On Aug 11, 2004, at 9:58 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> Perhaps you could replay his introduction of Dukakis in '88 -- when his
> rhetorical skills stampeded the convention...
how can you continue to judge the man solely by the worst failure of his political life, especially when *after* that we went on to win two terms in the white house in quite solid fashion? that '88 performance was a turning point for clinton. i listened to him at the very end of the 2000 campaign rallying troops in a hot, crowded, arkansas room, and he was brilliant -- no one left or wandered off or fell asleep. they were riveted.
>
> And "one of the best politicians in like the history of the world" was
> the
> principal reason that Gore lost the election: "State by state, there
> was
> an all but perfect match in exit polls between Clinton's image and the
> electoral result. Gore took every state where Clinton's "favourability
> rating" was average or above (57 per cent), with the exception of
> Florida,
> while Bush won every state where it was even a mere point below
> average,
> except for Oregon and New Mexico (where he lost by less than 0.25 per
> cent
> of the vote). Clinton was a dead weight on Gore even in Arkansas. For
> these calculations by Thad Beyle, see the Economist, 27 January 2001"
> <www.newleftreview.net/NLR24201.shtml>.
two things, here: (1) to the extent that the above analysis is true, it is only a measure of gore's poor performance as a campaigner. if gore couldn't get more people to pay attention to him than to clinton, whose fault is that? moreover, couldn't it just as easily be argued, using the very same data, that clinton is the main reason gore did as well as he did? or do we just want to blame clinton for the states gore lost and credit gore for the states gore won?
(2) as salon argued back in 2000, they should have let the big dog out of his cage, instead of refusing to let him campaign for gore. by your own argument, not letting clinton campaign did not remove his influence on the electorate. if they had let him hit the road, he might actually have helped more. if we could only test the hypothesis, i would bet you that clinton himself would have beaten W handily in 2000, despite everything.
http://dir.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/10/20/clinton/index.html? sid=989490
< clip > Instead, Gore finds himself down by as much as 10 points in national polls, even after his strong debate performance Tuesday night. That's ridiculous. If George Bush could get elected in 1988, despite Iran-Contra, economic stagnation and doubts about his manhood, Al Gore should have been a shoo-in. But there's one crucial difference: Despite personal differences and friction between their two families, Bush vigorously embraced the legacy of his popular predecessor, Ronald Reagan; Gore stands alone.
Friday's New York Times featured a fascinating piece on the frost between the president and vice president. According to Clinton advisors, Gore never writes, he never calls, and the president is hurt. The wives aren't friendly anymore. And Karenna Gore Stiff, I mean Schiff, allowed a rare look of authentic emotion -- disdain -- to mar her otherwise perfectly placid visage when Clinton addressed the Democratic National Convention in August.
But who gives a damn if the families aren't friendly and the two men aren't confidants? The Gore team's calculation that it doesn't need Clinton -- that it in fact profits from keeping its distance from him -- is what matters here, and what threatens to destroy his campaign. (To let Marty Peretz, the loudmouthed owner of the New Republic, blather on about Gore's problems with Clinton to the Times was a particular stroke of idiocy. Why is shutting up the president easier than shutting up Peretz? Who's in charge here?) [ . . . ]
But Gore is sacrificing what could be a potent anti-Republican campaign issue by failing to remind voters what Bush's party did to Clinton, and the country. Every time Bush babbles on about "bipartisanship," Gore should talk about impeachment. The $52 million Kenneth Starr investigation was the GOP gift that kept on giving, miring the country's lawmakers in a tawdry sex scandal while Medicare, Social Security and education went unreformed. Of course, that was the point: The GOP was hell-bent on keeping the president from claiming the policy successes his political victories should have assured him. (The president, it should be acknowledged, helped his enemies immeasurably.)
So on Tuesday night, when Bush began his bland platitudes about partisanship ("You see, in order to get something done on behalf of the people, you have to put partisanship aside") Gore should have chased him up on to his high chair with a lecture on the shame of GOP-imposed gridlock, from the government shutdown through impeachment. But Gore missed the opportunity, thanks to his fear of guilt-by-association with Clinton, and post-debate polling showed that Bush won points for his appeal to bipartisanship. </ clip >
j