> The problem is that he's such a bad president in so many other ways. If the
> GOPsters didn't hate him so much, people with common sense would label
> Clinton a Republican.
Check out these excerpts from a recent column by David Warsh, Business Section columnist for the Boston Globe. Warsh is an an advocate of the position he describes below, not a critic. Business Week seems to be on a similar track. I saw a recent cover featuring an article about internal conflict in the GOP between the more populist, religious right and business interests, but I haven't read the article yet.
"For the last six years, it has been the Democrats who have been the stewards of free trade and a growing international economy, while the Republicans have shown themselves prone to capture by religious and ideological factions....
....The conservative leadership of the Republican Party that came to power in 1980 was fresh, powerful, and had a few simple good ideas. The second generation of that leadership is overripe. Populists, protectionists, religious conservatives in the GOP vie with one another to promote dubious ideas.
They want to derail fast-track negotiating authority for trade agreements, end well-established affirmative action programs in governments and corporations, restrict immigration, tie antiabortion and school prayer measures to bills as unrelated as trade with China and funding for the International Monetary Authority. Big business is skeptical of it all.
For 75 years, ever since Warren Harding swept into office on the strength of a promise to ``Return to Prosperity,'' America's business culture has identified its interests with those of the Republican Party. With the GOP increasingly dominated by ideologues, moralists, and sore losers, a historic realignment looms."
The whole Warsh column is at http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/251/Why_Gorby_looks_good.shtml --
-----Laurie
Laurie Dougherty Global Development and Environment Institute Tufts University - Medford, MA 02155
mdougher at tufts.edu ldougherty at earthlink.net