What is Obama's beef with the Clinton era?

[jackson_dem]

Now that he is running for president he is running against the 90's. In his book, though, he lavished praise on Clinton's politics, "recognizably progressive" policies (Obama himself calls Clinton's policies progressive!), and record. His only significant criticism seems to be that Bill Clinton was not able to create a governing coalition, something that wasn't his fault anyway. Months after writing the book he starts railing against the "fights of the 90's" and for "turning the page." What happened?

[BeyondGeography]

1. That it basically led nowhere

[Captain Hilts]

6. Stupid people gave him a Republican Congress two years after he was elected. nt

The Republicans made him pay for trying to permit gays in the military.

[BeyondGeography]

9. The Clintons are and always will be blamless for the political problems that befell them

:patriot:

[Big Blue Marble]

44. The Clintons were partly responsible for the loss of Congress.

The gays in the military first, and Hillarycare second. The voters did not like either.

[Captain Hilts]

48. Both were good, progressive, ideas. nt

[Big Blue Marble]

52. I disagree.

The idea to address the issues were excellent. The Clinton's execution and political acumen were horrible.
They ended up setting both issues back decades, as well as contributing to the loss of Congress.
It has take more than a decade to regain Congress. There was excruciating damage done to this country
during the time the Republicans controlled legislative process in DC.

[Captain Hilts]

53. 20/20 hindsight. They thought they had the momentum from thumping an incumbent prez.

So did a lot of folks.

[Big Blue Marble]

54. That is where their lack of political acumen came in to play.

They did a lot of damage to the party and to the country.
Remember that is when Bill hired ugh Dick Morris to save his 96 election.
It was all pretty ugly not to mention disastrous.

Edit to add: No 20/20 hindsight for me. I lived through it and felt then as I do now.
I did go on to vote for Bill in 96. Not happily, but my other choices were extremely poor
and I was very weary of Republicans.

[NashVegas]

66. That Were Not Well Executed, Unfortunately

..

[Big Blue Marble]

51. delete

[BootinUp]

58. heres a clue for you...

The congressman and Senators who couldn't take Bill's lead lost. He was quite successful on the other hand.

[jackson_dem]

7. Due to the selection. If Gore won we would have had 8 more years of Clinton's policies

[BeyondGeography]

8. Clinton was an albatross in the 2000 election

And, by the way, thanks, Bill.

[jackson_dem]

11. But not because of his record or his "recognizably progressive" policies

So Obama's objection is Ken Starr's jihad against Bill?

[leftynyc]

36. Hmmm - that's strange

The conventional wisdom is that part of Gore's problem was that he didn't use Bill more during the campaign? Or is just more rewriting history? And let's not forget who got the most votes in 2000.

[BeyondGeography]

37. The only re-write needed is from Clinton apologists

From late October, 2000:

==Most voters say that Gore's ties to Bill Clinton have no effect on their view of the vice president. Twenty-six percent say Gore's ties to Clinton make them feel less favorably toward him, and only 9 percent say that makes them feel more favorable toward him. If Clinton actively campaigns, only 17 percent say that would make them more likely to vote for Gore, and 40 percent say it would make them less likely.==

http://edition.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/10/23/tracking.poll/index.html

[jackson_dem]

40. That was because of his indiscretions, not his "recognizably progressive" policies

Clinton's policies were very popular.

[Big Blue Marble]

46. Which policies are you referring to that were so popular?

[Captain Hilts]

41. And all polls showed he would have beaten Gore and Bush in 2000 - Don't fall for rt. wing lies. nt

[David Zephyr]

80. An albatross indeed. Al Gore would have had a landslide.

The blowjob.

[jackson_dem]

85. Gore would have had a landslide on Clinton's record

[madrchsod]

18. why would that be true?

[jackson_dem]

20. Gore ran on Clinton's policies. They were ideological soulmates

[robbedvoter]

70. Bingo! The intrerruption was via coup.

[Imagevision]

14. Why hasn't Hillary put a muzzle on Bill after she claimed a 'truce' agreement? huh? anyone answer t

[sandnsea]

21. Nothing progressive got done

Clinton had to negotiate all the progressiveness away because he can't bridge any gaps. Hillary won't even get as far as Bill did, which wasn't far at all.

And I don't think Bill was all that progressive anyway.

[jackson_dem]

24. Barack Obama doesn't see it that way. He thought Clinton was a progressive

[sandnsea]

38. I don't n/t

[Big Blue Marble]

47. Bill Clinton of DLC governed as Republican Lite. n/t

[jackson_dem]

50. Your avatar says his policies were progressive

That should also give us a hint about what an Obama presidency would be like. ;) Note that Obama did not accept the common progressive belief that Clinton was too conservative.

[BeyondGeography]

26. And now they're older, richer and angrier

Please wake up, Democrats. I'm asking nicely.

[unc70]

56. Obama began campaign telling Baby Boomers to get over themselves

He called on Baby Boomers to stop all those divisive fights of the 60's and replayed in the 90's. We should just let a new generation, of course led by him, just all sit down together under his new type of politics. At first I thought this was routine positioning of himself versus Clinton and Edwards and an attempt to attract younger voters who might not appreciate the gains of the 60's or the threats to undo them.

But his continuing to use the RW talking points to attack his fellow Dems has really angered this BB and many more. No wonder he appeals to many Repubs -- he uses their loaded phrases and language to separate himself from older progressives. And which fights of the 60's does Obama want us to abandon? Civil rights? Equal pay? Housing? Poverty? Equal justice? Gender? Sexual orientation? Environment? Or some of the many others?

He wraps all of this up, highly polished and eloquently delivered, and many people rejoice. But with the increasing scrutiny since Iowa and several mis-step with blowback, more people are seeing this side of him. And my opinion has gone from favorable but unispired to increasing unfavorable.

[robbedvoter]

67. You mean, because Bush stole the election from Gore????

[LisaM]

2. Don't worry, he's against the 60s too

He wants to compare himself to Bobby Kennedy, but distances himself from Baby Boomers and Tom Hayden (I know I've posted it here early and often, but his criticism of Tom Hayden was just so specious).

[Proud2BAmurkin]

3. That it was so successful Americans want to do it again. eom

eom

[jasmine621]

4. One reason why I put HC ahead of Obama. He definitely is not ready

for prime time politics. A few more years of fighting real battles in Congress, he'll be readay I hope.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

16. It takes a while to recognize that the pugs are incapable of acting in good faith

[La Lioness Priyanka]

5. well he cant really go around saying the clinton years were great

if he wants to say, that we dont want another clinton in office.

it would be weird.

i sort of understand him not wanting to associate with bill clinton years

[CyberPieHole]

10. Obama's going around praising Reagan...so I guess the 80's were great times...

unless you were poor and then you got "trickled on" by the rich and unless you were gay and were ignored by your country and leaders and were allowed to die of Aids. That is the "hope" that Obama admires.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

12. well thats the crazy part. i dont get that and I HATE HATE HATE reagan

i can understand distance from bill clinton but why not pick JFK or Carter.

[LittleClarkie]

33. The difference being he's not running against Reagan

what with him being dead and all.

I think that's him trying to go for the Republican/unity vote, since Reagan is so revered by the Republicans. He was their last great president, I think they feel.

[CyberPieHole]

63. So that explains why Reagan's ass should be kissed by Obama?

Reagan was a bag of sh*t with a mouth attached. He pulled the wool over the American sheeple and got them to believe he was the "great communicator"...Obama wants people to think he has some of that Reagan charm...the only thing Reagan~esque about Obama is that he is pulling the wool over some of the sheeple. Repigs are as likely to vote for Obama as they are Louis Farrakhan: And that is very unlikely.

[robbedvoter]

72. Except people who like Raygun, would never vote for a black guy - by definition!

I prefer Hillary's attacking Bush to Obama's praising raygun.
I am still undecided, but I no longer think Obama is more progressive than Hillary. The roles reversed once I read/wathced the Raygun BS

[CyberPieHole]

84. That's a minor detail that Obama has failed to understand...

but let him continue to praise Reagan and to side with Cheney on building nuclear power plants...that is all the US needs is a Chernobyl in every city.

[LittleClarkie]

31. Indeed. He's campaigning

What's he supposed to say.

[robbedvoter]

73. How about attack Bush and his surrogates now running?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

13. I don't think Barack understands the Republican Party's nature as

a white-supremacist and neo-fascist operation.

The Gingrich revolution wasn't something caused by Bill Clinton's failure to find common ground. It was an inevitable development once the pugs lost the Presidency which they had come to feel entitled to during the rise of the modern crazy-right.

And the fights of the 1990s were not food-fights, they were the skillful preservation of the Union in the face of wildy irresponsible and ill-intentioned people.

I don't like that Clinton threw so much of the party-line under the bus, but I recognize its necessity in retrospect. The fact he was re-elected in 1996 is kind of like Dunkirk... a brilliant defensive victory in the face of a Nazi onslaught.

Had Senator Obama been on the ground in DC during the aptly named Republican revolution he would have a better sense of what the stakes were.

[cali]

19. I'd be surprised if he didn't understand the repukes.

but he's playing canny politics. that's the nature of campaigning for the presidency. And as a black man who can't be seen as "too black", he can't exactly say certain things without catching greater flak for it than a white candidate.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

45. I pay him the respect of accepting that his philosophy is sincere

If he is just bull-shitting about the mythical reasonable Republican partisan then I would lose a lot of respect for him.

I think he is a touch deluded about American politics, but I think he's sincere.

He has had successes in dealing with the enemy, and he thinks those successes are scalable. They are not. His approach can work just fine until it threatens their control, and then they will shut down the government and impeach you.

Whether Obama knows it or not, everything he says is vintage Bill Clinton. Clinton did a great job of finding common ground on *issues* but they still shut down the government and impeached him.

It is entirely possible that Republicans on the state level are more practical and open to compromise, as all local politicians are.

The Republicans in Washington are not like that.

[killbotfactory]

15. Thowing hundreds of thousands of poeple in jail is not progressive

Especially when there is a gigantic racial disparity in how our laws are enforced.

[jackson_dem]

17. Barack Obama thinks Bill Clinton was progressive

:shrug:

[killbotfactory]

22. In some areas, he was

In other areas, not so much.

[sandnsea]

23. Your interpretation is less than worthless

because all you've been about is division.

[jackson_dem]

27. Barack Obama cleary says his policies were "recognizably progressive"

Division? You mean like writing a best seller in which you heap praise on Bill Clinton and then a couple months later bash his record because you are running against his wife?

[aquart]

28. What else could he do?

Hillary's partly running on Bill's legacy as well as her own achievements.

If a politician can't say two completely opposite things with a completely sincere face both times, what's he worth, anyway?

I think we should all be encouraged by Obama's ability to lie well. A world leader needs that.

[sandnsea]

30. Context

Context is everything and you've got none.

[jackson_dem]

34. The context is Obama discussing Clinton in the "Audacity of Hope"

Do you need the relevant page, paragraph numbers? Full MLA citation? Obama said Clinton's policies were progressive. What interpretation is needed of that? He didn't say everything Bill did was progressive. He was talking about the entirety of Bill's record.

[William769]

25. His beef is he prefers Reagan's legacy over Clinton's

:puke:

[aquart]

29. Which means he prefers debt and insolvency.

Not a good sign.

[Big Blue Marble]

49. Have you listened to the audio from the interview?

He is referring only to Reagan's political abilities to get Democrat and Independent votes and keep voting Republican.
He is talking about his similar abilities to attract Republicans and Independents and keep them. That is all.

Bill Clinton was not successful in that kind of realignment and neither will Hillary Clinton.

[FrenchieCat]

59. Nope....they haven't heard or seen it.....

that's why they are lost in what they are talking about.

I've seen it....and boy, I'm just fucking excited! :)

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080115/VIDEO/80115026&oaso=news.rgj.com/breakingnews

[robbedvoter]

77. Watched it. Raygun's clarity, optimism...then read this excerpt from Obama's book

from the dare thread : "does anyone have an actual quote?" ":
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4087189&mesg_id=4087491
I swear, when I saw the thread on Raygun, I hoped with all my heart it was some surrogates talking out their a*. Unfortunately, there was the video - and it broke my heart! I did like the guy up to that point.

[CyberPieHole]

64. I could litteraly vomit just from thinking any Democrat would praise Reagan...

:puke:

[SoxFan]

69. Oh really?

"Hillary and I will always remember President Ronald Reagan for the way he personified the indomitable optimism of the American people, and for keeping America at the forefront of the fight for freedom for people everywhere."

[Essene]

32. It's not like Bill Clinton is being nasty to Obama or anything...

[jackson_dem]

35. Obama began it when he flip flopped on the Clinton era

[Imagevision]

39. What is Obama not ready for? -> another 9-11- attacking Iran, Hillary's ready on that one...what

were Bush's credentials for being..."ready"? - the notion seems absurd.

[robbedvoter]

81. What were Bush's credentials? - exactly! You made Hillary's point.

From now on we should look for experience - after seeing the damages incompetence brought us.

[Lucinda]

42. Hillary's last name is Clinton.

Hence the distancing.

[endarkenment]

43. I'm less unenthused with Obama than with Clinton.

I've had the Clinton experience, I know what that is. At least the Obama experience is something other than the Clinton experience. I'm more enthusiastic about Edwards, but he actually has to win a primary somewhere.

[BenDavid]

55. For whatever reason obama likes about reagan it does say

something about the character of Obama. Concerning Reagan, a racist is as racist does, to plagerize the worst movie of my lifetime. I care, how Reagan treated African American in his personal life. I do care that prominent people i e Obama seem to think that he wasn’t really a racist. What I care about is that Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of the Conservative Movement, made a career out of deliberately appealing to the racist vote. it brought him to power and it was a constant tool throughout his career. Ronald Reagan acted in public as a racist acts. He deliberately set out to appeal to racists and continue the odious Southern Strategy. In doing so, he helped to mainstream racism in the GOP and thus the country.

SHAME SHAME SHAME......if it talks like a republican, walks like a republican then most likely you got a republican....and I am fearful obama is just that.....

[SoxFan]

71. Pardon me

"Hillary and I will always remember President Ronald Reagan for the way he personified the indomitable optimism of the American people, and for keeping America at the forefront of the fight for freedom for people everywhere."

[Kahuna]

57. The massive migration to the GOP that ensued....maybe? nt

[Reciprocity]

60. He didn't like the peace or prosperity. n/t

[Hippo_Tron]

61. Bill Clinton had no mandate and no coattails...

And that's the bottom line. We were certainly better off in the 90's than we are now but we shouldn't be aiming for a repeat of the 90's, we should be aiming much higher.

IMO 1994 was mostly not his fault. It was due to the fact that our coalition was being held together with duct tape. The failure on health care was the straw that broke the camel's back and it would have happened sooner or later anyway.

Obama recognizes that in order to govern, we need a mandate and we need people to actively demand that their government do things instead of the other way around. Politicians are spineless cowards that follow either money or public opinion. Instead of trying to create a grassroots movement to get health care passed, the Clintons relied on working within the system and it failed miserably.

[robbedvoter]

68. Again, because Bush stole the election from Gore?

[jackson_dem]

86. Obama was a fan of the Clinton presidency until he began running against his wife

[SIMPLYB1980]

62. That's the same thing thats bothered me.

This bothers me a lot to.

[robbedvoter]

82. Wow! The famous flyer really exists then..."HILLARY HATERS - UNITE"

[BootinUp]

83. "Please F with our primary!" nt

[BootinUp]

65. He's trying to keep it from kicking his ass? nt

[David Zephyr]

74. One of "the battles of the 1990's" I don't want to refight is defending Clinton's blowjobs.

That was a fight that took up two years and wasted a lot of opportunities and cost Al Gore from winning a landslide in 2000.

That's one of "the fights of the '90's" I don't want to rehash and which will be resurrected this summer if Hillary is the nominee.

Blue Dresses.
Monica Lewinski.
Linda Tripp.
Mrs. Goldberg
Jennifer Flowers
Paula Jones
Perjury Depositions on Live Television
"Listen to me. I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinski"

I want to fight the battles that mean progress for my country.

I don't want to fight that old "battle" again.

John Edwards and Barack Obama are not saddled with that old baggage. Either will be able to speak to the future without having to defend the past.

[BootinUp]

75. Bill is running for office somewhere?

Your idea of how Hillary's GE would go is pretty far fetched imho.

[Yael]

78. Many of Hillary's supporters seem to not be able to tell the difference

Why people keep posting about it.

[BootinUp]

79. psycho babble nt

[Yael]

87. Totally agree -- it is, but if I had a nickel for everyone clamoring for

big dawg to be back, then I could retire and stop noting that HE ISN'T RUNNING.

:P

[Nedsdag]

89. This is true.

By the way, tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of Drudge's scoop on a Newsweek story regarding the relationship between Clinton and a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky.

How ironic.

[Yael]

76. Bill is not running

Just wanted to note that.

[femrap]

88. I personally think his Handlers want to pit the

young (and those who want to be again) against the Baby Boomers.

I think Obama is more conservative than he lets on. And I think HRC is more left than she lets on. That is just my personal feeling...a reading between the lines. Of course I remember a very feisty HRC in the early days.