Beware of Hillary the Moderate

As Obama’s poll numbers continue to tank, as the disaster of ObamaCare becomes increasingly obvious and widely-known, and as the 2016 election season approaches, and as Obama himself continues to rule the nation via executive orders, finger-pointing, divisiveness and anti-Republican invective, be prepared for an onslaught of messages about how the nation needs a uniting, moderate leader to restore sanity and bipartisanship to the political process. This message of moderation will be wrapped around the name “Clinton,” along with a great lot of nostalgia for the glory days of the 1990s.

Don’t be suckered.

There’s been a steady revisionism of the history of the Clinton presidency, one that seeks to magnify Bill’s successes and cause to fade into dim history the controversies and failures. We are and will be told that Bill Clinton balanced the budget, embraced moderate, common-sense positions on issues ranging from trade to gays in the military to gun control to welfare reform, and that under his wise stewardship the nation enjoyed a glorious era that was ruined by the subsequent extremist president. And, we are and will be told that Hillary was a huge part of that success story, that the fact of her marriage to Bill, her presence in the White House and the administration, and her overall brilliance were fundamental components of this golden age.

Lets review some inconvenient truths. Bill Clinton won a three-way election against George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot, with 43% of the popular vote. There’s a strong case to be made that Perot cost GHWB the election, though the broken “no new taxes” and the sense that his heart wasn’t in it were certainly contributors. Clinton nevertheless took this fractured victory as a mandate to pursue a liberal wish list agenda, a very notable and visible part of which was the healthcare reform initiative dubbed “HillaryCare.” HillaryCare crashed and burned, and was one of the major factors that led to the Republican trouncing of Democrats in the 1994 mid-term elections.

Bill then effected one of the great political transformations of modern history, tacking hard to the right, grabbing the most popularly visible ideas the GOP Contract with America, and became moderate Bill Clinton. He also got incredibly lucky with the dot-com bubble, which drove tax revenues to record levels and enabled him to take credit for a booming economy and prudent government. And, his personal charisma worked as a powerful contrast to the abrasive over-reach of Newt Gingrich and the amok special prosecutor Ken Starr.

Hillary, we are to presume, rebranded herself simply due to proximity. Yet what evidence is there of Hillary the Moderate? Sure, she campaigned a bit to the right of Obama in 2008, but she still spoke against the Bush tax cuts, still spoke in favor of redistribution, bailouts, economic stimuli, cap-and-trade, alternative energy, the Kyoto protocol, and is known for such observations as:

The unfettered free market has been the most radically disruptive force in American life in the last generation.

 

We are going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.

 

When you look at the way the House of Representatives (GOP) has been run, it has been run like a plantation, and you know what I’m talking about.

 

We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society.

 

The message that will be put forth by those who want her to be the next president will certainly be about casting her as moderate, reasonable, common-sense, and a remedy to a too-sharp turn to the left by the current administration. It will also include hagiographies about her incredible intelligence, her competence, her broad range of experience and many, many associative references to the glory years when she was First Lady (and in the eyes of some, co-president). But for Hillary to be driven to act as a moderate leader, I suspect she would need to face the same sort of circumstances that Bill did i.e. a powerful rebuke from the electorate for over-reach. However, getting elected to office as the “fixer” for Obama’s mess wouldn’t be seen as a mandate to rein government in, to dial liberalism back, to work with a Republican Congress rather than vilifying and blaming it. The “mandate” that her administration would presume would be to “get it right this time,” to effect liberalism correctly. Her supporters would pump her up and declare how we should all hand over power to this brilliant and accomplished woman so that she could do what others have failed to do in the past. Perhaps she’d face the same arc as Obama and her husband did, where, two years in, there would be a rebuke from the voters in the form of a major victory for the opposition party. We’d then have to then trust her to take her husband’s path of practicality and re-brand, instead of taking Obama’s path of ego and entrench. Either way, two more years of liberalism would be heaped upon the nation.

Pay close attention to the political winds, especially if the Republicans take back the Senate in 2014. There will be an increasing clamor for a “sensible, moderate” Democrat to step in and fix the mess that Obama has created (though it certainly won’t be phrased in such harsh terms). The far-Left will be casting about for a truly liberal candidate, but if the nation’s in rough shape (and there’s little reason to think it won’t be), the big push will be for a return to the wonder years of the Bill Clinton presidency. We will be told and sold a tale of Hillary the Moderate, a tale that will sound wonderful, but will be rooted in lies and revisionism.