Obama’s Re-Election Playbook Stark Contrast to Clinton’s
Printer-friendly version
Send by email
By Paul Hogarth
For well over a year, I’ve had this recurring nightmare that the 2012 election would be a repeat of 1996 – when Bill Clinton won re-election by adopting Republican policies and throwing progressives under a bus, leaving us absolutely nothing to hope for. When Barack Obama caved on the Bush tax cuts right in December 2010, and during the embarrassing debt ceiling fight in 2011, it certainly felt like history was indeed repeating itself. But a funny thing happened on the way to Obama’s re-election.
The progressive issues he ran on in 2008 were still popular, and not delivering would be a liability. So now the President has come out for marriage equality, and last week signed an executive order halting the deportation of DREAM Act-eligible youth – which I would have thought unthinkable one year ago. Despite being “liberal” moves that please his base, everyone agrees that it was the politically smart thing to do for his re-election. Whereas Bill Clinton spent much of 1996 signing Welfare Repeal and the Defense of Marriage Act, Obama’s actions will not only help his prospects in November – but give progressives something to hope for in 2013.
In 1992 and in 2008, a young charismatic Democrat won the White House with a message of “hope” and “change” after years of Republican rule. Saying they wanted to change the culture in Washington, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama each had an ambitious first-term agenda that included comprehensive health care reform (even though both proposals fell far short of what’s really needed.) Despite overtures to bipartisanship, they faced a barrage of GOP obstruction – who blamed the President when nothing got done. In 1994 and in 2010, Republicans took control of Congress – with a crop of right-wingers hell-bent on starving the public sector.
We all know what Clinton then did to secure his re-election. He brought consultant Dick Morris, who advised him that “swing voters” wanted to keep a Republican Congress – so he pursued a strategy of triangulation. The first Democratic President in my lifetime boasted the “era of big government is over,” and ended the federal government’s 60-year safety net for poor people. Clinton co-opted the Republicans on so many issues, that Bob Dole had nothing to campaign on. He easily won re-election, but Republicans kept Congress – and liberals were depressed.
The aftermath of the 2010 election offered much of the same story. In what will go down as the low point of his presidency, Barack Obama capitulated on extending the Bush tax cuts – and lamely argued that while the American public did not support keeping these tax cuts, he would do so anyway because the Republicans wouldn’t budge. Democrats in Congress were furious, but Obama protested that this was the “public option fight all over again.” The message was clear – the Left was no longer a relevant part of his Administration, and he would cut deals without them.
But here’s where the story changes. When Bill Clinton betrayed progressives on issues like Welfare Repeal, he was sacrificing principle for political expediency – but it was also the “popular” thing to do. While despicable, at least a Machiavellian mind could argue he co-opted Republicans to take the issue off the table – robbing them the opportunity of a wedge issue. When Obama caved on the Bush tax cuts, he did something despicable and unpopular.
Which is where Obama is today. Facing an “enthusiasm gap” among progressives and diligent advocacy from gays and Latinos, the President made two bold moves in the past month. On May 9th, he endorsed marriage equality – having shunned the opportunity to do so for years. And on June 15, eighteen months after the DREAM Act was filibustered in the Senate, he issued an executive order halting the deportation of DREAM-Act eligible youth. He did this, after his Administration had deported more undocumented immigrants than George Bush – but it was well received.
What’s remarkable about these moves are not just that they are “liberal,” and would please the President’s base – when he should be worried about moderate “swing” voters. But they are also politically popular, a wise move as he faces re-election in November. More than 50% of Americans now support gay marriage, and a whopping 64% supported his move on immigrant youth – to the point that it’s put Mitt Romney in an awkward situation.
Obama’s re-election team now understands that pleasing progressives will help his re-election, which could not be a more welcome contrast with Bill Clinton’s re-election strategy in 1996.
For the past four decades, Democrats and progressives have been haunted by the Ghost of George McGovern that has poisoned every political discussion. Don’t be “too liberal,” we are warned, because we might lose those voters in the “middle” – because after all, America is a “center-right” country. Not only does this temper the enthusiasm of progressives, but it also excuses every time a Democratic politician betrays us on a policy matter. The message is also extremely demoralizing – it tells the Left that we are “small” and “powerless,” so we should sit down, shut up and let the “grownups” who know what they’re doing just govern this nation.
But here’s the catch. We are not a center-right country, and Obama has learned that to side with progressives is now the popular thing to do. As he faces re-election, Obama will not co-opt Republican issues to win the Bubba vote in Missouri and West Virginia – but has realized that America’s new political base is the fast-growing Latino vote in swing states like Colorado and Nevada, the secular “creative class” in Virginia and North Carolina’s Research Triangle and young people who have not bothered to vote since 2008. That is the political center.
And it bodes well for progressives, empowering us as we push the President in his second term.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Paul Hogarth is the Managing Editor of Beyond Chron, an alternative online daily newspaper, with whose permission this article is republished.
- megan's blog
- Login or register to post comments
- Printer-friendly version
- Send by email
Bill Clinton was much more conservative than the small tidbits you mentioned. For example, Bill Clinton reduced capital gains taxes. He did so not because he was morally in favor or it but rather because he wanted the gusher of tax revenue that a lower capital gains tax would bring.
Also, Bill Clinton co-operated with Gingrich to reduce government spending. We actually had both congress and the executive agreeing to keep costs down. That hasn't happened since. Of course, such fiscal commonsense helped the economy.
You are right that the "progressive" Barack Obama would do none of the above. Of course, he will not get a Clintonian economy either.
I'm never ceased to be amazed by the sheer ignorance of the right wing trollers that come here. Capital gains tax cuts CREATES government revenue?? Seriously?? That's "laffer curve", disproved, discredited, illogical nonsense. There is no data, no evidence, no rational basis to equate cutting taxes for the rich with generating government revenue. Its a contradiction in terms. If you believe the rich should keep more of their investment money, and starve the government of revenue as a result (which cutting capital gains ACTUALLY does) then just say it...be honest...but don't say up is down, black is white, and wet is dry.
Look, I don't know if you're spouting the corporate created right wing think tank talking points because you're pushing a 1% agenda by knowingly lying about the effects of cutting taxes for the top or whether you actually BELIEVE the koolaid you've been drinking. It doesn't matter...both options are a sad commentary on today's right wing...whether you're ignorant or a liar, you're peddling nonsense that's hurtful to this country and its people.
And what's particularly bothersome is you troll this garbage on sites like this that actually are dedicated to facts and reason instead of what you should do: stick to the temples of ignorance you got your info from...Limbaugh, Fox, Hannity, American Heritage Institute, Wall Street, etc.
Go away...or read REAL studies...not ones funded by corporate interests intentionally misleading the public.
from townhall magazine:
In 1993, Clinton raised taxes on upper-income Americans, boosting the top rate to nearly 40 percent. But the higher tax rates didn't boost government revenues as Democrats and the administration hoped, despite the economy coming out of a short and shallow recession.
"The tax increases added very little to Treasury receipts despite their magnitude. Reports from the Congressional Budget Office and the Office of Management and Budget, and the Internal Revenue Service all agree," high-tech analyst Jerry Shenk writes on the American Thinker website.
Clinton boasts about his budget surpluses, but they did not occur until after the Republican-run Congress sent him a deficit-reducing bill in 1997 that he signed reluctantly. Among its tax cut provisions, it cut the capital gains rate from 28 percent to 20 percent.
"The 1997 rate reduction on capital gains unleashed the economy, causing capital investment to more than triple by 1998 and double again in 1999. Treasury receipts for this category of tax obligation increased dramatically," Shenk found.
"Without tax relief and the internet/communications revolution, the second Clinton term would likely have seen tax revenues decline in a lagging economy," he said.
or, from the wall street journal:
Ever since the famous 1978 bipartisan capital-gains tax cut sponsored by the late William Steiger of Wisconsin, the same pattern has repeated itself: raising the capital-gains rate reduces revenues, and lowering it leads to revenue increases.
The nearby chart shows the 35-year trend in capital-gains revenue and tax rates—through 2008, the last year data are available. The Steiger amendment cut the top rate to 28% from nearly 40% in what was a watershed moment in U.S. tax policy and a preview of the Reagan era. Revenue from capital gains quickly jumped to $11.8 billion in 1979 from $9.1 billion the year before.
Congress cut the rate again in 1981 to 20% as part of the Reagan tax cuts, and the striking fact is that revenues didn't fall in 1982 despite the steep recession. By 1983 they were rising again, to $18.7 billion, and they kept rising along with the Reagan boom.
The next policy break came in 1986, when Congress returned the capital-gains rate to 28% as part of tax reform. A funny thing happened: Revenues soared in 1986 to $52.9 billion as investors cashed in their gains before the tax increase hit in 1987. But then revenues plunged, despite the higher tax rate, to $33.7 billion. They rose slightly in 1988 but then stayed flat for nearly another decade.
In 1997, Bill Clinton and the Gingrich Republicans cut the rate back to 20%, and revenues really took off—doubling to $127.3 billion in 2000 from $66.4 billion in 1996. These were also the years of a stock-market boom, and investors cashed in their gains along the way.
Capital-gains revenues fell amid the dot-com bust, but in 2003 George W. Bush and Republicans in Congress chopped the rate to 15%. Even at that lower rate revenues started to climb again (along with the economy), rising from $51.3 billion in 2003 to $137.1 billion in 2007. They understandably fell again in 2008 as the recession hit and stock values fell.
The data clearly show that the overall economy is the single biggest factor in capital-gains realizations and revenue. But the data also show that time and again revenue has multiplied despite a lower rate, and arguably because of it.
there is an excellent graph from that article but I don't know how to cut and paste it into this form.
Anyways, any cursor look on the internet will show dozens of articles detailing how cutting the capital gains inevitably increases tax revenues. If you would actually study the issue instead of spouting talking points you might learn something.
This is an insightful analysis of the difference in the country now vs 1996 and the difference in the Clinton and Obama re-election campaigns. Thank you, Paul.
Please forgive me, then, for taking issue with a side issue that it raises -- the idea that Obama "caved in" on the Bush tax cut extension in December 2010. That's what a lot of progressives in Congress said when Obama and the Republicans first announced that lame-duck session compromise. But the congressional progressives stopped saying that when they actually read the legislation.
The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, the leading progressive think tank in Washington DC -- never known for rolling over for anybody -- analyzed the December 2010 compromise thoroughly. They concluded that the overwhelming majority of the benefits went to the poor and middle class.
Yet somehow the facts didn't reach a lot of grassroots progressives.
It's a lot like the bill this year that, in its original form, would have allowed US presidents to order the assassination of US citizens. Obama objected to that provision. So did congressional progressives (and some not-so-progressives, such as Diane Feinstein), and the bill was amended to get rid of that provision. The Center for National Security Studies, another solid progressive think thank, analysed the bill and called it a big step forward. They seem frustrated that, on this one too, the facts never seemed to reach a lot of grassroots progressives.
There seem to have been a lot of cases like since Obama took office, leading to a perception on the left that Obama is just another Bill Clinton.
Part of that weird misperception, I'm sure, is because some of us got our hopes way too high and were disappointed. I didn't and wasn't. Obama was my third choice. Now I'm glad that he beat my first two choices, Dennis Kusinich and John Edwards. I can't imagine either of them being able to pass health care reform, for example. (And BTW, nobody seems to have noticed that the Affordable Care Act really does include a public option. It's called the high-risk pool.)
Part of it, too, is because we always want more. We could hardly call ourselves progressives if we didn't. Obama is a centrist, and so of us automatically dislike him, not noticing that he's moved the center to the left.
And let's face it.
But those things don't explain all of it. It's as if some progressives are living in some kind of a bubble like the Fox News bubble on the right. If there is a progressive bubble like that, I'll be damned if I can find it -- unless maybe it's Fire Dog Lake, which seems to be a about as accurate (and to hate Obama about as much) as Fox.
In any case, we should all get a lot more careful about our facts, especially facts that disturb our existing views. Or to paraphrase Barry Goldwater at the beginning of the conservative revolution in 1964 -- Grow up, progressives.
Hi Paul,
Good stuff! I would add that in the 1980s and 1990s, America WAS a Center-Right country. My honest opinion is if Clinton was Prez now, he would do the same thing Obama did. Clinton is the same as Eisenhower who governed during a period where the electorate realigned with the other party.