From: d-m-c at worldnet.att.net <d-m-c at worldnet.att.net>
>I'll bet you that they won't give a crap. (Any suggestions for a wager?)
Oh I'll take the bet. Clinton might try to tough it out, but I don't think he will survive the storm. All of his feminist political support will disappear and he will have no cover. He will leave.
>First, we don't know that he didn't pay her/the child any money. The
>deadbeat dad discourse is all about reducing men to wallets, so as long
as
>he paid in some fashion no one will really care. Now, if people cared
more
>about *responsibility* as some sort of meaningful relationship with a
>child, then maybe just maybe he'd be considered a hypocrite.
The report is that he did not pay support and has denied the relationship. Combining lying with being a deadbeat dad moves this from personal conduct to public morality. If he secretly paid support, he will be fine I agree, but if the report is true of denial and no support, he will be hoisted on his own "responsibility" rhetoric and driven out.
>Second, she was a prostitute and so quite different from the women other
>politicians fathered children with.
This is both a plus and a minus. On the plus side, you are right that people expect less responsibility from sex with a prostitute, but that won't be enough here. And on the negative, it will open the gates to all the stories about Clinton's sex escapades to a pitch that will obliterate public discourse on any other issue. All of Clinton's political supporters will "more in sorrow than in anger" tell him to resign in order to clear the public space. Many have teetered at that spot in recent months and this will be the final push.
as for Rob's points:
>Do you want it to be true? I think I do. I reckon Al has it in him to
>make the Democrats more popular than they are now, by NOT privatising
>social security, by appealing to the same steady-headed suits who might
>like the boy Bush
No, I don't want it to be true. On the ideological grounds, it will indict left-liberalism with Clinton. Conservatives tried to do this with the Monica-Paula Jones stuff, arguing it showed the hypocrisy of feminists, but most people can tell the difference between what Clinton did and classic sexual harassment. Clinton's actions might exist in the twilight zone near the border to crude boorish pickup lines and harrassment, but it was not dead center like being a deadbeat Dad. Republicans are taking a massive popular dive for having too large a skew between their public morality and private actions. Clinton will (whether we think it's fair or not given his centrism) splash all over us as he goes down. On most issues, Clinton's private beliefs have actually been seen as more liberal than his public actions, whether being personally less racist than his policies or more compassionate than his welfare policies. It may have sucked morally but it gave Clinton an image of pragmatic compassionate liberalism with the moderates - a key to his popularity and also to liberal views getting a higher rating with the public. The whole Monica mess actually sliced through public hypocrisy on private sex and undercut the Right's strength, but Clinton and progressive policy gains could go down together (somewhat - not to be too dramatic since a hit from Clinton's fall will hurt but is survivable.)
But don't expect too much from Al. If Al has to fight for the nomination in 2000 against Bill Bradley and a few other elite favorites, he will have to suck up hard to labor and other liberals to hold the nomination. But if he is given the nomination as an incumbent, he will be free to shore up his base with much more Clinton-like centrist moves.
Politically, I have always thought a weakened but popular Clinton was our best bet for the next two years. He'd be too weak to overcome liberal filibusters in the Senate but popular enough to blunt any ideological steamroller from the Right. And he would have to be somewhat nice to liberals since his boy Al would suffer retribution if he pissed people off too much.
Generally, I thought we were entering this year in a great position, with the Right intellectually bankrupt and politically fragmented, even as our forces were working together better than they have for years.
So a prostitution scandal just looks like a loser to me for our side, if only because it will eat up public oxygen that we should be using to focus on progressive issues.
--Nathan Newman