SONG OF MYSELF

Bill Clinton still casts a long shadow: He provides advice and a blueprint for Democratic candidates to follow, but he could upstage them, too. (Liz Marlantes, 6/02/03, The Christian Science Monitor)

He may not be able to seek another presidential term himself. But increasingly, it seems, Bill Clinton is becoming a force in the 2004 campaign.

After being sidelined in 2000 by a vice president wanting to distance himself from his mentor's moral failings, Mr. Clinton is taking an increasingly active role in the current presidential race. He's strategizing with party leaders at closed-door meetings, and offering advice - both public and private - to candidates.

Meanwhile, Democratic hopefuls are invoking his name on the stump with growing frequency, as they contrast the lost jobs and slow economic growth under President Bush with the boom years of the 1990s.

Many campaigns freely admit to seeking out Clinton's political counsel, calling him an invaluable resource. "If Yoda's in the neighborhood, you might as well give him a call," says David Axelrod, an adviser to Sen. John Edwards.

Other analysts say he's most useful as a role model: "Every one of these campaigns sits down at a certain point and says, 'How would Clinton have handled this?'" says another Democratic campaign strategist.

In some ways, it's not surprising that the former president's star is shining brighter these days. The scandals that dogged his tenure are fading with time - Monica Lewinsky recently hosted a reality show on FOX. And Clinton stands as an inspiration to his party, with his defeat of George Bush Sr. a touchstone, as well as a kind of playbook, for current campaigns.

There's an obvious danger in making Clintonism the fundament of Democratic political theory, though Democrats--blinded by Party mythology--seem not to recognize it. Clintonism, which they seem to perceive as the basis for Democratic glory, in reality consists of only one thing: personal advancement and survival. Bill Clinton may cast a long shadow in the Party, but he left few footprints in history.

Having run as a conservative, he had a chance to transform the Democrats from a Liberal party into a classically liberal party--bringing privatization, competition, and other market forces to bear on government programs--and just possibly a permanent majority party. In effect, after riding America's Depression insecurities for fifty years, the Democrats could have--in a maneuver of genuine brilliance--made themselves the party of reaction, fixing the very problems their failed policies had caused and doing so at a time when it would have been fairly painless, thanks to the unprecedented prosperity ushered in by the massive Cold War peace dividend. But, whether because it was the debt he owed Hillary or because he truly believed in it, he went for a massive public health program instead. This combined with tax hikes, gays in the military, and anti-gun laws ended any chance the party had of appealing to white men in Red states, a fact that became painfully clear in the '94 Republican Revolution.

At that point though he had an even more golden opportunity to transform the country. A Democratic president working with a Republican Congress, each providing political cover for the other, could have enacted real reform of everything from Social Security to education aid to the tax system. Instead, he accepted only welfare reform, which was, of course, the easiest program to reckon with, since it benefits the politically feeble poor rather than the powerful middle class. Moreover, he set up this debate and others so that he appeared to be the moderating force in between the radical Leftist Democrats and the whack-job conservatives in Congress--a tactic of "triangulation" that Dick Morris crafted for him on this and a few other issues. In essence, the premise of his presidency became the notion that he was all that stood between two parties that were equally frightening to
contemplate in and of themselves. So while he salvaged his own re-election bid, he failed to carry his party back to power.

Still, having put himself in a stronger position and presented with a somewhat chastened congressional GOP, he might then have reached out and worked to achieve the reforms that the welfare state needed but which had been deferred during fifty years of Cold War. But then the other aspect of his tendency to elevate self-interest above all other considerations reared its ugly head (so to speak) as the Lewinsky scandal--an outgrowth of the attempt to quell bimbo eruptions during the '92 campaign by smearing the victims--erupted. Now besieged by the Republicans, he had no choice but to either resign--for the good of his party--or agree to follow the party's more doctrinaire leftism in exchange for their unquestioning support during his impeachment. Here again he saved himself but at the expense of the Democratic Party and of his own Vice-President, who would otherwise have been a shoe-in for re-election in 2000.

Bill Clinton then got himself elected, and served eight largely insignificant years, by always putting himself first, never the Party or the nation. Therefore he left no legislative legacy--his greatest accomplishments coming in the free trade arena with two treaties handed him by his Republican predecessors and passed by Republicans in Congress--and left the Democrats in the worst shape they've been in since before the Great Depression.

The candidates who are making Clintonism a "touchstone" for their presidential campaigns would do better to handle Ebola virus. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 2, 2003 2:12 PM