Bill and Ted's face-off is a catfight for the Democratic soul
Ted Kennedy's impassioned support of Obama is about more than just trying to defeat the Clinton machine; it's about making the Democrats the party of social justice once again
February 5, 2008 3:00 AM
While they may appear to differ only slightly in their positions on most issues, the contrast between Obama and Clinton nonetheless reaches far beyond matters of style, hype, or rhetoric. What these two candidates offer is two vastly different visions of what it means - and will mean - to be a Democrat.
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By the 30-minute mark, even the people standing behind Clinton had begun shifting from foot to foot. But then he got to his point, and suddenly the long, detailed, and almost studiously uninspiring nature of the speech seemed to part of an intentional strategy. "I want you to think about this," Clinton told his audience. "People are interested in this election. They're coming out in big crowds. They'd rather have somebody sort of talk to like I'm doing than give a big whoop-te-doo speech. People are thinking, so I want you to think." The rest of the sentence goes unsaid, but is clearly implied: He wants you to think, not feel. Because if you vote based on your emotions, you may pick Obama; but if you use your rational judgment, you can only choose Hillary.
It was just this sort of well-informed pragmatism, of course, that guided the New Democrats of the Democratic Leadership Council. This centre-right clubhouse jettisoned the old-style liberalism of the New Deal and the 1960s civil rights movement and war on poverty, which linked the party's policies - at least in spirit - to some sort of larger quest for social justice. Bill Clinton and the DLC put an end to such visions in the 1990s as they triangulated their way toward a new agenda for the party, arguing for tax breaks for the middle classes, and welfare "reform" and more prisons for the poor. Up with the soccer mom; down with the welfare mother.
In 1996 they passed the most draconian immigration bill in recent history. The DLC enthusiastically supported the Iraq war and attacked those who opposed it. In 2004, they made it their business to knock down Howard Dean, another Democrat who briefly sparked the kind of enthusiasm that might threaten their dominance. Dean once described the DLC as the "Republican wing of the Democratic party", and the DLC responded that Dean (a well-known centrist) represented the "McGovern-Mondale wing" of the party, "defined principally by weakness abroad and elitist, interest-group liberalism at home".
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http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/usa/2008/02/cat_fight_bill_and_ted_face_of.html
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