Thursday, April 17, 2008

Obama and the Democratic Party

When Michelle Obama said that she had never been proud to be an American before her husband's run for the Democratic candidacy, it was no slip of the tongue. It has been the central theme of the Obama campaign that he, as The New, stands in opposition to The Old, and The Old that Obama opposes includes not just the Republican party but also almost everyone in the Democratic party. In the Obama world, Clinton and Bush are part of the same group.

Responding to Obama's comment that "[small towns] fell through the Clinton Administration and the Bush Administration," Paul Krugman provides evidence that small town America fared extremely well under Clinton. Krugman adds, "it’s just crazy for the likely Democratic nominee to denigrate the economic record of the only Democratic president most Americans remember."

But that's just what Obama has been doing, over and over and over: deingrating the record of Bill Clinton. And the reason is that Obama is not really running as a Democrat. Obama is essentially running as an independent. Furthermore, that is the mainstay of his platform, and so the people who are electing him are giving him a mandate to be an independent.

What this means for the future, I'm not sure.

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1 comment:

LeDaro said...

Yappa Ding Ding, that is a very weak argument. Senator Kennedy and many other very prominent democrats have endorsed Obama. I believe Clinton was ok president but he is hurting his legacy during this campaign. He started attacks on Obama starting in South Carolina. Obama continued to praise his presidency but only recently he said few things to point out weaknesses of Clinton administration.

Of course small towns are bitter. They have been ignored for decades. Bill Clinton did some good stuff but again he became part of the establishment too quickly when he was in the Whitehouse.