Mark Schmitt is very optimistic about John Kerry:
Posted by DeLong at July 26, 2004 12:30 PM | TrackBack | | Other weblogs commenting on this postThe Decembrist: Kerry and the Possibility of Greatness: ...Tom Oliphant ... on the subject of just those New England politicians who float his bowtie, he is indispensable. I found his argument for the potential that John Kerry could be not just a non-Bush president but in fact a great one, in the current American Prospect, extraordinarily convincing.... I still don't quite know how he did it, but this nominee -- despite going into January stuck in a pack of Dean alternatives -- won the nomination more smoothly than any non-incumbent in history, and has raised five times as much money as any Democrat in history....
Oliphant singles out Kerry's leadership, with McCain, of the mid-90s committee to investigate MIA's and POW's in Vietnam as an example of his discipline and skill.... The POW commission was an amazing achievement, because it went straight at the most deeply held convictions of its key constituency....
Oliphant also says the following of Kerry:
Kerry's other, overarching political thought is that the election of a Democratic president this year would liberate an unknowable number of governance-minded Republicans from the iron grip of the GOP's congressional leadership, no matter who is in the majority. In the House of Representatives especially, the party discipline Tom DeLay can invoke on President Bush's behalf would almost by definition be less powerful under a President Kerry. On any given domestic issue, there would be 20 or more Republicans available with the proper enticements and atmosphere. For those to the left of center who recall that JFK's belief in 1960 was that the country could do better, not that it could be revolutionized, Kerry is the kind of person and politician I believe to be worth trusting for this grubby, central task of coalition building.
This has been my main argument.... Kerry's only option is to work like hell to build working alliances with the dozen or more House members and the half-dozen Senators who might be able to take their own path. But this is the first that I have heard that understanding attributed to Kerry.... I think those who excoriate Clinton for selling out liberal policies would feel a little differently if he had done more to convey to them just how limited his range of options was....
As for the potential for greatness in Kerry.... The fact that he seems to understand how he has to govern is one indication; Oliphant has many others.... I'm surprised to find myself voting for him not just as the anti-Bush, but with an enthusiasm about his ability to succeed.
I think there was a running joke in the Clinton White House about naive staffers pitching legislative ideas that started with ("we'll get some of the moderate House Republicans ..."). The point is that it never worked. I'm not sure why it would work with Kerry, either.
Posted by: Drew on July 26, 2004 12:39 PMClinton could have said 'No' more often. Instead, he started every negotiation by given away half the store, with the result everything a moderate Republican could desire.
Posted by: Jim Lund on July 26, 2004 01:10 PMI don't think the problem would be in the House. This current congress has demonstrated nothing if not that the Senate is the place where all legislation comes to die. Tom D. has shown that if he can keep 41 Senators in line, the Senate will kill anything. The filibuster has gone from the realm of a judical appointee blocking tool, to an almost routine matter of procedure. I think if you believe that as soon as Kerry is elected all will be forgiven and forgotten in the Senate, you are as naive as Bush was in thinking he could change the tone in DC. Kerry better have longer coat tails then he currently seems to or it will be a long slog to the mid term elections.
As for crossing the line to attract moderate legislaturs from the other side, I can still hear the echos of bitterness from the left about Clintons dances with Newt and Bush is suffering from attacks from the Right from his flirtations with Ted Kennedy on education and perscription drugs. If JFK is as smart as Oliphant suggest why do you think he will risk alienating his base?
Posted by: Dex on July 26, 2004 02:40 PMDrew -- Actually, it did work on certain issues with certain members -- e.g., Sherry Boehlert who was and remains willing to go against the House leadership on environmental issues. It's just never been an all-purpose answer by any means.
The more salient reason is can work now, though, is that the remaining moderate Rs had not, under Clinton, gone through 10 years of being abused and despised by the GOP leadership.
Jim Lund also has a good point. On too many issues, Clinton the peace-making child of alcoholic father was far too inclined to negotiate with himself before he bothered to do so with anyone else.
Posted by: Steady Eddie on July 26, 2004 02:41 PMI don't know how much Clinton sold out liberal interests.
Posted by: Brian on July 26, 2004 07:08 PMI really appreciate your rationale for quoting other people's writings verbatim and at length, even if they themselves contain quotes and subquotes. It is nice to have it all in one place where you can get at it with Google later.
But take a look at this screenshot of my browser reading this article: http://www.math.arizona.edu/~jsac/brad-delong-skinny.png
Isn't there some way you can mess with your stylesheet so articles don't take up one tiny narrow column down the left side of the screen? How about specifying width as a percentage rather than an absolute number of pixels?
Posted by: JoXn Costello on July 26, 2004 09:41 PMCostello, whenever I have a page render strangely in Mozilla, I change the font size ( + and - ) back and forth. That seems to clear up the problem. You might also try the latest build.
My personal hope is that Kerry the prosecutor revs up the Justice Department and kicks some political and corporate butt. We have too many monopolies, too much collusion, too much graft, and four years of Bushian malfeasance to rectify.
Ashcroft, the "Rod of God," has been off chasing prostitutes and bong salesmen while willfully ignoring the real crimes in America.
Posted by: Archie on July 26, 2004 10:44 PMIs it me, or is Clinton getting even better as a speaker? I thought last night's was brilliant--and it was even well under an hour long!
As to complaints about Clinton "selling-out," the man accomplished something that hadn't happened in years--he restored some progressivity to the tax code. In raising the EITC and the top marginal rate, he at managed to make taxes fairer while closing the deficit.
Moreover, while he isn't due complete credit, Clinton did preside over an economy where for the first time since the 1970s wages at the bottom of the distribution rose consistently.
As for two other liberal issues--health care and gays in the military--sure, he and his wife screwed them up. But it is not as if he didn't try to get these things done, we was just too callow when he tackled them to know how to get them done.
On NAFTA and WTO, he took a good liberal (but not leftist) position.
Could the man get me angry? Sure--his unwillingness to let a clean needle exchange program for drug users get going showed an unattractive cravenness. And don't get me started on the pardons.
But overall, this president got more liberal results than any since Johnson. Kerry may be able to accomplish the same--if he can rope in some businesses and health care professionals (which I think he can), he might even get health care reform done.
Posted by: Richard Green on July 27, 2004 05:54 AMIn addition to Oliphant also see
"Little Tent" Republicans
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8070
Republican leaders aren't just ignoring their moderates; they're actively trying to shut them down.
Posted by: standa on July 27, 2004 06:54 AM"But overall, this president got more liberal results than any since Johnson."
Clinton was more liberal than Reagan and Bush. I'm not well enough informed to say whether he was more liberal than Nixon, Ford, or Carter. It's a low bar in any case.
Posted by: Jim Lund on July 27, 2004 07:58 AMI have had a fantasy: Nancy Pelosi, with the Democrats still slightly in the minority, breaks with tradition, and nominates a moderate Republican for Speaker, and commits the Democratic caucus to vote for him. The Republicans might rally around their man, and refuse the temptation to overthrow the Hammer, but at least a few might begin to think about other paths to power.
Posted by: Brian Wilder on July 27, 2004 08:02 AMI have a fantasy to but thank god it does not include Nancy Pelosi...
Posted by: Dex on July 27, 2004 08:28 AMMy favorite quote from the Oliphant piece:
"Shields once observed that, more often than not, each president is the stylistic antithesis of his predecessory. Kerry is a worker as well as a thinker."
My immediate inference (intended implication, I think): Bush is neither.
Ain't that the truth!
Posted by: cotterperson on July 27, 2004 12:17 PM" The POW commission was an amazing achievement, because it went straight at the most deeply held convictions of its key constituency."
Went straight at us with a bayonet -- like an Ohio National Guardsman chasing hippies at Kent State, actually.
It wasn't QUITE enough to make a lifelong opponent out of me -- though the recent Sandy Berger story resonates with certain tales of original documents given a bi-partisen investigative commission going missing in 1992.
But Kerry's work on the issue of Vietnamese refugees in Thailand and elsewhere has been what really cemented his reputation with me.
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