Another Clinton looked destined for the White House in 2008. The Republican administration of George Bush and the Republican congress had clearly played out their welcomes with voters. A big Democratic win seemed assured. And Hillary Clinton, the darling of most party professionals, seemed a shoe-in to be the party’s standard bearer
Barack Obama won the election instead. Or did he?
It’s really quite extraordinary when looking at the Obama Administration’s priorities, the personnel selected to carry them out, the tactics that have been employed, to gape at how totally ‘Clintonian’ they all are. The prime differences are that the mistakes learned in the 1990s Clinton White House years have all been learned perfectly and acted upon, though alas, they have little relevance to the needs and the mood of this country and indeed the world today, all of which have changed dramatically since the 1990s.
Consider Obama’s economic policies. Robert Rubin and the rest of the Goldman Sachs investment know-it-alls, with their American Consensus, with their get the world liquored up with excessive debt and spending to put a gloss of prosperity and government solvency on things, have been largely regurgitated — with much the same crew that concocted this monstrosity in the Rubinomics years in charge of Obamanomics. Geithner, Summers and the GS gang at the Fed decided to bailout out the big boys today the way they promoted the same big boys in the 1990s with the expectation that a miraculous trickle down would thus be achieved. Except it’s not the 1990s. What worked (or seem to work) then is a bust today.
In the Middle East, an Israeli-Palestinian settlement might have been brokered by Bill Clinton except that he started on the effort too late and his time in office ran out. So this time Obama started right off and is bombing royally anyway. Why? In part because he’s using the same Clinton advisers to craft the effort. But more fundamentally because Israel has slithered to the nationalistic right while the Palestinian Authority, split off from Gaza, is even less able to cut a meaningful deal than Yassar Arafat.
And of course there’s health care. The Clintons came up with their own plan and presented it to a Democratic Congress that wasn’t about to be told what to do by an upstart from Arkansas. Neither, of course, was the health care industry. So this time around, employing the charming ministrations of Rahm Emmanuel, a Chicago guy sure, but really much more a Clinton operative, health insurers were wooed by Obama and a Democratic Congress was given its head in shaping a health care bill. A good prescription in the 1990s. A stupid one these days. But one that in every way reflects a Clinton learning experience from years past.
If Democratic voters wanted another Clinton in the White House in 2008 they would have nominated one. They wanted change, real change, not a Clinton-style retread with some grill upgrades and a few new gizmos on the dashboard.
So what likely lies ahead for this Clintonesque Administration? After the Republicans take back Congress later this year. President Obama will likely cut Republican-tilted deals the way Bill Clinton did when the ‘Contract With America’ crowd was riding high. That may well give him the appearance of having achieved at least something and get him re-elected in 2012.
But who cares? Really. Who cares?