The left should be grateful to Bill Clinton for ending 12 years of Republican occupation of the White House, and for managing to get reelected. A fair assessment of his administration should take into account what didn’t happen simply because he won (twice), as well as what he accomplished legislatively and from a policy perspective. Yet, the party he bequeathed to the left was wanting in many respects. Perhaps the most glaring example of this is that Al Gore chose Joe Lieberman as his running mate, who went on to endorse George W. Bush’s reelection in 2004. In 2000, the party was dominated by New Democrats from the Democratic Leadership Council wing. This was not a party well-suited to deal with the radical opposition, particularly in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It was also a party that had lost its populist instincts and had deregulated the financial sector. It was incapable of effectively resisting the Bush tax cuts or stopping bankruptcy reform.
The liberal blogosphere arose in a vacuum to assert leftist values that the Democratic Party had abandoned or lacked the courage to defend. So, it’s somewhat disconcerting that Hillary Clinton has emerged as a consensus choice of Democrats, more than 80% of whom want her to run to be the next nominee of the party. You would think that the party would be more forward-looking in its approach.
But, it’s not. It just isn’t. And as much as the right might want Elizabeth Warren to run, it probably won’t happen. The right has deep fissures that they won’t be able to hide during their primaries, but Democrats seem content to sweep their differences under the rug.
There is a real strength in Democrats’ unity. In fact, Hillary Clinton may wind up winning the support of Wall Street Republicans and possibly even neo-conservative Republicans. If the left remains content with her and doesn’t pull her significantly out of the center, she might be able to take advantage of an out-of-the-mainstream Republican opponent to win an election by a Nixon-McGovern or Reagan-Mondale margin.
If you think I’m not serious, consider this:
Two dozen interviews about the 2016 race with unaligned GOP donors, financial executives and their Washington lobbyists turned up a consistent — and unusual — consolation candidate if Bush demurs, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie doesn’t recover politically and no other establishment favorite gets nominated: Hillary Clinton…
…The darkest secret in the big money world of the Republican coastal elite is that the most palatable alternative to a nominee such as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas or Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky would be Clinton, a familiar face on Wall Street following her tenure as a New York senator with relatively moderate views on taxation and financial regulation.
“If it turns out to be Jeb versus Hillary we would love that and either outcome would be fine,” one top Republican-leaning Wall Street lawyer said over lunch in midtown Manhattan last week. “We could live with either one. Jeb versus Joe Biden would also be fine. It’s Rand Paul or Ted Cruz versus someone like Elizabeth Warren that would be everybody’s worst nightmare.”
The knee-jerk reaction to this is that Clinton is the friend of our enemies and must be an enemy herself. But it is at least as possible that it is the fat cats who are making the mistake. They are assuming that a Hillary presidency would be like a Bill presidency, but that is not a safe assumption at all.
For starters, they are obviously different people whose agenda may not be identical. But, more than this, Bill Clinton’s presidency was constrained by the concurrent Gingrich Revolution in Congress. Had Clinton enjoyed strong majorities in Congress he, like Obama, would have had a more progressive record than he wound up having. Hillary Clinton may have more pro-business instincts and support than other possible nominees, but it’s actually the size of her victory (and whether or not she has significant coattails) that will most determine the ideological nature of her prospective presidency. During President Obama’s first two years in office, he had strong majorities and he rattled off more progressive legislation than any president since Lyndon Baines Johnson. The next four years haven’t been anywhere near as productive, but it’s not because the president has changed his worldview. His opponents now have the power to block him, and that’s the only thing that has changed and the main thing that matters.
Without more Democrats in office, no president, no matter how far to the left of Obama they might be, could accomplish much. This is a conundrum for the left because they want a standard-bearer who will trumpet their values, but they also want someone who is effective. There’s a big difference between the president who created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the president who repealed Glass-Stegall. Where would Hillary Clinton land along that continuum?
I have never seen a candidate enter a presidential contest with more leeway than Hillary. She has the left wrapped up in her hip pocket and is on the verge of winning over the financial sector and the foreign policy elite on the right.
Much as I might want a strong leftward challenge, there isn’t any such challenge on the horizon, unless you think Bernie Sanders will get some actual traction. The tension lies between the advantage of locking Hillary into promises to the left and the advantage of her enjoying the maximal possible victory with the most coattails.
She looked strong in 2007, but nothing like this. She is a colossus and, with over 80% Democrats already on her side, she can do pretty much what she wants.
Half the time I wonder if all our effort over twelve years amounted to nothing, and half the time I feel like we’re on the cusp of finally crushing the conservative movement for good.
