Outstanding Krugman column.....

Lessons of 1992
By PAUL KRUGMAN
It’s starting to feel a bit like 1992 again. A Bush is in the White House, the economy is a mess, and there’s a candidate who, in the view of a number of observers, is running on a message of hope, of moving past partisan differences, that resembles Bill Clinton’s campaign 16 years ago.

Now, I’m not sure that’s a fair characterization of the 1992 Clinton campaign, which had a strong streak of populism, beginning with a speech in which Mr. Clinton described the 1980s as a “gilded age of greed.” Still, to the extent that Barack Obama 2008 does sound like Bill Clinton 1992, here’s my question: Has everyone forgotten what happened after the 1992 election?

*snip*

Second, the policy proposals candidates run on matter.

Read: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/opinion/28krugman.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

"I have colleagues who tell me that Mr. Obama’s rejection of health insurance mandates — which are an essential element of any workable plan for universal coverage — doesn’t really matter, because by the time health care reform gets through Congress it will be very different from the president’s initial proposal anyway. But this misses the lesson of the Clinton failure: if the next president doesn’t arrive with a plan that is broadly workable in outline, by the time the thing gets fixed the window of opportunity may well have passed.

My sense is that the fight for the Democratic nomination has gotten terribly off track. The blame is widely shared. Yes, Bill Clinton has been somewhat boorish (though I can’t make sense of the claims that he’s somehow breaking unwritten rules, which seem to have been newly created for the occasion). But many Obama supporters also seem far too ready to demonize their opponents.

What the Democrats should do is get back to talking about issues — a focus on issues has been the great contribution of John Edwards to this campaign — and about who is best prepared to push their agenda forward. Otherwise, even if a Democrat wins the general election, it will be 1992 all over again. And that would be a bad thing."

But he's such a Hillary shill when he tries talking about politics in recent weeks (soon after Hillary lost Iowa) that I avoid his articles.

Sort of proves one of his points, eh?

and the only candidate with a well developed policy agenda and the willingness to fight for it, not "compromise".

get back to issues? What about non-stop Obama bashing, Krugman? :eyes:

"What the Democrats should do is get back to talking about issues — a focus on issues has been the great contribution of John Edwards to this campaign — and about who is best prepared to push their agenda forward. Otherwise, even if a Democrat wins the general election, it will be 1992 all over again. And that would be a bad thing."

Yeah, that's what Obama has been saying. I guess Krugman will open his eyes one of these days

you're labeled a Hillary shill.

There is a pattern here...

LOL.
He means: The candidate I've developed an irrational hatred for is doing well.

It's impossible to take Krugman seriously anymore.

We need to choose a candidate who has a strong policy agenda and who will seize the opportunity to enact it, as promised, as quickly as possible or the GOP will crush it.

Do Obama supporters really think the media is going to give him a pass forever? Of course they won't, they'll go after him tooth and nail and, he won't have a strong enough agenda to accomplish anything.

issues but they seem more interested in covering race and infighting. All our candidates HAVE plans some better than others but still....

Let me explain something to you, Ace. Krugman IS serious. Anyone who pretends they're not taking him seriously is a sad clown.

from the same column:

I have colleagues who tell me that Mr. Obama’s rejection of health insurance mandates — which are an essential element of any workable plan for universal coverage — doesn’t really matter, because by the time health care reform gets through Congress it will be very different from the president’s initial proposal anyway. But this misses the lesson of the Clinton failure: if the next president doesn’t arrive with a plan that is broadly workable in outline, by the time the thing gets fixed the window of opportunity may well have passed.

My sense is that the fight for the Democratic nomination has gotten terribly off track. The blame is widely shared. Yes, Bill Clinton has been somewhat boorish (though I can’t make sense of the claims that he’s somehow breaking unwritten rules, which seem to have been newly created for the occasion). But many Obama supporters also seem far too ready to demonize their opponents.

What the Democrats should do is get back to talking about issues — a focus on issues has been the great contribution of John Edwards to this campaign — and about who is best prepared to push their agenda forward. Otherwise, even if a Democrat wins the general election, it will be 1992 all over again. And that would be a bad thing.

"First, those who don’t want to nominate Hillary Clinton because they don’t want to return to the nastiness of the 1990s — a sizable group, at least in the punditocracy — are deluding themselves. Any Democrat who makes it to the White House can expect the same treatment: an unending procession of wild charges and fake scandals, dutifully given credence by major media organizations that somehow can’t bring themselves to declare the accusations unequivocally false (at least not on Page 1)."

And of course Krugman is attacked for not drooling over Obama.

But this misses the lesson of the Clinton failure: if the next president doesn’t arrive with a plan that is broadly workable in outline, by the time the thing gets fixed the window of opportunity may well have passed.

That's so very true. Hopefully, we will have a comfortable Dem congress with fewer turncoats to work with. But health care must be one of the first items on the presidential agenda, and the president must come prepared with a policy already drafted and ready for action by Congress.

"My sense is that the fight for the Democratic nomination has gotten terribly off track. The blame is widely shared. Yes, Bill Clinton has been somewhat boorish (though I can’t make sense of the claims that he’s somehow breaking unwritten rules, which seem to have been newly created for the occasion). But many Obama supporters also seem far too ready to demonize their opponents."

Who are these "many Obama supporters?" That's a generalization with no backing whatsoever. Its truth can't be assessed because there is no way to verify the claim.

There are plenty of them here.

could I say "many Hillary backers are Nazis?"

Krugman didn't even go that far: he didn't name a single name. We can't verify his claim. It's really quite surprising from a man said to be so smart.

Open your eyes.

If you can.

Bill Clinton's own mouth, and then says "but a bunch of Obama people do X!"

That's ludicrous! Bush lied about Iraq, but a bunch of liberals are overly critical. The corporate lawyer admitted his company destroyed protected habitat, but the environmentalists are overly critical.

See! I can just dismiss any fact with a generality! He should provide specifics, otherwise we have to simply take his word for it that these "Obama supporters" (who will remain nameless) are "overly critiical."

Krugman, a well-known and well respected progressive columnist, here ON THIS THREAD.

The proof's right here.

That's pretty illogical. Why doesn't Krugman say "Bill Clinton did X, Y, and Z, but 2 Obama supporters on DU attacked Clinton unfairly"? The answer is simple: he'd look foolish. :rofl:

Krugman ought to be specific if he wants to be credible.

of what in krugman`s view went wrong in 92 and what is going to happen if we forget what happened after 92. just think -he makes a living at writing what ever he was trying to say. delusional mr krugman? what ever

It would seem that most of his recent columns have been written to dissuade us of voting for Obama.

While I have appreciated his insights into the horrible excesses of the Bush years, I find his constant
attacks on Obama transparent. He is apparently solidly in the Clinton camp and determined to use his
credibility in liberal circles to be a force in her candidacy.

Let's see if these anti-Obama columns continue.

It is a weak argument to say that we are in another cycle as we were in 92 and Obama is running as Bill.
The similarities are there. So are the differences. Clinton did not successfully attract large numbers of
independents or some moderate Republicans. He only won with a plurality.

The major difference now is that many moderates of both parties want to support an unity candidate.
There were far deeper commitments to division not unity 16 years ago, than we have now in the middle
of our political spectrum.

Krugman starts from the premise that HRC is good and BHO is not and goes from there.

He does indeed have credibility- because he's earned it by being spot on over the years.

they do whatever the leader says. They throw all their old friends into the garbage for the new leader.

Can't you guys attack us with a little more originality?

And from what I have read and I almost always read Krugman, he is not neutral.
He has an agenda of supporting his fellow NY'er. That is fine.

He can write whatever he wants: he has earned that right.
But he sounds more and more like a partisan.

Haven't seen anything that isn't factual and logical in any of his columns. Seems to me he's raised valid points, some of which I've observed and concluded on my own as the campaigns have unfolded.

I think what annoys him (and me) the most is the notion that we can work with the far right on anything remotely progressive (or even rational). That's a fantasy, as anyone who's been awake for the past 15 years has to have seen over and over again.

You simply cannot assuage extremists- you can't placate or parlay with them in good faith. Krugman notes that in the Great Unravelling quite cleverly (butressing his argument with Henry Kissinger's doctoral thesis).

We will never have a coalition that includes the far right or the far left for that matter.

But that argument is a red herring, because that is not who unity progressives are seeking.

We are seeking coherence of the middle. We are seeking the support of independents and
moderate Republicans who feel like their party has left them on its wild ride to the right.

My personal politics is pretty far left. Far more to the left than any of our candidates with the
exception of Dennis Kucinich who is close to my political match.

I am a pragmatist, despite the accusations to the contrary from many here. And I am exhausted
from the politics of division that has left our government dysfunctional for the last 30 years.
I recognize that just standing on my principles and demanding the leftist solutions I crave
will not affect the change we need.

I want us to join with people of common interests from both sides of this divide, to find
the common ground that moves us out of this morass that keeps us from solving the
problems of health care, Iraq war, climate crisis poverty and all the other enormous
challenges that face us. We cannot start to work on these things until we join together
with others who do not share all our values but enough of them to recognize we are
in this together.

Gridlock that is where we have been, where we are and where we will remain until
we wise up and realize we have to find a new way and I believe that way is the unity
that Obama is envisioning. That is the main reason I support him. Thank you for
listening.

Krugman refuses to acknowledge where the country is at; 1992 is not 2008 (as if this even needs to be said). Bill Clinton needed Ross Perot to soak up 20% of the popular vote just to get elected. The Republicans may have been a mess in 1992, but the Reagan Revolution, with its emphasis on tax handouts to the rich, laissez faire economics and anti-government sentiment, was still deeply felt by at least half the country. Bill Clinton was constantly dealing with feelings of electoral and political illegitimacy for his entire eight years coming from the Right. This era is mercifully over, unless, of course, we choose to revive it by serving up his wife as some sort of revenge dish.

We are at a much different moment right now than what Clinton had to confront in 1992; the average American feels ripped off by the Republicans, and they see the need for government to play a strategic role in big issues like health care and energy. The Reagan Revolution is finally a spent force. Democrats are in a much stronger position as a result, but it will still take leadership from the White House to fully mobilize public opinion in our favor. Choosing a back-to-the-future, polarizing lightning rod like Hillary would be exactly the sort of distraction that would undermine our ability to move this country forward.

As a political analyst, Krugman makes a great economist. Keep the day job, Paul.

Try checking out the last couple of debates, its not hard to see that Obama is out of his league when it comes to the issues. Krugman is spot on, someone who is as wishy washy and hesitant on advancing a policy angenda will second guess themselves, bow to the GOP and get destroyed in the WH.

If he's elected, Obama will cave to the GOP every time and we'll make no progress on the stuff that's important.

If Obama's very well-detailed plan is such a disaster, why haven't Hillary and Edwards made political hay out of it by now with their so-called superior plans? Reason: Across-the-board mandates are political suicide right now. Obama's emphasis on regulating insurance and drug company profits and first bringing down the cost of health insurance is the smart way to go. Krugman would rather have a jargonized conversation on what constitutes universality than accept political reality. And he favors candidates who either offer less detail than Obama (Clinton doesn't even tell us how she will enforce her mandates) or promise an unworkable political process (Edwards says he won't deal directly with insurance or drug companies, just the Congressmen who are funded by them...which is asinine, by an measure).

and I don't think much of a candidate who believes his primary strategy would be to give the GOP what they want on health care reform.

Obama sounds like he wants to sell health care reform down the river, not surprising considering he's getting so much money from people who want it that way.

in case you haven't noticed.

Enacting any of the Democratic plans on health care, Obama's included, will be political war between the parties. Handing the Republicans an easy score like garnishing wages if you don't buy health insurance threatens to short-circuit the entire conversation. Edwards and Clinton wrote plans that are pleasing to academics like Krugman, but contain problems of their own. If that weren't true, why hasn't Krugman's mandate obsession taken hold with voters? Answer: because the candidates themselves, Edwards and Clinton, aren't pushing the issue. Proof that it's not the political winner that Krugman makes it out to be.

There was a time, in fact not too long ago, when having a Dem controlled Congress and a Dem in the WH and public opinion behind you meant you could get your agenda enacted.

Clinton got his economic stimulus package passed, LBJ got the Civil Rights Act passed. Senate Dems need to stop whining and get it done. We don't need that same work ethic in the WH.

Although I love your quote:"This era is mercifully over, unless, of course, we choose to revive it by serving up his wife as some sort of revenge dish."

Kudos, succinctly said. Personally I think Krugman sounds a little-off the-rails in this column, as if he is reaching to justify his distain for Obama
candidacy.

;)

Like Bush, I believe an Obama Candidacy would be accompanied by a very, very strong democratic majority in both houses of congress, with a possibility of a 60 senator advantage in the senate.

I believe that Obama would have 2 years to do pretty much anything he wanted, until the mid'terms in 2010.

If he is worth his salt, he will have embedded himself by that point.

The Krug says: "While there are valid reasons one might support Mr. Obama over Mrs. Clinton, the desire to avoid unpleasantness isn’t one of them."

Does he ever listen to talk radio? Does he know any Republicans? Has he been listening to the rhetorical knifesharpening coming out of the GOP primary candidates for the past year or so?

The GOP loathes Hillary, they make nasty and crude insults and wisecracks about her and Bill every chance they get. They all know that the GOP base has a rock solid core of hate for the Clintons, stoked through decades soaking their brains in Limbaugh and his clones. The GOP candidates know that Hill is gold for getting their unenthusiastic base to the polls, which is why they trot out new attacks against her every chance they get.

One virtue of Obama is that the GOP doesn't know what to do about him. The kind of nasty-for-nasty's-sake attacks they've thrown at the Clintons for all these years, when aimed at Obama, take on a racist flavor that even the GOP is wary of. I listen to talk radio all day, and I hear a constant litany of Hillary-and-Bill bashing, but I rarely if ever hear the same kind of vitriol and venom aimed at Obama. Obama's candidacy is processed by many in the right wing base as "proof" that racism in this country doesn't exist -- that even a black man can run for president here and win, so why should we have affirmative action anymore? Some right wingers actually feel a certain desire for Obama to win just to prove this very point.

If Obama is the Democratic nominee, the GOP's line on him will be that he is a great motivational speaker, but lacks the years of military and policy bona fides a "real" president should have. There will be nastiness, of course, but if Hillary is the nominee, the GOP's line on her will be to dredge up every gasping Clinton scandal from the 90's and replay them all in slow motion. It will be ugly and grotesque, just as most of the political discourse in the 90s was. And it will turn off voters and drive down turnout, as these things usually do.

I just don't find the notion that the 2008 race will be equally as "unpleasant" no matter who runs to be credible at all. If Obama or even Edwards were the nominee, it will not be as caustic and scarring a race as it will be if Hillary gets the nod.

....notice the trends. The knuckledraggers and dittoheads are not the legion they were once thought to be. All one needs to do is look at the dollars flowing to both parties and then look at the number of voters identifying themselves as Democrats.

I think the whole GOP Golem is blown way out of the proportion and this year will be the year that we bury them for three generations.

The Goal: Remove Republicans.

The spirit of cooperation I have seen in this hall is what is needed in Washington, D.C. It is the challenge of our moment. After a difficult election, we must put politics behind us and work together to make the promise of America available for every one of our citizens.

I am optimistic that we can change the tone in Washington, D.C.

I believe things happen for a reason, and I hope the long wait ... will heighten a desire to move beyond the bitterness and partisanship of the recent past.

Our nation must rise above a house divided. Americans share hopes and goals and values far more important than any political disagreements.

...Our votes may differ, but not our hopes.

I know America wants reconciliation and unity. I know Americans want progress. And we must seize this moment and deliver.


Bush 12/13/2000