Here's Michael Greve, director of the Federalism Project at the American Enterprise Institute, explaining one of the things that could turn more conservatives to Obama:
"It could be the second coming of the Clinton administration. If people have any confidence in that, I think a whole lot of conservatives would vote for him."
I find it inordinately amusing that a mouthpiece for the AEI so casually (albeit indirectly) asserts a truth about the Clinton administration that legions of liberals have spent years furiously denying.
"Butbutbut..." my Democratic friends will splutter, "The Right hated Clinton! They impeached him over a blow job!" Several people tried to argue with me during the 2000 election that the Democrats must be doing something effective to fight the Republicans, because look how the Clintons and Gore and Boxer et.al. drive Rush Limbaugh into apoplexy. Know a man by his enemies, the saying goes.
Yeah, but with hindsight, how much of the legislation that Clinton signed, did the Right eventually overturn? NAFTA, Defense of Marriage, Don't Ask Don't Tell, Welfare Reform... oh, wait, Bush overturned some kind of executive order to allow abortion counseling at overseas army bases. And Newt had a big fight with Clinton over the budget. That's about all that leaps to mind in 30 seconds.
Gawd, bread and circuses. Chomsky and Nader are so right about this. Keep everyone arguing furiously with each other about abortion and Hollywood sex, while NAFTA and so forth lock 60% of the populace into poverty, debt, and servitude to global business overlords. Pearl Jam's latest album has a lyric: "And those misguided... // there was a plan for them to be."
Perhaps, after 8 years of abject Democratic servility, the illusion really is finally over, that the two parties are fundamentally opposed. But I think I'm being too optimistic. Another wunderkind candidate, another chance to delude ourselves that things will be different this time.
Posted by: Thomas Daulton | Wednesday, July 09, 2008 at 09:22 AM
...To say nothing of all the Democrats who voted for Obama in the primaries because they rejected Hillary Clinton -- only to find out that Obama is the "second coming" of the Clinton Administration...
Posted by: Thomas Daulton | Wednesday, July 09, 2008 at 09:28 AM
... but with hindsight, how much of the legislation that Clinton signed, did the Right eventually overturn?
That's an excellent point—though I have a sneaking suspicion it won't impress your Democratic friends.
Posted by: John Caruso | Wednesday, July 09, 2008 at 07:26 PM
...aaaaaand Fafblog weighs in ! !
...who will bridge the vast ideological gulf between Clinton's hawkish, corporate-friendly centrism and Obama's hawkish, centrist-friendly corporatism?
Hilarious as always, Fafblog...!
Posted by: Thomas Daulton | Thursday, July 10, 2008 at 04:31 PM