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Title: Obama should "pull a Clinton," but what does that mean?
Source:
Washington Post
URL Source: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/pl ... _should_pull_a_clinton_bu.html
Published: Nov 5, 2010
Author: Greg Sargent
Post Date: 2010-11-05 11:58:56 by go65
Keywords: None
Views: 55
Comments: 1
Many commentators have responded to Tuesday's bloodbath by arguing that Obama now needs to "pull a Clinton." This appears to mean that in order to engineer his comeback, he needs to tack to the middle the way Clinton did with welfare reform and school uniforms, and maneuver GOP leaders into betraying their extremism. But on a conference call with reporters, two top Dem thinkers made a counter-intuitive case: Clinton's comeback, they argued, was also driven by his success in persuading struggling voters that he was "on their side," by drawing bright lines in defense of popular programs like Medicare and Social Security, and clearly articulating an expansive vision on the economy. On the call, Dem pollster Stan Greenberg unveiled a post-election poll designed to show that -- despite the public's deep dissatisfaction with Dems on the economy -- there's no mandate for conservative economic ideas. The poll, he said, shows the public is still receptive to an expansive government role in job creation -- provided it's articulated better than Dems did this year -- particularly on infrastructure spending and reviving manufacturing. For instance: Greenberg tested messages askking 2010 voters whether they could support Congressional action to rebuild infrastructure via a National Infrastructure Bank that would use public and private money. He also asked whether they'd support Congressional action to "launch a five year strategy to revive manufacturing in America, providing companies incentives to make it in America" and "ending tax breaks that reward moving jobs abroad." Both had solid majority support. Greenberg also tested various GOP and Dem messages on how to deal with the deficit. A majority supported ending the high-end Bush tax cuts, while only a bit more than a third supported huge cuts in domestic programs, raising the retirement age for Social Security, and turning Medicare into a voucher program. This suggests a new way to "pull a Clinton," the Dem thinkers suggested: Draw bright lines against the GOP on popular programs, and lay out proposals for a clear, expansive role for government in job creation, and dare Republicans to kill them. "It's truly imperative that he drive a big, optimistic vision and challenge Republicans to support it, knowing that they won't," said Bob Borosage, the head of the Campaign for America's Future, who sponsored the poll. Borosage also argued that Clinton succeeded because he cast himself as a defender of Social Security and other popular social and environmental programs against the Gingrich Congress. It's unclear where the Obama administration is heading on Social Security. How does this new polling square with the shellacking Dems took on Tuesday and the apparent rejection of big-spending policies? Democratic candidates lost because the public never bought the idea that Dem policies were genuinely on their side. A majority of those angry at the big banks voted Republican. The poll shows the central Dem message -- that the GOP would return to Bush policies -- was a miserable failure. All of this isn't to say that welfare reform, the Oklahoma City bombing and various Clintonian cultural positioning efforts didn't also play a big role in his comeback. Rather, the point is there's a lot more to "pulling a Clinton" than this.
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#1. To: go65 (#0)
Do you believe Monica would consent?
Obama should "pull a Clinton,"
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