What have the Clintons done that actually benefited the Democratic Party as a whole?

[BluegrassDem]

Bill won in '92. We lost Congress in '94 and lost it for 12 years. Bill was happy cause he could triangulate to gain re-election in '96. And Bill didn't do shit to try to make a Democratic majority. He was just all about himself and his greed for power.

And worse of all, the Lewinsky scandal cost us the WH in 2000. Yes, I know, Gore won the popular vote, but he had half the electorate ready to put a Repug in office just to get rid of the Clinton stains. If there was no Monica, Al Gore would've won the 2000 election in a landslide. It wouldn't even had been contested.

I'm afraid we're setting up ourselves for the same story again. If Hillary won the presidency, Pelosi and Reid will be out of jobs in 2010. And we'll go down this same path that destroyed our party for years to come.

The Clintons don't care about the party, they only care about gaining power for themselves and their cronies. Democrats must realize this. The party as whole will go down with Hillary at the helm.

[Alexander]

1. Nothing apart from the initial 1992 win.

And Clinton didn't hesitate to piss that majority away with Don't Ask Don't Tell, NAFTA and gun control.

[KittyWampus]

33. They are a HUGE part of the decline of the Democratic party. Clinton gave us McCauliffe who ignored

election fraud for years doing absolutely NOTHING about it.

They are the ones who allowed Democratic Party infrastructure to wither away.

They are the ones trying to get rid of Howard Dean and the 50 State Strategy.

[skipos]

40. Yes, nothing but a win. That is why I will NEVER VOTE FOR ANOTHER CLINTON. nt

[mondo joe]

2. Rush, your talking points are old. NT

[Alexander]

13. So refute them instead of whining.

Is that too much to ask for?

[mondo joe]

16. Sorry - Recycled Limbaugh- and Coulterisms aren't worth a lot of effort.

They're good for a laugh though.

[KittyWampus]

42. Let's see: #1. Allowed Dem party structure to rot in many states. #2 Ignored Election fraud

#3. Moved the party to the Right, allowing further media consolidation, privatization of government, outsourcing, bank deregulation.

[mondo joe]

44. The party disagrees with you. NT

[book_worm]

14. in what way? please expand.

[mondo joe]

17. Forget it. Your BS was worthless the first time it was spewed on Hate Radio. It still is.

It has no resemblance to actual history.

[karynnj]

48. None of the points made so clearly and succinctly by cryingshame

are EVER used by the right wing. None of these points serve the RW agenda - they are in conflict with it.


There are enough stories on Ohio to make it clear that their party was in shambles going into 2004 and from many nonpartisan sources it is clear that this was true in many places. Clinton lost both the House and the Senate - though he did regain some seats in 1996 and 1998. He left us with a legacy of haveing greatly strengthened the untrue Republican theme that they were the values party.

[mondo joe]

53. If you thik those were good arguments there is no hope for you. Bye. NT

[KittyWampus]

35. Except the facts are- Clinton and McCauliffe presided over the near obliteration of the Dem party

[mondo joe]

36. That's not a fact - just your crybaby whine. Bill's aproval rating among Democrats

has been exemplary.

You've mistaken yourself for the party.

[karynnj]

49. That does not counter cryingshame's points

[mondo joe]

50. If you want to know if Clinton did good for the Democratic Party, ask the Party.

Bill Clinton's term ended with historic high approval ratings, and his approval rating among Democrats remains high.

No one cranky voter should confuse themselves with the party.

[karynnj]

55. Who is THE PARTY?

We are the party. You see him as having done great things for the party and cite his "historic approval ratings", we cite how the party fared after he left - in quantitative terms. It seems BC sold BC, not the Democratic party.

[mondo joe]

56. The party is the membership of the Democratic patry.

You're not the party. No one person or faction is.

And the Party disagrees with you.

[Richard Steele]

3. Two things- jack and shit. Jack left town sometime in late '99. nm

[The_Casual_Observer]

4. Ho hum, another Limbaugh inspired rewrite of history. Next?

[Metric System]

5. Wow,

this is the sort of stuff the Obama supporters engage in that just enrages me. You don't have to tear down the Clinton presidency just to build up Obama, you know. The Clintons have been involved with the party for decades. Hillary campaigned for the anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy back in the 1960s, for example. Their ties to the party run deep and it's insulting to question their loyalty to the party, especially when you're trying to prop up a relative newcomer.

[splat]

6. Um, kept it from being shut out of the presidency since 1981 n/t

[Hart2008]

28. Um, helped sabotage the campaign Dem front runner in '88, Gary Hart.

Roger Morris, a former NSC advisor to LBJ and who resigned from the job in protest of Nixon's invasion of Cambodia, (Not Dick Morris, the Republican consultant Bill hired to "triangulate",) documents this in his book Partners In Power on pages 433-434.

It happened after Bill flunked his interview to become Hart's V.P. Hart said Clinton, "doesn't believe in anything". (Quote from Falling Up, by Ray Stothers, a political consultant who worked for both Hart and Clinton.)

No one from the '88 Hart campaign has disputed what Morris wrote. Seeing Bush, Sr., and Clinton paling around hasn't done anything to change anyone's mind. Bill Clinton is on better terms with the Bushes than he is with the Carters.

That should tell you all you need to know about what a good Democrat he is.

[Hart2008]

29. Um, filibustered the keynote speech at the '88 convention to damage Dukakis...

and was booed off the stage.

What a great way to ruin a convention!

:boring:

[BenDavid]

7. well I will try to inform you:

in 2006 President Bill Clinton appeared at more than two dozen fund-raisers for Democrats around the country, collecting more then $20 million to recapture Congress.Democrats needed to pick up 15 seats to win control of the House and six to capture the Senate.

Money, Money, and more money....For years and years the republicans out raised the dems and now seems like the dems hold the advantage and with the popularity of President Clinton money is raised easier to help the democratic party.

an example: The former president appeared in Denver at a June 16 fund-raiser for Senator Robert Menendez, who faced a strong challenge in New Jersey. Mr. Menendez said in an interview that he had asked Mr. Clinton to headline the event — which was being set up by his colleague from Colorado, Senator Ken Salazar — when he learned that Mr. Clinton would be in town that day.

Mr. Menendez estimated that the former president's presence increased the total proceeds of the event by about 50 percent. "He is of enormous value to Democrats," Mr. Menendez said.

this is a good example.....

[Skwmom]

37. The money they raised was so they could call in favors. Plus Bush is a major reason for

the Democrats setting fund raising records.

[karynnj]

51. Bob Menendez had to answer questions

On Iraq because Kean Jr was able to say that Bill Clinton's position (in 2006) was closer to his than to Menendez's support of Kerry/Feingold. This led to some people who said they were against the war saying they were for Kean. Of course, Menendez, who backs HRC now, said Bill Clinton helped - you thank people who raised money.

Bill Clinton also sent fund raising letters to NJ residents for HRC at the time Menendez needed money for 2006. Saying HRC was the number one Republican target in 2006. The HRC campaign used 2006 to essentially get double money from supporters for 2008. She really had no viable opponent.

There are many others who contributed as much or more to winning 2006 - starting with Howard Dean.

[rhett o rick]

8. Is this a trick question??? nm

[The Magistrate]

9. The Democratic Congress, Sir, Lost Itself In '94

The lost stemmed from two things, mainly.

First, the Congressional chieftains were unable to make the transition from guerrilla to conventional force. For a dozen years, they had functioned in a decentralized opposition to a Republican Executive, in which each member manouvered for himself or herself as best suited local political conditions. Those who had high seniority through those years saw themselves as independent powers, beholden to no one. Rather than come together in a bloc to co-operate with a Democratic Executive, they sought to continue this acephalous structure and preserve their individual clouts. The result distressed and even disgusted a good many Democrats, myself included, and greatly depressed Democratic turn-out in the '94 election.

Second, years of petty corruptions and profiteerings that had become built in to the Congressional structure finally caught up to them. They would do nothing but gorge, in most people's eyes, and there was a 'let's clean house' mood abroad in the land. It was the entire structure of the government in the Reagan years that was repudiated in the '92 and '94 elections, and that structure included the Democratic majority in the House in particular.

Once the majority shifts, it is not easy to shift it back. Incumbency is worth a great deal in Congressional elections. The Republicans lost seats in each election after '94, and a good party of the reason they did was precisely the extremity and viciousness of their opposition to President Clinton's administration, culminating in the failed coup of impeachment in '98. But it is an erosional process, absent decisive shocks.

[Auntie Bush]

18. Wow! Thanks for the explanation of what and why Dems lost control of congress.

Too many people including me, didn't really understand it. Thanks, now I know. I only wish more anti Clinton people would read this, digest it and REMEMBER.

[Hippo_Tron]

20. Great analysis, I'd add that by 1994...

The coalition we'd built in the 60's and 70's was being held together with duct tape. It was nearly destroyed by Raygun but they never quite managed to take the House. Iran/Contra and Poppy's unpopularity helped us make some ground again but it didn't last for long.

People like Richard Shelby and Ben Campbell who switched to the GOP after 1994 shows just what kind of "majority" we really had.

[Hart2008]

30. Your response, Sir, begs the issue since Jerry Brown showed leadership and raised the issue in '92.

Bill Clinton did not, and losing control of both houses of Congress happened on his watch.

Jimmy Carter had his problems with the old bulls in the Congress, and wasn't afraid to criticize them publicly.

By comparison with other Presidents under whom the party lost control of Congress, under Clinton the party never again regained control during his second term. In fact, in his two elections, Bill Clinton never gained more than 50% of the popular vote.

From a historical point of view, Clinton failed to show leadership, and the party as a whole suffered for it. Since the President is the leader of the party, responsibility for losing, and failing to regain both houses of Congress belongs to him, regardless of anything else.

:dunce:

As a great Democratic President said, "The buck stops here."

Do you want to argue with Harry S. Truman?

:nopity:

[rinsd]

57. Can he get credit for net gains made by Dems in Congress every election till 2002?

Or does he just get the blame?

[Hart2008]

62. Responsibility for losing, and failing to regain both houses of Congress belongs to him, regardless

You can spin it any way you please, he still didn't get the job done.

Hart was the campaign manager for George McGovern’s quixotic 1972 campaign. The epilogue to his memoir of that campaign, “Right from the Start,” said, “The Democratic Party, under penalty of irrelevance and extinction, must bring forward a new generation of thinkers who are in touch with the real world … ”

That hasn’t happened. Hart says he doesn’t know why.

Bill Clinton did not bring forth this new generation of Democratic ideas. “He left no legacy,” Hart said. “I’ve known him for 30 years. He’s a tactician.”

On the contrary, Hart says that big, creative thinking about American politics for the past 20 years has been dominated by the healthy competition on the Right between neo-conservatives, Christian conservatives and Gingrichians.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php

Bill Clinton was and is a tactician for himself and his wife, not the pary as a whole.

[Enrique]

39. also, they lost because they raised taxes

they paid a political price for doing the right thing.

[Hart2008]

45. Ah, but Clinton promised to cut taxes for the middle class. His one great campaign promise...

and he then became the first President to break his campaign promise before taking the oath of office.

It did nothing for the party.

Telling fairy tales to win elections never does.

:spank:

[jbnow]

54. He did get the earned income credit level raised

but I was surprised there weren't middle class tax cuts. My memory was fuzzy and I thought he had.

When I watched Moyers show recently and heard about the big tax cut he did give I was shocked and went in search of middle class tax breaks he also got us but there was only the promise of them,

But did you know this? From Moyers interview

BILL MOYERS: You point out, by the way, that Bill Clinton as president gave the super rich a larger tax break than George Bush's tax cuts, right?

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Yeah, I love to trot this one out when somebody goes, "Oh, you're from the New York Times. You must be, you know, pro-Democrat or liberal or whatever." I'm the guy who broke the story and reported on the fact that Bill Clinton gave the super rich, the 400 highest income people in America a big tax cut. They were paying 30 cents out of each dollar of their income to the federal government when he came into the office. When he left, it was down to 22. Bush has lowered it to 17. Now, first of all, notice you're probably paying more than 17 cents. May well be paying more than 22. But Bush gave them an eight cent tax cut-- I'm sorry. Clinton gave an eight cent tax cut and Bush only gave them five cents.

Was this widely known at the time? I don't remember hearing it but I wasn't as attentive then.
It makes me sad and mad.

[Hart2008]

63. There was always a difference between what Clinton promised, and what he delivered.

Talk is cheap and deeds are precious.

Hillary has now taken a page out of the Clinton '92 campaign's playbook and is promising a middle class tax rebate. Assuming she were to be elected and the proposal get enacted, it means that people would need to ask the government nicely to give back what should be their money.

[kelligesq]

10. The most revisionist history i've ever read - is that you KARL ?

:puke:

[AJH032]

11. Let me rephrase that for you

Politicians don't care about the party, they only care about gaining power for themselves and their cronies. Citizens must realize this.

On a more serious note, the Clintons always are called to campaign for Democrats and raise money all over the country.

Your post is useless. Not a bit of truth to be found.

[Skwmom]

22. But they expect something in return for helping to raise that money.

[mondo joe]

41. Everyone expects something back for everything.

[Auntie Bush]

12. What has Obams done to benefit the party? I would never ask that awful

question about Obama But if it's OK for you to ask it about Clintons then it seems fair to throw it back at you. Let me see...Obama is responsible for this racial split between the Democratic party. All the black vote belonged to Dems...now the party is split probably forever. Now the Latinos and the blacks are splitting apart too and there is so must disgust for our party we may lose the GE.
How's that for benefiting the party? Remember you are sadly and unfortunately the one who asked the stupid hateful question and I'm just answering your ridiculous question with a ridiculous answer. You asked for it. I'm not blaming Obama...It's his God given right to run and if we Americans/Dems can't handle it then so be it! Tough luck! But so are the Clintons allowed to run and it's also their God given right without comments like yours. Stop posting shit like this. It does more harm than good.

Also don't forget many of the Obama supporters are not benefiting our party either. Think about it!

[Alexander]

15. Obama registered countless black people to vote Democratic in 1992.

In fact, there's an article floating around GD: P where it states that Clinton was in danger of losing Illinois and community organizers like Barack Obama registered so many black people to vote that African-American turnout essentially gave Bill Clinton the state of Illinois.

[mondo joe]

19. No Dem in a generation has had better coat tails than Bill Clinton.

No other Dem in over 2 decades has taken the white house.

He ended his tenure with historically high approval ratings.

And if Obama could have gotten Bill to campaign for HIM, he'd have wet his pants like a baby he'd have been so thrilled.

[NobleCynic]

23. No Dem in a generation has had worse coattails than Bill Clinton

Better than / worse than is moot if he is the only one to have won in a generation.

Besides, didn't we lose Congress under Clinton? His approval ratings are not the same as his coattails effect.

[mondo joe]

32. Prove it.

You can't.

The loss of Congress was due to a lot of things, but not Bill Clinton.

[NobleCynic]

61. You completely missed the point

I'm just asking how you can tell his coattails effect was so phenomenal, comparatively speaking, when we didn't have dramatic gains under Clinton, and we even had losses. Regardless of whether or not it was due to Clinton, there is no good frame for comparison to another Democrat in the last 20 years.

[Auntie Bush]

21. I'm glad to hear/know that.

But these type of stupid posts should stop. That's what I was getting at.
This is something we should never be discussing as it's tooooo divisive ...actually kind of mean in its message.

[Avalux]

26. Obama wasn't president for 8 years. It would be nice to get a straight answer.

I'd really like the Clinton supporters to lay out all of Bill's major accomplishments, especially since Hillary uses his years in the WH as part of her experience.

[nolabels]

27. It's what he hasn't done if you are keeping track

To dare the establishment, to be a person of a different shade. Many a person resents being sold down the river to Corporate interests, the front runner candidate in that race, HRC. The Clinton's didn't do it all directly themselves of course but they had a good hand in it. HRC's voting record in the Senate isn't that perfect either. Not wanting to acknowledge HRC deficiencies and needing to refocus on others tells me much about the debate here.

Taking the baton in the relay, we have Bush I, Clinton I, Bush II and Clinton II what a team it is :shrug:

[mondo joe]

34. Bill Clinton wasn't elected to be the "radical in chief". Neither will the next Dem president

be. What the PARTY wants is not necessarily what YOU want.

[nolabels]

58. Yea, attack the messenger again because you have no leg to stand on

Bill Clinton is a sell out and always has been. When the going gets tough he triangulates, his principles in a nutshell

[jbnow]

52. Alexander is right. As Obama was

finishing law school voting in predominately black wards in Chicago was at a record low and they wanted to have Project Vote. Obama had done his years as community organizer there so they knew his effectiveness and decided to ask if he'd do it.

It wasn't "all" democrats because you don't do all at a city or state level-or as a new senator.

He agreed to do the 6 month project, They went from the lowest voter registration to record highs. For the 1st time the 19 mostly black wards had more registered voters than the 19 mostly white wards. And they voted big, over half million.

This article is from 1993 so it's not campaign hype, he wasn't in politics then. Even if you don't like him I hope you will read it. It was an amazing thing
He really isn't some empty suit. He's been "working for change" since he graduated in 1983 (though he went to law school a few years later) I'm not trying to change votes, just so we who support him are not basing it on pipe dreans and are not Obamamanizcs and he is so much more than pretty talk. He really has walked what he is talking

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/January-1993/Vote-of-Confidence/

When Newman called, Obama agreed to put his other work aside. "I'm still not quite sure why," Newman says. ''This was not glamorous, high-paying work. But I am certainly grateful. He did one hell of a job."

Within a few months, Obama, a tall, affable workaholic, had recruited staff and volunteers from black churches, community groups, and politicians. He helped train 700 deputy registrars, out of a total of 11,000 citywide. And he began a saturation media campaign with the help of black-owned Brainstorm Communications. (The company's president, Terri Gardner, is the sister of Gary Gardner, president of Soft Sheen Products, Inc., which donated thousands of dollars to Project Voters efforts.) The group's slogan-"It's a Power Thing"-was ubiquitous in African-American neighborhoods. Posters were put up. Black-oriented radio stations aired the group's ads and announced where people could go to register. Minority owners of McDonald's restaurants allowed registrars on site and donated paid radio time to Project Vote! Labor unions provided funding, as, in late fall, did the Clinton/Gore campaign, whose national voter-registration drive was being directed by Chicago alderman Bobby Rush.

"It was overwhelming," says Joseph Gardner, a commissioner of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District and the director of the steering committee for Project Vote! "The black community in this city had not been so energized and so single-minded since Harold died."

Burrell agrees. "We were registering hundreds a day, and we weren't having to search them out. They came looking for us. African Americans were just so eager to have a say again, to feel they counted."

"I think it's fair to say we reinvigorated a slumbering constituency," says Obama. "We got people to take notice."

They wanted to know if he'd run someday.

Nor can Obama himself be ignored. The success of the voter-registration drive has marked him as the political star the Mayor should perhaps be watching for. "The sky's the limit for Barack," says Burrell.

Some of Daley's closest advisers are similarly impressed. "In its technical demands, a voter-registration drive is not unlike a mini-political campaign," says John Schmidt, chairman of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority and a fundraiser for Project Vote! "Barack ran this superbly. I have no doubt he could run an equally good political campaign if that's what he decided to do next."

Obama shrugs off the possibility of running for office. "Who knows?" he says. "But probably not immediately." He smiles. "Was that a sufficiently politic 'maybe'? My sincere answer is, I'll run if I feel I can accomplish more that way than agitating from the outside. I don't know if that's true right now. Let's wait and see what happens in 1993. If the politicians in place now at city and state levels respond to African-American voters' needs, we'll gladly work with and support them. If they don't, we'll work to replace them. That's the message I want Project Vote! to have sent."

I could tell you other big things he did but you didn't ask for a list.

[William769]

24. Gave us the best prosperity we have had since ...

Anyone want to take a guess?

[KittyWampus]

43. best prosperity? disparity between rich and poor GREW. Media consolidation GREW

Bank deregulation, outsourcing, government privatization. All increased or continued apace since Reagan.

[Perry Logan]

25. Another attempt to bash the Clintons backfires seriously. Best debunkings so far: 5, 7, 9, 12, 19

[LostinVA]

31. Clintonm Hit Job OP #2,097,007

[Enrique]

38. he proved democratic presidents are better than republicans

things sucked before him, and sucked even worse after him.

The republicans and their whores will tell everyone that a democratic president will be a disaster, people can look back to Clinton and say, hey that's what they said about Clinton and he wasn't actually that bad.

That's good for the dems.

[Orangepeel]

46. countless hours campaigning for them --

What do you expect? He raised money for and campaigned for many, many democratic candidates.

And your contention that Gore would have won in a landslide without Monica is insupportable. The mood of the country was on the side of the Clintons -- many of the house impeachment managers lost afterward and his approval ratings were very high upon leaving office. Vice Presidents rarely win after an eight year incumbency, and Gore made a lot of mistakes.

[sniffa]

47. Nearly suffocated the party.

Is that a good thing?

K&merceR

[Kucinich4America]

59. Pelosi and Reid will be out of jobs in 2009

Because those two are not getting rewarded for spinelessness.

[kelligesq]

60. That's a talking points memo - is that you KARL? all the anti-clintonistas r asking it.

real original