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I'm going to keep saying this until I turn blue, and have everyone on this site against me. I think that the Clinton years were perhaps the worst thing, long-term, for the Democratic Party. And before anyone responds with blind fury, let me explain.
With the Clinton years, the Democratic Party adopted a new attitude toward big business. It began to champion free trade (i.e. NAFTA). It supported the push for deregulation of the telecom industry (1996 Telecommunications Deregulations Act, pushed by Clinton). It sought economic guidance from Wall Street bigwigs (Robert Rubin) as opposed to labor and traditional friends of labor. It made the conscious decision to court corporate cash in order to try and overcome the Republicans in fundraising.
Throughout all of this, the brunt of the Democrats' newfound friendship with Corporate America was borne by the American worker. These were the people who were taught that if they played by the rules and worked hard, that they would be OK. They were betrayed in this. Every time jobs were shifted overseas, it wasn't the Bob Rubins of the world seeing their health benefits disappear, savings dry up, and job opportunities diminish. Hell, the Bob Rubins of the world made boatloads of money off of this. No, it was this honest, trusting American worker who saw all this happen.
Of course, the Republicans were just as complicit in all of this -- probably more so. But with the mouthpieces they had and the Democrats lacked, it was too easy for them to glide in and fill these people's heads full of places to lay their blame (liberals, Democrats, gays, blacks, and so on). Furthermore, they pointed out the emerging cultural liberalism of the Democrats and how it contrasted with the "values" that were prevalent in the heartland.
If the Democrats still had the card of economic populism, of standing on the side of the worker, they could have trumped this cultural conservatism. But they had already thrown that card away, in the process of cozying up with Corporate America. Therefore, they were caught relatively empty-handed, and had little left outside of a strategic retreat.
Bill Clinton won election and re-election due to several factors. One can cite the presence of Ross Perot in 1992. You could also cite dissatisfaction with an out-of-touch incumbent that same year. Also, Bob Dole was a less-than-appealing Presidential candidate. But perhaps more than anything else, Bill Clinton won these races on the sheer force of his overflowing charisma.
Charisma may get you elected, but it won't push through an agenda unless that agenda really speaks to people. Therefore, much of the Clinton years -- especially from 1994-2000 -- could be best described as a strategic retreat in the face of a Republican onslaught. Granted, it was a quite well-executed retreat, but it was still a retreat.
The response of what Skinner termed the "center-left libertarian" wing of the party, typified by the Democratic Leadership Council, however, was to describe this as "winning". It sought to promote this kind of embrace of corporate power while proposing "nibbling around the edges" policy initiatives as a winning formula. My belief is that Bill Clinton was elected twice, largely IN SPITE OF this formula, due to the aforementioned reasons.
In the midst of all of this, with the seizure of the "values" card by the Republicans and the abandonment of economic populism by the Democrats, the results are quite predictable. While there are promising happenings in localities and state houses in the country, on the national level the Republicans are in full control and the Democrats are adrift. The conservatives STILL view politics as a marathon race, while the Democrats STILL approach it as an electoral sprint every few years. Republicans appear to be the party of ideas because their ideas -- no matter how half-brained they are -- are always wrapped around central, emotional themes; while the Democrats largely react to Republican proposals or drift off into wonk-speak, expecting people to respond to policy initiatives described simply in pragmatic terms without any connection to greater values.
We'd better wise up to this trend, and fast. We'd better learn to re-embrace economic populism, and to play it up on the "values" end to the electorate. We'd better start coming down on the side of the worker, as opposed to talking about him while we continue to shill for the boss. We'd better do all of this, otherwise we'll be consigned to the dustbin of political history, preserved for viewing purposes only in a glass jar right beside the one labeled "Whigs".
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