The Alpha-Alpha Male Strategy

North in reply to North says:

Nob, I’d say a good part of it was that he was extremely good at what he did and he did it for us (us being liberals of course). I was only just coming of age politically but I was aware enough to get considerable amusement from watching how he’d execute his various political maneuvers and reduce his republican opponents to spittle frothing rage. The towering self righteous incredulity of the right at this time that they were somehow losing to the man repeatedly during this, their age of ascension, was also awfully gratifying.

I can understand why you would not have liked Bill but as a centrist pretty much neoliberal I have deep policy fondness for him. Bill finally brought the Democratic Party into a more realistic position with regards to government finances. People to the left of me (you I suspect) would probably view this as regrettable but I think Clinton positioned the left in the role of adult in the room (though an argument could be made that by moving the Dems to the center Bill helped precipitate the Republicans plunge into right wing insanity). Personally I’m of the opinion that in the70’s and 80’s we started plumbing the practical edges of some left wing goals and Clinton was the one who brought the left back around into the viable practical middle. Keep in mind I’m a big fan of the Canadian Liberals who, under Cretchein, reigned in Canada’s leftward fiscally ruinous plunge and reformed the country into a more neoliberal economic dynamo (that’s also an awesome place to live). I think Obama is awfully close to Clinton on policy, he just lacks the political finesse to pull off being center left while convincing lefties that he’s one of them.

Tom, we’ll have to agree to disagree on some of these. Perhaps Romney is just lying through his teeth on domestic policy but if he’s a weathervane like he seems to be then that means he’d defer to Congress on what happens if he’s elected (and with Ryan as Veep that seems especially likely) so based on that we can presume huge tax cuts, deep cuts to safety nets, no movement on social security or medicare and sky rocketing deficits and defense spending.
I’d submit also that after the execrable terms of Bush the lesser that Republicans aren’t allowed to claim any benefit of a doubt when it comes to saber rattling. When you hear them kvetching about how Obama is finally extricating us from their morasses you get the distinct feeling that the right would love to plunge back into another middle ages backward country and spend billions chasing RPG and IED armed peasants around the rocks with helicopters and tanks.Report