the "kindness of strangers," primarily Chinese and Japanese central bankers. Wages are stagnant; health care and pension promises are being abandoned. A new global economic strategy is imperative. And Hillary gets it: She's called for a "time out" on trade accords, questioned the value of restarting the current global round, and promised a revision of NAFTA.
Balanced budgets -- even paying down the national debt with budget surpluses -- are another sacred idol of Rubinomics, one to which Democrats still pledge fealty. But economic growth -- with rising employment, wages and thus tax revenues -- is vital to balancing the budget. With this troubled economy headed towards recession, with both consumers and lenders tightening their belts, Democrats should be arguing for making the investments vital to our future -- e.g. a bold plan on conservation and new energy, rebuilding our collapsing infrastructure, investing in everything from pre-K to broadband -- as essential to getting the economy going.
Bill Clinton's commitment to bankers' fiscal austerity kept him from arguing for the public investments we need. And of course, his surpluses set up George Bush's raid on the Treasury to pay for tax cuts for the rich. Hillary pledges to balance the budget in each speech, but she's laid out an investment agenda on energy, health care, housing and more that hints she may understand that balanced budgets are the result of economic growth, not the cause of it.
Clinton celebrated the decline in the size of government, with his "reinventing government" looking for ways to privatize and outsource federal work. The results wasted billions, reduced government efficiency, and set the stage for Halliburton's plunder and Blackstone's crimes. Now even Hillary calls for an investigation and rollback of privatization. The next president will, one hopes, once more celebrate public service.
Clinton is praised for disarming "law and order" as a Republican political weapon, putting police on the street and championing harsh sentencing laws from the death penalty to three strikes and out. But the results - in a starkly discriminatory system of criminal injustice - have been truly calamitous to the African-American community, laying waste to the lives and hopes of young men, undermining families, and crippling communities. Now even conservative Republican governors seek ways to lower sentences, let nonviolent prisoners out of jail and balk at enforcing death sentences too often racially skewed.
Clinton's repeal of welfare succeeded in reducing the number of people on welfare, if not the number in poverty. Now, however, the neglected second part of the promise -- making work pay -- is the central challenge. The next Democratic president will be seeking ways to build a public social contract - living wages, health care, public pensions and mandated sick days -- to replace the private benefits that corporations are abandoning.
Clinton hailed America as the "indispensable nation," sustained daddy Bush's military budgets and Cold War weapons systems, defended and exercised the prerogatives of an imperial presidency. After the Bush debacles, the next Democratic president would be well-advised to change course dramatically. Clinton slighted global warming while in office, unwilling to challenge the Congress over Kyoto or CAFE standards. The next president will lead a major drive for energy independence and make America a leading force in the global effort to address catastrophic climate change.
Bill Clinton was a moderate politician caught in a conservative era. He fought a skillful rear guard action in some areas, while co-opting or embracing conservative ideas and policies in many others. The next Democratic president will be elected by a public looking for change in the wake of the catastrophic failures of those conservative ideas. He or she will have the mandate to forge a very different course. Hillary Clinton may benefit in the campaign for our nostalgia for the Clinton years of peace and prosperity. But the next president will succeed only if she or he charts a very different course.
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"Hillary gets it: She's called for a "time out" on trade accords, questioned the value of restarting the current global round, and promised a revision of NAFTA." RB
Mr. Borosage,
This is a great article but here's the looming question: Unless Hillary is being *less than truthful* to the Tech/Indian lobby and the rest of us, can you please explain how does Hillary "get it" when she has pledged to the tech lobby to hand over white collar jobs to H-1b immigrants while she peddles the great labor shortage myth when there are not enough professional jobs for our own programmers and engineers?
http://adv
http://www
http://pro
Good post. I don't agree with every point but the thrust is in the right direction, that's for sure.
I like Hilary a lot. I wish she were as good a political thinker as she is a person. The fact is she isn't. Even her feminism now is seen to be of "ancien regime" type. She got the education but the world wasn't ready so she took a job as rainmaker at a political lawfirm exploiting her husband's political influence. Yes, she made a great symbol and feminism needed that in the 70's.
However, I think Michele Obama is today's feminism incarnate, not Hilary.
this is a great article. I want to link it and vote for Hillary on www.hillar
I think the Hillary apologists assume that progressive Democrats hate her. That's not the case. Her election was the silver lining in the dark cloud of the 2000 Election. We're just very disappointed in her performance as a U.S. Senator.
As it became increasingly apparent in 2002 that the Bush Administration was going off the deep end, a lot of us looked to Hillary to take the lead as the loyal opposition. She didn't.
Instead, she took great pains to repudiate the progressive base that stood by her from the beginning; all in an attempt to reinvent herself as THE pragmatic moderate for the post-9/11 era.
She was so immersed in this reinvention that it took her until some time in 2007 to figure that the American people had were fed up with Bushism.
I don't want to hear how "tough" she is. Over the past five years, she's been a consciencous objector in the war over our nation's soul. She never ONCE took on this administration when there was any hint of political risk to it.
I can see some Goldman-Sachs liberals supporting her, because deep down they don't want to sacrifice anything, and they know she won't ask them to. Otherwise, it perplexes me why anyone purporting to be a progressive would want to throw their lot in with someone so obviously disdainful of them.
Totally disagree with the author. I watched Bill Clinton and then Hillary Clinton on C-Span - After 8 years of Bush/Cheney - I'd take them back in a minute. Economy - war - crimes that make Whitewater, etc. soap operas.
Clintons were smart - both of them. They can adjust to the times. The represent prosperity and peace and goodwill around the world, not to mention the plight of women, children, and minorities improved while Bill Clinton was President - with much help from Hillary.
But, if the public doesn't want the Clintons, an even better choice is Joe Biden. His resolution to end the war in Iraq passed the Senate in October and the House this week and will go to Bush's desk in the next 10 days to veto or sign.
This the kind of screwball view that got Bush appointed in 2000. The lefties joined the righties in ridiculing Gore. So they handed Gore's victory to the fascists backing Bush, because the lefties had to vote for the supposedly ideologically pure Ralph Nader. Now these same lefties are trying to marginalize Hillary Clinton by denying that Bill Clinton was the most successful and popular president we're had since Thomas Jefferson. Clinton governed from the middle, skillfully keeping the corporate types in line but also the far leftwing, to benefit of the vast middle of America, the people who work for a living. So, now, the isolated far left joins Rush and his bunch in trashing Clinton's accomplishments as a way to destroy Hillary's chances. The far left and the crazed righties who worship Rush represent the very reason we have to have a moderate president. Government from the extremes never works. Bush/Cheney have achieved great things for the superrich, but have left a disaster for everyone else. And now the biggest of all ironies, and it's not funny really: The radical left thinks Gore's okay now. So who do you want? Giuliani, Huck, Mitt?
"Clinton is praised for disarming "law and order" as a Republican political weapon, putting police on the street and championing harsh sentencing laws from the death penalty to three strikes and out. But the results - in a starkly discriminatory system of criminal injustice - have been truly calamitous to the African-American community, laying waste to the lives and hopes of young men, undermining families, and crippling communitie
How were these policies discriminatory? Crimes were committed; people were arrested. The onus of the 'calamitous' result to the African-American community should not be placed on the laws or the system, but the criminals themselves. Nothing will change until accountability is realized.
"The signature initiatives of the Clinton years are part of the problems, not part of the solutions.
Yes Bob, America may never recover from those balanced budgets, peace initiatives, and eight years of unprecedented prosperity.
You'd think that Hillbillary[Bill and Hillary]would acknowledge that she learned form the mistakes Bill made and not repeat them. I don't mean Monica.
Hillary is a candidate for her times. Her progressive views especially on woman and children will again become more manifest AFTER she gets elected.
Bill was trapped in the Reagan/Gingrich conservative "revolution",which has run its destructive course,is in the throws of death.
It will be interesting to see how Hillary distances herself from hubby Bill's policies.
I believe she succesfully will and Bill will correctly say "times are different" which is true indeed.
Dr. Rick Lippin
http://med
There are many things that the Clinton administration can be praised for, and certainly, in comparison to what we are experiencing now they were halcyon days.
But economics are difficult to mesh with presidential administrations. Many of the economic successes of the Clinton administration had nothing to do with the administration. The tech sector fueled the roaring nineties to a great degree, Bill Clinton harnessed that roaring, but did he create it? We must also keep in mind that we have been a garrison economy since the fifties, and during the 80's a huge amount of government money/debt went towards the m/i complex...
We can look at the 90's as halcyon days or we can see them as a time when the majority of Americans enriched themselves with no concern for the future (portfolio diversity is not concern for the future) or anyone else.
That is what has us in the situation we are in now. The Clinton administration can't be blamed for that, but they certainly never tried to calm the exuberance. The 90's were a decade dominated by short-term profit and disregard for long-term sustainability or doing what was right/good. Politically, the Clinton administration fits that description. For example, conglomerating media made Rupert Murdoch happy and that meant big money for the party here and now; unfortunately that was then and there. Our here and now is severely tainted by that media conglomeration.
None of the good ole days were perfect; people who suggest a return to them will always scare me, because their vision is clouded by nostalgia.
Many of Clinton's policies related to welfare, crime, etc. were political concessions to the majority republican congress that he had to work with.
Some of his policies, such as the fiscal policy which ultimately led us to the current mortgage crisis, worked fine for many years, but needed to be tweaked over time to maintain some balance and controls. That didn't happen. The author conveniently ignores seven years of Bush incompetence, laying the blame for Bush's failures on Clinton.
"Bill Clinton was a moderate politician caught in a conservative era. He fought a skillful rear guard action in some areas, while co-opting or embracing conservative ideas and policies in many others."
For those of us who remember Nelson Rockefeller and his overall policy stance, we knew Bill Clinton to be a Rockefeller Republican from the get-go plus possessing prodigious political talent and skills.
Internationally: a globalist
Nationally: a corporationist (anti-labor)
Locally: a pothole politician plus law & order
How the hell the Democrats ever elected a Bill Clinton as President ... well, it goes to show how focusing solely on winning is a loser for those of us who labor for a living. We are now denied a fair share of the wealth our labor produces as our leaders rush to convert us into a banana republic: the many poor, a few rich.
The fact of the matter is once you get away from the DLC, and a few less informed voters nostalgic for the 90s , Hillary's support in the democratic party drops off quickly. None of the democratic leaners in my circles can stand her.
The bottom line is the 90s were a different time than today. In fact a lot of todays economic and trade problems started in the 90's. 90's ideas aren't going to fix today's problems.
the HRC supporters will need to take a very hard inward look on primary day and think about the consequences of a Hillary vote. Those consequences will drive away many democrats - the hard left, labor and moderates causing them to stay home or vote third party which is what I intend to do if she is the nominee. many conservative democrats are already starting to move toward Huckabee. Hillary will mobilize the right more than any atheist anti gun gay abortionist ever could, which I find puzzling because of all the democrats she is the one most likely to continue the status quo.
I could support enthusiastically an Edwards, Dodd or Kucinich campaign and hold my nose and vote for the rest, except Hillary who will not get my support under any scenario. I could hunker down if I have to another 4 years and hope either the dems finally get their act together or a credible third party emerges to break the duopoly.
There will be an awful lot of head scratching on that cold wednesday in novmeber when the demcrats lose again because they picked the wrong candidate. And the rest of us will be there to say "I told you so"
It is Bill's policies, more than anything else, that has caused me to not consider Hillary Clinton as my choice for the Democratic nominee as President.
Bill Clinton pushed forward a Republican agenda including NAFTA, the Crime Bill, de-regulation, the welfare reform bill, and the most dreaded Communications Act of 1996. This agenda was carried out by a man who 'felt our pain.'
Now we have real problems as a result of these acts. It's time to get a Democratic President not another Republican Lite. Hillary looks too much like like Bill redux.
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