Some lessons we SHOULD take from the first Clinton era:

[Ken Burch]

1) It's NEVER ok for a Democratic president to morally demonize the poor, especially the female poor. Republicans are probably always going to do that, but the president WE elect is supposed to be better than that. We are the party that is supposed to stand WITH the powerless...not look down our noses at them.

2) It's NEVER ok for a Democratic president to appease white backlash sentiment on any issue. Doing so never gains us white votes and drives voter turnout down among the increasingly large percentage of the Democratic base that is POC. WE need to be the party of the coming rainbow majority, not the bitter white past.

3) It's NEVER ok for a Democratic president to support anything that weakens the labor movement. Any time a Democratic president does that, it not only betrays all working people(union and non-union), it ends up weakening Democratic party. An America with no unions at all would be an America where no non-right wing candidate would ever win the presidency again.

4) It's NEVER ok for a Democratic president to treat progressive activists as the enemy and seek to drive them out of the party. Any time that happens, it ends up weakening us electorally and dilutes our policy offer to the people to next to nothing.

5) It's NEVER ok for a Democratic president or the national leadership of the Democratic Party to DEMAND progressive support after repeatedly doing all of the above. If loyalty is expected, loyalty must equally be given.

Those who want a second Clinton era have an obligation to learn from this. Not sure if they will, but they need to. For the good of ALL of us.

[silvershadow]

1. K&R

[ncovington89]

2. One more.

It's not OK for a democrat to start adopting conservative positions, such as when Bill became "tougher on crime" than even the republicans in some apparent attempt to win over conservative senators. If we get another Clinton in office, she will compromise us into oblivion.

[beachbum bob]

3. funny how I remember the clinton era differently..but then again I also remember the mess

left by the reagan and bush 1 administrations......clinton wasn't perfect but he was heads above what america had previously....I understand compromise and negotiations are ugly words to zealots and those seeking a purity test for democrats but that is how government and leadership works.

[Scuba]

4. "Don't be a Republican" is hardly a purity test.

[Armstead]

5. You forgot the word "ponies"

And a few other meaninglesss cliches

[JaneyVee]

7. Yup, cleaning up 12 years of Republican control.

[Ken Burch]

11. A cleanup effort that never required agreeing to continue most Republican policies

OR to agree to cut social benefits more savagely than Reagan.

[jeff47]

13. What cleanup?

Please list the Reagan/Bush policies that Clinton ended.

[JoePhilly]

10. + 1

[Baitball Blogger]

6. #5

I've seen that behavior locally. They run over you with crooked foulplay and expect you to get over it. I even heard one good ole boy remark, "It's not like the old days. People would get mad for a while, and then get over it and everything would be fine again. But they're not getting over it, anymore."

[farleftlib]

8. Bra-vo

I wish I could rec this multiple times.

IOW, it is not OK for a Democrat to govern like a Republican or expect our support
or approval when they do.

[Bluenorthwest]

9. It's never ok for a Democratic president to cover his own adultery scandals by attacking LGBT.

I think of Bill and Hillary as the couple who blamed LGBT for their own marital stresses, who felt compelled to 'defend the sacrament' not against their own less than sterling behavior but against good people who wanted to actually marry one another.

They are still that couple, she praises the Reagans and blames the LGBT every time she gets half a chance.

[Ken Burch]

12. Thank you for that. You are right. At every turn, they responded to right-wing attack

by attacking the people who voted for them.

This extended to Bill's absurd insistence, on the day he was impeached, on making the House and Senate Dems who had come to the White House to show solidarity with him wait for twenty minutes before he appeared. Even then, at a moment when triangulation was pointless, they insisted on triangulating, when they owed congressional Dems massive gratitude for voting against removing them from office, they insisted on keeping their distance from their own party.

As a result of using this tactic over and over again, the Democratic Party was on the brink of collapse by the time they left office.