Danny Goldberg writes in the TPM Cafe:
March 7, 2008, 5:23PM
"The recent drama about NAFTA demonstrates that Barack Obama cannot effectively run against Hillary Clinton without criticizing the Bill Clinton administration.
At times it has seemed as if Obama wanted to identify with the 1992 version of Bill Clinton who was approximately the same age Obama is now and now was the last Democrat to actually win.
But Obama needs to differentiate himself from Bill Clinton as much as he does from Hillary Clinton. To the extent that voters want a third Clinton term there is no rationale for denying Hillary Clinton the Democratic nomination. It is not plausible to depict her as having been a typical First Lady who merely did ceremonial work. She was an integral part of the Clinton administration. That is both her asset and her liaibility. Obama needs to take the bull by the horns and should take another line form John Kennedy's 1960 playbook: ”We can do better.”
The excitement that Obama has created thus far is not because of the ways he resembles Bill Clinton but because of the ways he is different from both Clintons and both Bushes. Part of his traction came from a lack of excitement about Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton.
One subtext of the Clinton campaign is that Obama is not ideologically different from Hillary. That is the supposed “fairy take,” Bill Clinton was talking about. If Obama is the same except for his eloquence, the argument goes, voters should go with the familiar brand name.
While acknowledging that Bill Clinton was most certainly better than either George Bush he must also remind voters that because of a lack of Presidential leadership during Clinton's time in office, Democrats lost both Houses of Congress. Bill Clinton failed to get national health care. He failed to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil. Bill Clinton failed to achieve labor law reform such as EFCA to make it easier for unions to organize. He failed to substantially increase the minimum wage. Bill Clinton signed NAFTA. The disparity of wealth between rich and poor grew during Clinton’s administration as well as Bush’s . America can do better.
Bill Clinton's administration introduced the language of “regime change” which set the stage for the disasterous war in Iraq. This is part of the “mind-set” that led to war. Bill Clinton let genocide happen in Rwanda. America can do better.
Bill Clinton reinforced the conservative paradigm when he claimed that the era of big government was over. This helped enable the further deterioration of the Bush years. Obama needs to remind Democrats voters what their real beliefs are-and how both Clintons triangulated away from them. Democrats can do better.
Bill Clinton was a good President but not a great one. He didn’t change the landscape of American politics in the long-term. Such a transformation and not a third Clinton term is what America needs.That’s the case Obama needs to make because if Americans believe that the best they can get out of the federal government is what Bill Clinton had to offer, they might as well go with Hillary Clinton."
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