Identity Problems
How Obama can avoid the failures of Clinton's early presidency.
Jonathan Chait,
The New Republic
Published: Saturday, November 15, 2008
Ever since Election Night, the specter of 1994 has loomed over the Democratic Party. Would the Democrats "overreach"? Would this bright new dawn of liberalism come crashing down as rapidly as the last one had?
The 1993-1994 period took place long enough ago that the feeling it engendered has been forgotten, and the causes of the Democrats' failure have mostly receded into myth. But the whole experience returned to me with a jolt when I read a Politico story reporting "intense backlash from women's groups may have pushed former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers off the short-list to lead Treasury." Ah, now I remember--that's what it feels like to watch the Democratic Party self-destruct.
The lesson Democrats have taken from that sour time is that they erred in their "hubris": moving too far, too fast, especially in their zeal to reform health care. House Majority Whip James Clyburn told The Wall Street Journal that, in the paper's words, he "advises a pragmatic approach to governance that would begin with items that have proven bipartisan support before tackling ambitious elements such as universal health care." As Clyburn put it himself, "We moved fast in the 103rd [Congress], and what did it get us?"
Of all Clinton's missteps, moving too fast on health care was clearly not among them. Clinton actually moved very slowly on health care, failing to take it up until his second year, when his post-inaugural glow had disappeared. The way that the administration--and, even more so, Congress--approached health care was deeply flawed, but the fact that they tried to take it on was not the problem. Health care was and is the gaping hole in the welfare state, a vast sinkhole of national wealth that inconveniences or ruins millions of lives. (Read Jonathan Cohn's terrific, heart-wrenching book.) Given the importance of the issue and its centrality in Clinton's platform, they had no choice but to attempt reform.
(More here.)
Jonathan Chait,
The New Republic
Published: Saturday, November 15, 2008
Ever since Election Night, the specter of 1994 has loomed over the Democratic Party. Would the Democrats "overreach"? Would this bright new dawn of liberalism come crashing down as rapidly as the last one had?
The 1993-1994 period took place long enough ago that the feeling it engendered has been forgotten, and the causes of the Democrats' failure have mostly receded into myth. But the whole experience returned to me with a jolt when I read a Politico story reporting "intense backlash from women's groups may have pushed former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers off the short-list to lead Treasury." Ah, now I remember--that's what it feels like to watch the Democratic Party self-destruct.
The lesson Democrats have taken from that sour time is that they erred in their "hubris": moving too far, too fast, especially in their zeal to reform health care. House Majority Whip James Clyburn told The Wall Street Journal that, in the paper's words, he "advises a pragmatic approach to governance that would begin with items that have proven bipartisan support before tackling ambitious elements such as universal health care." As Clyburn put it himself, "We moved fast in the 103rd [Congress], and what did it get us?"
Of all Clinton's missteps, moving too fast on health care was clearly not among them. Clinton actually moved very slowly on health care, failing to take it up until his second year, when his post-inaugural glow had disappeared. The way that the administration--and, even more so, Congress--approached health care was deeply flawed, but the fact that they tried to take it on was not the problem. Health care was and is the gaping hole in the welfare state, a vast sinkhole of national wealth that inconveniences or ruins millions of lives. (Read Jonathan Cohn's terrific, heart-wrenching book.) Given the importance of the issue and its centrality in Clinton's platform, they had no choice but to attempt reform.
(More here.)
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