The WaPo’s David Broder has been having a really tough year, but today’s column was a real doozy. He’s apparently trying to warn Dems about two disparate threats: immigration and Hillary Clinton.
That is the issue of. A very smart Democrat, a veteran of the Clinton administration, told me that he expects [illegal immigration] to be a key part of any Republican campaign and that he is worried about his party’s ability to respond.
I think he has good reason to worry. The failure of the Democratic Congress, like its Republican predecessor, to enact comprehensive immigration reform, including improved border security, has left individual states and local communities to struggle with the problem.
Actually, Republican lawmakers were responsible for the collapse of immigration reform; Dems were on the same page as the Bush White House. For that matter, Republicans thought they could use immigration against Dems in Virginia and Kentucky a couple of weeks ago, and that didn’t work out too well.
But the bulk of Broder’s column dealt with his contempt for Hillary Clinton and her husband. He quoted a friend concerned about “a two-headed campaign and the prospect of a dual presidency.”
[T]his is a prospect that will test the tolerance of the American people far more severely than the possibility of the first female president — or, for that matter, the first black president.
This seems misguided for a variety of reasons.
Most notably, Broder, who has made secret of his distaste for Bill Clinton, doesn’t seem to realize that most Americans have consider this prospect, and seem completely unfazed by it.
Indeed, Broder asserts that the “American people’s tolerance” will be tested, but he doesn’t back it up. He can’t — the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming. I know this because I learned it from Broder’s newspaper just a few weeks ago.
Former president Bill Clinton has emerged as a clear asset in his wife’s campaign for the White House, with Americans offering high ratings to his eight years in office and a solid majority saying they would be comfortable with him as first spouse, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
But Americans said they would not regard the election of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as simply the resumption of her husband’s presidency. Instead, two-thirds said she would take her presidency in a different direction, and half of all Americans said they believed that would be a good development. About half of those who said it would be a resumption described that as positive. […]
At this point, however, the former president is seen in favorable terms. Two-thirds of Americans said they approve of the job he did while he was in office — virtually the reverse of President Bush’s current approval rating, which stands at 33 percent. Clinton remains overwhelmingly popular among Democrats, and 63 percent of independents and even a third of Republicans also gave him positive marks.
Somehow, I don’t see a “severe” test of anyone’s patience, except maybe David Broder’s.
His column concluded with some analysis of the Clintons’ marriage.
No one who has read or studied the large literature of memoirs and biographies of the Clintons and their circle can doubt the intimacy and the mutual dependence of their political and personal partnership.
No one can reasonably expect that partnership to end should Hillary Clinton be elected president. But the country must decide whether it is comfortable with such a sharing of the power and authority of the highest office in the land.
It is a difficult question for any of the Democratic rivals to raise. But it lingers, even if unasked.
Hmm. Didn’t Broder vow, less than a week ago, not to analyze the Clintons’ marriage?