Before Republicans lock themselves into a strategy of portraying President Obama as an out-of-the-mainstream radical they should confront an uncomfortable challenge: Can they name a single policy this administration has pursued that would have been unthinkable for Hillary Clinton?
Its a potent question because so many conservatives during the campaign endorsed the idea that Hillary represented the moderate more acceptable Democratic alternative to Obamas extremism.
After John McCain secured the Republican nomination Rush Limbaugh famously launched Operation Chaos urging Republicans to change their registration to vote for Hillary in Democratic primaries. Ann Coulter openly endorsed Clinton over McCain suggesting shed make a stronger commander in chief. Whatever doubts other Republicans harbored about then-Sen. Clinton few questioned her position at the center of her party and the mainstream of American politics.
It therefore seems odd even to this anti-administration conservative to argue that Obama governs as an extremist (the most radical president in American history according to Newt Gingrich) when he pushes the same initiatives that Hillary or any other Democrat would have championed. When it comes to health care reform the failed Clinton program of 1993 (universally known as HillaryCare) was an even more sweeping and bureaucratic expansion of intrusive government power than Obamas legislation of 2010. The pork-laden stimulus package the cap-and-trade proposals and out-of-control government spending all resemble strikingly similar proposals that Clinton advanced in her presidential campaign.
A familiar Cabinet
As secretary of State her support for the Obama agenda has been enthusiastic rather than merely dutiful. Concerning the presidents ambitious push toward disarmament Clinton penned an enthusiastic piece for Britains Guardian newspaper that appeared with the gushing headline Our giant step towards a world free from nuclear danger.
In terms of major appointments its also difficult to see that Obamas selections count as more extreme or polarizing than the likely choices of any potential Democratic president. Would a President Hillary Clinton have drawn the line at any of the current Cabinet-level aides? Those appointments include two veteran Republicans (at Defense and Transportation) two highly decorated generals (as national security adviser and secretary of Veterans Affairs) and popular governors and senators from conservative states (Kansas Iowa Arizona and Colorado). The most outspoken leftist in the entire Obama Cabinet Attorney General Eric Holder is a Clinton administration veteran (as deputy attorney general) as is controversial chief of staff Rahm Emanuel (one of Bill Clintons senior advisers).
If theres scant difference between Obama and the Clintons in terms of policies or personnel how did President Bill Clinton earn such a strong reputation as a pragmatic centrist while Obama strikes so many observers as a leftist ideologue?
The contrast owes more to circumstance than to substance. After the GOP took control of both houses of Congress in the conservative tidal wave of 1994 the Clintons fought for political survival with the strategy of triangulation positioning the White House as an independent third force between squabbling Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill. Only after Gingrich became speaker of the House did President Clinton make his cynical declaration that the era of Big Government is over.
If Republicans repeat their achievements of 1994 and claim one or both legislative chambers in 2010 its likely that Obama will try to follow Clintons example. But when your own party holds all levers of power its tough to triangulate and to distance yourself from your own eager loyalists.
While the news media have fixated on the near-unanimous Republican opposition to the presidents programs theyve overlooked the lock-step support he has received from Democrats. Every single Democratic member of the U.S. Senate initially voted for Obamas health care reform as did more than 85 of Democrats in the House. This is almost the same percentage of members of his own party who tell pollsters that they approve of the presidents job performance.
Its the party not the man
Republicans would fare better if they criticized the unyielding extremism of the Democratic Party as a whole rather than focusing on the president as a singular example of fanaticism. Conservatives overstate their case and undermine their own momentum with shaky claims that the ideological perspective of the White House qualifies as unprecedented Marxist shocking or radical. His critics could rightly identify the president and his henchmen as conventional Big Government borrow-and-spend liberals a designation that most voters understand (and dislike). He has aroused determined GOP opposition not because he seeks to lead the nation in unexplored and perilous new directions but because he seeks to restore the misguided welfare state priorities that characterized his party and failed for decades.
Republicans can agree that the president threatens to push the country in precisely the wrong direction. But the best argument against the faction that dominates both White House and Congress isnt that Obama is too radical or daring but that hes too typical of an exhausted discredited and tired approach. Instead of the exciting unifying new departures he promised he delivers only the hyperpartisan nostrums of the traditional Big Government party and seems perversely determined to repeat its past mistakes.
Syndicated talk radio host Michael Medvedis a member of USA TODAYs Board of Contributors and author of The 5 Big Lies About American Business.
Before Republicans lock themselves into a strategy of portraying President Obama as an out-of-the-mainstream radical they should confront an uncomfortable challenge: Can they name a single policy this administration has pursued that would have been unthinkable for Hillary Clinton?
Its a potent question because so many conservatives during the campaign endorsed the idea that Hillary represented the moderate more acceptable Democratic alternative to Obamas extremism.
After John McCain secured the Republican nomination Rush Limbaugh famously launched Operation Chaos urging Republicans to change their registration to vote for Hillary in Democratic primaries. Ann Coulter openly endorsed Clinton over McCain suggesting shed make a stronger commander in chief. Whatever doubts other Republicans harbored about then-Sen. Clinton few questioned her position at the center of her party and the mainstream of American politics.
It therefore seems odd even to this anti-administration conservative to argue that Obama governs as an extremist (the most radical president in American history according to Newt Gingrich) when he pushes the same initiatives that Hillary or any other Democrat would have championed. When it comes to health care reform the failed Clinton program of 1993 (universally known as HillaryCare) was an even more sweeping and bureaucratic expansion of intrusive government power than Obamas legislation of 2010. The pork-laden stimulus package the cap-and-trade proposals and out-of-control government spending all resemble strikingly similar proposals that Clinton advanced in her presidential campaign.
A familiar Cabinet
As secretary of State her support for the Obama agenda has been enthusiastic rather than merely dutiful. Concerning the presidents ambitious push toward disarmament Clinton penned an enthusiastic piece for Britains Guardian newspaper that appeared with the gushing headline Our giant step towards a world free from nuclear danger.
In terms of major appointments its also difficult to see that Obamas selections count as more extreme or polarizing than the likely choices of any potential Democratic president. Would a President Hillary Clinton have drawn the line at any of the current Cabinet-level aides? Those appointments include two veteran Republicans (at Defense and Transportation) two highly decorated generals (as national security adviser and secretary of Veterans Affairs) and popular governors and senators from conservative states (Kansas Iowa Arizona and Colorado). The most outspoken leftist in the entire Obama Cabinet Attorney General Eric Holder is a Clinton administration veteran (as deputy attorney general) as is controversial chief of staff Rahm Emanuel (one of Bill Clintons senior advisers).
If theres scant difference between Obama and the Clintons in terms of policies or personnel how did President Bill Clinton earn such a strong reputation as a pragmatic centrist while Obama strikes so many observers as a leftist ideologue?
The contrast owes more to circumstance than to substance. After the GOP took control of both houses of Congress in the conservative tidal wave of 1994 the Clintons fought for political survival with the strategy of triangulation positioning the White House as an independent third force between squabbling Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill. Only after Gingrich became speaker of the House did President Clinton make his cynical declaration that the era of Big Government is over.
If Republicans repeat their achievements of 1994 and claim one or both legislative chambers in 2010 its likely that Obama will try to follow Clintons example. But when your own party holds all levers of power its tough to triangulate and to distance yourself from your own eager loyalists.
While the news media have fixated on the near-unanimous Republican opposition to the presidents programs theyve overlooked the lock-step support he has received from Democrats. Every single Democratic member of the U.S. Senate initially voted for Obamas health care reform as did more than 85 of Democrats in the House. This is almost the same percentage of members of his own party who tell pollsters that they approve of the presidents job performance.
Its the party not the man
Republicans would fare better if they criticized the unyielding extremism of the Democratic Party as a whole rather than focusing on the president as a singular example of fanaticism. Conservatives overstate their case and undermine their own momentum with shaky claims that the ideological perspective of the White House qualifies as unprecedented Marxist shocking or radical. His critics could rightly identify the president and his henchmen as conventional Big Government borrow-and-spend liberals a designation that most voters understand (and dislike). He has aroused determined GOP opposition not because he seeks to lead the nation in unexplored and perilous new directions but because he seeks to restore the misguided welfare state priorities that characterized his party and failed for decades.
Republicans can agree that the president threatens to push the country in precisely the wrong direction. But the best argument against the faction that dominates both White House and Congress isnt that Obama is too radical or daring but that hes too typical of an exhausted discredited and tired approach. Instead of the exciting unifying new departures he promised he delivers only the hyperpartisan nostrums of the traditional Big Government party and seems perversely determined to repeat its past mistakes.
Syndicated talk radio host Michael Medvedis a member of USA TODAYs Board of Contributors and author of The 5 Big Lies About American Business.
