On Mon, 21 Dec 1998 01:21:42 -0500 "Nathan Newman"
<nathan.newman at yale.edu> writes:
>Well, apparently the President that often pissed on his fellow
>Democrats
>has served them well in his downfall. In the lastest CNN polls, the
>Democrats are riding high in public opinion while the Republicans are
>approaching Saddam Hussein's approval rating.
>
>Clinton's approval is at 73%: "That's not only an all-time high for
>Clinton, it also beats the highest approval rating President Ronald
>Reagan
>ever had."
>
>57% now have a favorable view of the Democratic Party, while only 31%
>have
>a favorable view of the Republican Party. This is the lowest approval
>rating of the Republicans in the last few decades.
>
>I assume that the Republicans will have to recover, although it is an
>interesting question if the GOP could follow the Canadian Progressive
>Conservatives and the British Tories from majority governance to
>decimated
>minority?
>
>The more interesting question is how to understand this public fall of
>the
>GOP. Is it merely the public repugnance at the sexual witchhunt or is
>it
>a more fundamental response to the reason for the witchhunt, namely
>the
>exhaustion of the neoliberal conservative project and its substitution
>of
>character politics for its lost policy consensus?
The fact is that the Republicans have been in serious trouble ever since the end of the Cold War. Anti-commnism was always the glue that held together the various feudind factions and constituencies of the right (i.e. paleo-cons, neo-cons, religious rightists, economic conservatives, Buchanites etc.). With the end of the Cold War it has been much more difficult for the Republicans to hold themselves together. Furthermore, as Nathan points out the crumbling of neo-liberalism leaves Republicans without much to say substantively economic policy issues. The party is for instance divided between economic internationalists (free traders) and eeconomic nationalists (protectionists) which reflects divisions between its Big Business constituencies on the one hand and its constituencies among smaller and medium size business. Also, the fact that Clinton has co-opted many of the Republicans' favorite issues has helped to deprive them of the ability to address issues in a substantive manner. Hence, the politics of character assasination. And we have seen this weekend how destructive that can be for the Republicans themselves who have lost their second House speaker.
>
>A hint are polls that show two-thirds of the public feeling that the
>GOP
>Congress is completely out of touch with the values and needs of the
>average person. And the fact that Democrats are doing well probably
>indicates less a love for them than a signal that this public
>revulsion
>has not channelled inself into an apathetic anti-politician response
>(a la
>Perot a few years ago) but into a desire for substantive policy
>response -
>a desire projected hopefully onto the Dems.
>
>For the Left, this indicates, after years of apathy and antipathy to
>new
>initiatives, a reopening of the public appetite for policy responses.
>Clinton will have first crack with his State of the Union and planned
>Spring offensive (and it may be pretty offensive if his rumored taste
>for
>partial privatization is accurate) but there is also an opportunity
>for
>the Left to counter-move on living wage, child care, health care and
>attacks on corporate welfare.
Presumably if Clinton is going to fight to hold on to his office he is going to have to mobilize traditional Democratic core constituencies. This can create an opening for the left if they can raise demands for more progressive policies.
>
>It's a bizarre endproduct of this whole process, but impeachment may
>be
>the best service Clinton gave to the progressive side of the ledger in
>his
>Presidency.
Quite posssiblu.
Jim Farmelant
>
>--Nathan Newman
>
>
>
>
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