Last night, I went back and read the transcript of the Democratic presidential candidate debate in South Carolina and noticed something new. Yesterday I said there was no clear winner from the debate. Today I’d like to take that back. The winner was Bill Clinton.
Time and again, the candidates relied on President Clinton’s successes as a template upon which their own administration would be based.
John Kerry was the first to mention Clinton, explaining how much better the government’s diplomacy was before the Bush administration. Kerry said we should get back to JFK’s and Clinton’s approach, in which the U.S. “pursues proliferation and reduces the threat of weapons, [so] we can create a world in which the threat of war begins to be minimized.”
Howard Dean was next, noting during a discussion on health care policy that Clinton’s plan was undermined by excessive opposition from “interest groups.”
Then there was John Edwards, who noticed how much better the economy was before Bush became president. “All I am going to do is put the tax rate back to where it was when Bill Clinton was president, because we did a lot better under Bill Clinton than we are under George Bush.”
Soon after, Kerry praised Clinton’s trade agreement with Jordan and for beginning a process with Vietnam to create a new labor agreement to increase trade between the two countries.
Lieberman, not wanting to be left out, also lauded Clinton’s work on trade. “President Clinton explained why, in supporting trade agreements, he talked about how Americans are 4 percent of the world population. There’s only so much we can make and sell to one another. We’ve got to break down the barriers around the world, to sell to the rest of the world products that are made here to create jobs for Americans.”
Lieberman wasn’t done there. Later, he said, “I think we’ve got to go back to the policies that worked during the Clinton-Gore years — fiscal discipline, smart tax cuts to help create jobs, and investments in education, health care and homeland security, and incidentally, sending some money back to the states so states like South Carolina doesn’t have to cut their education budget.”
Bob Graham also joined in on the fun. “I believe that we need to return to the days of fiscal discipline, as we did under the administration of Bill Clinton,” Graham said. “When he left office, we had a $5 trillion surplus. Barely two years later we’ve got a $2 trillion deficit, a $7 trillion turn in the finances of America. And do you know who’s going to be paying those bills? It’s going to be our grandchildren, because we’re going to give them a credit card that will be listed as overdrawn from our excessive behavior.”
I think there are a few lessons to be learned from this. First, this is still very much Bill Clinton’s party. For all the hype conservatives spread about the so-called “scandals” and “Clinton fatigue,” the candidates vying for the Democratic nomination not only appear to revere the former president for his record, but also appreciate his stature among Democratic primary voters.
Another point that comes to mind is that these candidates do not appear likely to repeat Al Gore’s mistake of distancing themselves from Clinton. You might recall Gore went out of his way to leave Clinton on the sidelines during the 2000 race, concerned that the president’s personal failings would tarnish his candidacy. I’d argue just the opposite happened — Clinton’s absence from the campaign trail meant voters were never reminded of the administration’s formidable record of historic peace and prosperity.
If the comments from the South Carolina debate are any indication, I suspect whoever gets the nomination will be utilizing Clinton a great deal in ’04. I’m sure it’s tempting for the candidates to simply go out and tell voters, “I’ll run the country like Clinton but you don’t have to worry about Monica Madness.” That won’t happen explicitly, of course, but it’s fair to say these Dems won’t be asking Clinton to hide from public view the way Gore did.
That being said, I also hope the candidates don’t rely too much on the former president. I thought it was kind of embarrassing last week, for example, when Howard Dean asked Clinton to intervene in Dean’s ongoing feud with John Kerry. Fortunately, Clinton declined the offer to broker a peace deal between the two, but I think it was odd for Dean to even extend the invitation. It reminded me of a child running off to Dad, asking him to make a sibling play nice.
Regardless, I’m glad to see Clinton’s record getting the respect it deserves. After just two years of George W., I doubt I’m the only one looking back at the Clinton/Gore years and wishing we could duplicate some of their many accomplishments.