DLC | New Dem Daily | June 28, 2004

The Real Clinton Legacy

To help address the skewed perceptions of My Life and the Clinton legacy as a whole, the DLC and The Washington Monthly convened a discussion last week entitled "My Politics," aimed at exploring the political and policy implications of Clinton's career, and the future of Clintonism as a political tradition.
DLC president Bruce Reed kicked off the event by presenting our view that Clinton "was the great modernizer of the Democratic Party, who saved liberalism from itself." Washington Monthly editor Paul Glastris, who moderated the discussion, argued that My Life is a much better book than its critics allow, and that "its estimation will rise over time in the opinion of elites." Glastris, who as a reporter took a close look at Clinton's record as governor, said the sections of the book on Arkansas clearly illustrate three aspects of Clinton's overall career: "He knew how to advance himself politically; his policies were innovative, and they worked; and change creates a lot of enemies."

Los Angeles Times political reporter Ron Brownstein reinforced Reed's argument that Clinton's crucial accomplishment was to revive a Democratic Party that was in serious trouble at the close of the 1980s. "Clinton understood what was wrong with the Democratic Party better than anybody I have ever met," he said.

The 1984 candidacy of Walter Mondale proved it was impossible to build an electoral majority simply by recreating the New Deal coalition, and the 1988 candidacy of Michael Dukakis showed the vulnerability of "neoliberalism" to an attack on cultural issues, Brownstein argued. Clinton's 1992 campaign was "thematically brilliant" in addressing Democratic weaknesses, and in 1996, he "succeeded in expanding his party's base, moving up the income ladder without sacrificing his lower-income support." Indeed, both Clinton's political message and his policy accomplishments were mutually reinforcing, Brownstein said, making "Democrats acceptable to upscale voters while delivering for his traditional Democratic constituencies." While the Lewinsky scandal prevented Clinton from "achieving what he originally planned, he created a potentially powerful political model for somebody else."Brownstein's bottom line was that Clintonism might well have a bright future.

USA Today columnist Walter Shapiro dissented from the rest of the panel's discussion of Clinton's legacy. While conceding the importance of Clinton's 1992 campaign and first term, Shapiro argued that Clinton lost his way well before the Lewinsky scandal, and made a strategic mistake in his 1997 State of the Union Address by conceding that "the era of big government is over" and failing to advance a coherent activist policy agenda.

Washington Post political reporter John Harris sharply disagreed with Shapiro, saying "this critique is just plain wrong." According to Harris, "Clintonism is a set of distinct policy preferences" based on three principles. "Internationally, Clinton stood for the idea that nurturing alliances should be a supreme value of American foreign policy." Domestically, Clintonism means "liberal programs can thrive so long as they are done within a context of fiscal discipline." And "politically, Bill Clinton stood for the idea that voters would support public-sector activism so long as it does not revive fears of expanded government and overreaching bureaucracy." Harris argued that "Clinton has won that argument" within the Democratic Party, as reflected by Sen. John Kerry's strong emphasis on fiscal discipline and private-sector involvement in public-sector initiatives. "Clintonism is still a work in progress," he said.

DLC founder and CEO Al From concluded the panel by drawing attention to Clinton's role in spurring an international "third way" movement among center-left parties. "Historians are going to remember the work President Clinton did to modernize and reshape the Democratic Party. Because his policies worked, he was a model for the resurgence of center-left politics in Europe, Latin America, and elsewhere. Modernizing progressive politics here and all over the world is Bill Clinton's most important legacy."

All the panelists agreed that Clinton's real-life accomplishments as president offer a powerful contrast with his successor. That's why John Kerry so often cites the Clinton legacy as a model for what a Kerry administration would accomplish, and that's why Clintonism remains the dominant progressive tradition for the foreseeable future.