"Values, schmalues" continued

Carl Remick cremick at rlmnet.com
Wed Feb 10 10:42:41 PST 1999


Re Doug's: "but one reason [the Republicans are] so pissed at [Clinton] is that he stole their program: welfare 'reform,' budget surpluses, shrinkage of the noncoercive functions of government, expansion in imprisonment (including something like 50 new categories of federal capital offenses), erosion in civil liberties, clearcutting of national forests...."

No argument from me on all that -- as I said, the prez is a policy putz. Still and all, Clinton's win may yet bear progressive fruit.

When I suggested yesterday that Clinton's mere survival in office would create an opening for the left -- that Clinton owes the left in a major way -- Brad De Long laughed in my face ... as no doubt, too, would the Village Voice's James Ridgeway (see his current column, "The Democratic Dilemma After Clinton," http://www.villagevoice.com/columns/9906/ridgeway.shtml).

But just because 90% of political history and 98% of Clinton's character argue that the left will get stiffed yet again going forward, I still think the left has some possibility of exerting leverage. The straws I'm currently grasping at are contained in the following (from Gerald Seib's not-all-sympathetic-to-the-left Capital Journal column in today's Wall Street Journal):

"Oddly, impeachment has united Democrats, but it has united them on the left side of the party's ideological spectrum. Bill Clinton's 'New Democrat' tendencies have faded as the parties liberal core provided the anchor holding the presidency against the gales of impeachment....

"[One scenario] is that Democrats do [continue to] hang together, but by staying on the left rather than returning to the center ground President Clinton staked out. 'We've got to make sure we don't cede that back' to Republicans, says Al From, president of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council."

So, there you are. All we have to do is put out a contract on Al From -- something that should have been done long ago anyway.

Carl Remick



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