Bill Clinton’s legacy may have been on life support after his wife’s failed bid for the presidency, but Virginia voters pulled the plug when they repudiated the candidacy of his man, Terry McAuliffe.
Clinton helped McAuliffe raise $7 million for the contest and made multiple visits to the Old Dominion to stump for his erstwhile bagman at the Democratic National Committee. The former president believed he could still deliver the Democratic nomination in America’s most-watched election of 2009.
Hardly.
Virginia voters gave the Clinton candidate an even worse time Tuesday than they did in 2008 when the former president barnstormed through rural and black precincts for his wife.
In almost 20 years as a national figure, Clinton has always had a habit of overstaying his welcome. He has never been able to leave them wanting more.
What ruined Clinton Inc. for liberal Democrats was the fact that the former president was a sellout.
Once he knew he wouldn’t be the next Bobby Kennedy, or whatever he used to tell the girls at Oxford, Clinton saved his political skin by continuing deregulation, making no risky moves on social issues like gay rights or abortion, and pushing favors for the big-business friends of the administration. He even cut welfare.
No enemy of the corporate establishment, Clinton was a tool of it.
After leaving government, he amassed a $110 million fortune by posing as a moderate, “business-friendly” Democrat. And liberal resentment likely cost his wife her chance at the White House, especially when virtuoso Barack Obama hit all the right liberal notes.
Now the former first lady is shaking off her husband’s restless, moody vibe and seems to be having great fun running the State Department. Hillary looks 10 years younger and has lost the haunted look that she carried through the post-Lewinsky years and her candidacy.
But there is little joy for the ex-president.
Even before Virginia Democrats blew off his pleas for McAuliffe, much of the advice from Democratic quarters for Obama has been about avoiding Clinton’s mistakes.
Be purposeful where Clinton was meandering. Be self-sacrificing where Clinton was solipsistic. Be big where Clinton was small.
Liberals so far have been very pleased.
There are complaints about Obama stumbling into a third Bush term on national security, but the president’s sprint to the Left on domestic matters still has his base cheering. Bailouts that become nationalizations, punitive regulations, massive social programs and tax increases are easing liberal frustrations.
If Clinton was a sell-out Democrat, Obama is a buy-out Democrat, which is just fine. The Left doesn’t mind a politician being in bed with big business, as long as he’s on top.
The most common topic on which liberals use Clinton’s failures as a cautionary tale has been health care.
And so far, the president has been paying attention.
Rather than sending a big, impractical plan down to Capitol Hill that was subsequently picked apart, Obama has been letting lawmakers work it out for themselves, mostly.
Like the boy who enters his turtle in a race, Obama lets congressional Democrats go until they get off track. Then he picks them up and puts them back on course.
Whatever conclusion Congress has crawled to by August will become the standard that the Left follows into battle.
The timing, though, may not favor Obama.
Polls show Americans increasingly think that the stimulus plan Obama signed just before Valentine’s Day was rushed and ineffective. As unemployment and the deficit both grow at alarming rates, the 20 percent of Americans in the middle of the political spectrum are starting to have their doubts about Obamism.
Just like the stimulus, the takeover of General Motors and Chrysler, and even his Supreme Court nominee, Obama wants to do everything in a hurry. There’s no time to think or debate, just a headlong rush.
Americans are realizing that doing nothing on the stimulus really was an option. They’re also realizing that quadrupling the federal deficit will have bad consequences, no matter what.
Centrist senators may therefore be unwilling to jump off yet another cliff with the president when the hurry-up health plan comes up for a vote.
Even if Obama avoids all of Bill Clinton’s mistakes, he can still find new ones.
