In the End, It Is All About Bill Clinton – Or Is It?

In the closing weeks before the first caucus and primary of the 2008 season, national frontrunner Hillary Clinton has decided it is time to play that ace up her sleeve - #42.  It is the card that I imagine she was hesitant to play, but with the polls tightening particularly in the key early states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, it was a card she had to play.  Bill Clinton has been on the stump quite a bit lately in the 3 early states trying out new themes to promote Hillary’s candidacy – first it was change (Hillary as the change agent), now its likeability (Hillary as heartwarming).  But, at the end of the day, seeing Bill Clinton out there pushing the message makes one point clear.... no matter how hard she tries, her campaign is still all about #42.  Sort of.  

Make no mistake... this is a "concern" diary.  I fully expect Hillary supporters to thank me for my "concern" and move on.  But this is not a what will Republicans say concern diary.  This is my concern and one that we, as Democrats should debate.  Do we want this campaign to be a debate over Bill Clinton and his "third way" approach to governing or do we want to move beyond that debate to a new era of Democratic politics.  I would argue that maybe we never truly finished that debate and need to do that right now in this campaign before we can move on to a new era.  It seems like many of us here are ready to move on, but the Democratic Party that governs us is not.  Hillary Clinton’s campaign is a return a to "third way" politics.  In the end, it is the chance for Bill Clinton to show that his "third way" was, and is, right.  I think he sees it that way, and with Hillary bringing him back on stage so prominently, I don’t think she can fight it anymore.

An interesting article coming up in this Sunday’s Times Magazine by Matt Bai discusses Bill Clinton and his legacy and the role of his legacy in Hillary’s campaign.  A very telling quote from Bill gives you insight, accidental or not, into this campaign as he sees it:

Near the end of his speech in Gorham, he went off on an engaging tangent, as he sometimes does, about the trees he saw from his car window that morning, and how at one time New Hampshire was almost devoid of trees, and how Teddy Roosevelt led a national effort to replenish the forests. "But Theodore Roosevelt proposed a lot of ideas that fell flat on their face until Franklin Roosevelt passed them," Clinton went on. "The important thing for us to do is to fight for the right thing and keep fighting for it until we finally get it done." I had heard Clinton compare himself with T.R. before, but this was the first time I heard him do so publicly, and it struck me as an aside that would have made his wife’s advisers wince, if they noticed it. He seemed to be suggesting that Hillary’s job as president would be to cement his own unfinished legacy — provided, of course, that his legacy, or at least a widely held perception of it, didn’t end up derailing her first.

Now, I don’t think Hillary believes this.  She is a strong, smart woman and I am sure is more interested in creating her own legacy than cementing her husband’s.  But the two legacies would be hard to untangle.  They have been a political team for more than 3 decades now.  There has been plenty of discussion here already on some areas where she may be more progressive than her husband and then some ways where she may be decidedly less so, in particular with regard to foreign policy and the use of military force (which is a big one, make no mistake – it drives a lot of the true concern that many have about her).  But her campaign would be a continuation of the "third way".  It would be make more permanent that transition in the Democratic Party.

This article delves into the history and thinking behind the "third way" as best it can in nine pages.  It was a strategy to win elections, but, supporters of Bill believe it was more than that.  It was a strategy to effectively govern.  As Bai put it, in attempting to paraphrase Bill, the argument was that....

... inside the Democratic Party that the liberal orthodoxies of the New Deal and the Great Society, as well as the culture of the antiwar and civil rights movements, had become excessive and inflexible. Not only were Democratic attitudes toward government electorally problematic, Clinton argued; they were just plain wrong for the time.

I was just barely becoming politically aware in 1992 and am certainly no political historian to do this debate justice.  Bai thinks that Clinton truly believed he was re-focusing the Democratic party away from a party that concerned itself with the poor to a party that concerned itself more with the issues that affected the middle class.  Interestingly, I think John Edwards is doing the best job at this point in making the case that issues that affect the poor do affect the middle class – or at least that there are solutions that are good for both the middle and lower class.  However, whether a sound governing strategy or not, it sure seemed to many of us that the end result was giving in to Republicans too often and moving the entire Democratic Party to the right.  Bill might argue that it was a necessary shift but that the end result can not be judged yet because it is not completed.  Enter Hillary.  

That to me is the key point here.  Hillary’s campaign is not a referendum on Bill Clinton the person or his Presidency.  It is a referendum on the "third way".  Bill Clinton was and remains an extraordinarily popular person.  I was thrilled to attend a Clinton speech in Philadelphia a couple years ago and shake his hand.  He is a fascinating speaker and can exaplain the most complex issues in simple terms without dumbing it down.  I think most of us here, though not fans of the "third way", would move mountains for the opportunity to have a beer with him.  This is a point that I think the Hillary campaign doesn’t get.  Again from Bai’s article:

When I suggested to (Clinton chief strategist, Mark) Penn, back in 2005, that there might be a strong backlash emerging against the notion of Clintonism, he waved me away. "Strong backlash?" Penn scoffed, reminding me that the former president had a 70 percent approval rating in the country as a whole. "In this environment, that is a notion I would have to laugh at."  

However, Barack Obama’s campaign does seem to get it.  They would tell you, as was discussed in the article and is evident in listening carefully to Barack’s speeches, that they are not campaigning against the Bill Clinton presidency.  They are campaigning against the Bill Clinton politics – the "third way".  And I believe that many Democrats are politically sophisticated enough to understand that, even if they can’t quite find the words to explain it.  The Mark Penn strategy of putting Hillary on stage, but always gently reminding folks – you were a lot better 8 years ago, right? has worked to some extent, but has failed to slam the door shut on this race.  And now we are two weeks away from the Iowa caucus and things are tight.  Very tight.  And so now, Hillary is forced to play that #42 card.  This is about Bill Clinton in the end.  But, really.... It's not.  And that is why January 3rd will be so interesting.