So Paul...why don't you just go ahead and give up the Billary endorsement?
I am not an Obama supporter per se...I am an anti-Clintonite because they've earned it. However, if you want to choose the word "demonize" for my actions, I have no problem with that. I'm just not afraid of words.
Anyway, Mr. Krugman is implying that Sen. Obama will fail to develop a working relationship with Congress because Billary failed to do so after the 1992 election. This, frankly, is the most foolish attempt at making a point I've ever seen come from him.
Let’s review the sad tale, starting with the politics.
Whatever hopes people might have had that Mr. Clinton would usher in a new era of national unity were quickly dashed. Within just a few months the country was wracked by the bitter partisanship Mr. Obama has decried.
This bitter partisanship wasn’t the result of anything the Clintons did. Instead, from Day 1 they faced an all-out assault from conservatives determined to use any means at hand to discredit a Democratic president.
For those who are reaching for their smelling salts because Democratic candidates are saying slightly critical things about each other, it’s worth revisiting those years, simply to get a sense of what dirty politics really looks like.
No accusation was considered too outlandish: a group supported by Jerry Falwell put out a film suggesting that the Clintons had arranged for the murder of an associate, and The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page repeatedly hinted that Bill Clinton might have been in cahoots with a drug smuggler.
So what good did Mr. Clinton’s message of inclusiveness do him?
Mr. Krugman is casting Billary in the Republican role here...something I'm sure was not his intent. Plus there's a difference...we're expecting a Democratic Congress.
Let's face it...we expect Republicans to be foul. They've demonstarted it's S.O.P. for them. Are you trying to be better or are you going to get in the mud with them. Krugman is on the muddy side here.
The rest of the editorial really reflects badly on Billary.
Meanwhile, though Mr. Clinton may not have run as postpartisan a campaign as legend has it, he did avoid some conflict by being strategically vague about policy. In particular, he promised health care reform, but left the business of producing an actual plan until after the election.
This turned out to be a disaster. Much has been written about the process by which the Clinton health care plan was put together: it was too secretive, too top-down, too politically tone-deaf. Above all, however, it was too slow. Mr. Clinton didn’t deliver legislation to Congress until Nov. 20, 1993 — by which time the momentum from his electoral victory had evaporated, and opponents had had plenty of time to organize against him.
The failure of health care reform, in turn, doomed the Clinton presidency to second-rank status. The government was well run (something we’ve learned to appreciate now that we’ve seen what a badly run government looks like), but — as Mr. Obama correctly says — there was no change in the country’s fundamental trajectory.
But the closer is the best.
First, those who don’t want to nominate Hillary Clinton because they don’t want to return to the nastiness of the 1990s — a sizable group, at least in the punditocracy — are deluding themselves.
Dude...STOP LISTENING TO THE PUNDITOCRACY. Or at least stop putting their stupidities on us normal humans. We are more aware than you think. More aware than Reid and Pelosi, whose dithering about was instrumental in Bush getting his way over and over.
We WANT this fight. We just don't want it with people who claim to be on our side.
How's that sound, Mr. Krugman...folks on the same side treating each other rationally and with just a touch of respect. Not enough to hurt you...I know it's hard to do, but you can manage it.
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Considering the fractured
Considering the fractured state of the Republican party, how does Krugman anticipate there being a repeat of the 94 mid-term elections?
I have a lot of respect for
I have a lot of respect for Paul Krugman and I haven't been fazed at all by the relatively few criticisms he has made about Barack Obama because I think Krugman was largely right. Maybe, just maybe, I am being, as the anthropologist Jules Henry described it "hyper-vigilant for triggering cues," but Krugman's characterization of Obama's supporters as demonizing their opponents, i.e., the Clintons is simply absurd. Billary and their staff and supporters like Mark Penn, Bill Shaheen, Bob Johnson, Andrew Cuomo and Andy Young intentionally used racially coded phrases to try to create a false and inflammatory image of Barack Obama in the public's mind.
What Krugman and other well intentioned non-black liberals need to accept (understanding is not enough here) is that many of us in the black community will simply not tolerate this sort of behavior. We are not going to give folks a free pass or the benefit of the doubt when they pull out the race card, put it in play and then attempt to hide or deny the fact. They richly deserve to be demonized in such cases. And Krugman needs to stop defending the indefensible.
There is not plenty of blame to go around. If folks want to slam Obama about his policies then be our guests but suggesting that he might have been dealing drugs 20 years ago because he admitted to tooting a little blow at the time is malicious mischief. Obama was at least being honest in his admission as opposed to Br. Bill's ridiculous and lying claim to have smoked a joint but never inhaled. Nobody has ever smoked a joint and not inhaled. Not even DEA and FBI agents.
Why Krugman is WRONG
Krugman states that people who plan to vote for Obama are deluding themselves if they think Obama will face a docile Congress unlike what the Clintons would face. He provides some history of what the Clintons faced during their last administration, but he missed a few very important differences. I would like to point them out.
Here are the historical differences between 1980, 1992 and what we know of 2008 that Krugman ignores:
Reagan won 50.7% of the popular vote, carrying 44 states with 489 electoral votes, compared to 49 electoral votes for Carter (representing only six states and Washington, D.C.)
Clinton won by only 43% of the vote. Thus, he only got the Democratic vote, while Bush I and Perot split the Republican and Independent vote. Clinton would have lost the 1992 election if billionaire Ross Perot had not split the Republican and Independent vote. (George H. W. Bush got 37.4% of the vote and Perot, who ran as an independent got 18.9% of the vote.) In fact, it was the first time since 1968 that a candidate won the White House with under 50 percent of the popular vote.
Reagan was popular among Republicans, Democrats and Independents. Clinton was only popular among Democrats.
There were lots of “Reagan Democrats” (like me) in 1980, but there were no “Clinton Republicans” in 1992. In other words, Reagan was embraced by most of the electorate regardless of party affiliation. Clinton was embraced by Democrats only.
Reagan was able to reach across party lines in Congress immediately after taking office. Clinton was fighting with Republicans in Congress from day one.
2008 is shaping up to look more like 1980. Obama is popular among Democrats, Independents and lots of moderate and disenfranchised Republicans. Many Republican legislators (particularly in the Illinois legislature - where Obama spent eight years) actually LIKE Obama.
There are lots of “Obama Republicans” just like the Reagan Democrats of 1980. Simply Google “Republicans For Obama” and see the results. (If you Google “Republicans for Hillary,” you’ll get lots of hits too; but if you click on the links, they are sarcastic.)
Obama will take office with the ability to reach across party lines in the same way that Reagan took office.
This is why Paul Krugman is wrong. Again.
Considering the fractured
He's playing the rhetoritician, which is all an expert outside his field of expertise can do.
Yeah, but I'll tell you up front I'm a rhetoritician. Hell, I'll tell you part of what I said is just rhetoric.