Saturday, October 13, 2007

Why a Clinton Presidency is all but Inevitable

Robert George on his blog had something quite interesting to say about the GOP nominating process:

"The double-curse that Republicans bequeath the country is to elect a Bush, who they believe will govern as a Reagan. When that Bush fails, the country responds by electing a Clinton -- who inevitably manage to make the country learn to love government."

I believe there is truth here. As a young GOP true believer, I worked on Bush's campaign in 1988. I thought it would be "phase II" of the Reagan Revolution -- following through on reducing government and the growing deficit but taking off the hard edges. That of course was not to be.

We then ended up with Bill Clinton, who promised that the days of big government were over, then immediately introduced socialized medicine. Learning his lesson, for 8 years he played the Democratic desire for government solutions against the Republican distrust of big government.

So hoping for a Reagan Revival, the GOP looked to the Bush Family again. And we ended up there with big government conservatism.

Which makes a Hilliary Clinton presidency all but inevitable. I wonder if First Lady Bill will look good in a dress.

2 comments:

Raymond said...

You may have a point there, but I believe it's over-ruled by one simple fact: Hilary Clinton will NEVER be elected President of the United States. She just has too many negatives, too high a percentage of probable voters who say they would never vote for her under any circumstances. As bumbling as the Republicans have been over recent years, it's sometimes hard to remember the fact that the Democrats are no geniuses either. They are doing us a big favor in nominating Hillary. She's destined to lose, even in light of the fact that the Republicans aren't trotting out any superstars to oppose her.

Anthony said...

Hello cousin --

I think that a Hillary Clinton presidency is about inevitable. On the Democrats side, no one can beat her -- if Obama looks like a serious threat he will be eaten alive.

On the GOP side, everyone is too disheartened to put up a real fight. And after a long period of fiscal irresponsibility and the inability until recently to come up with a strategy for winning in Iraq, I think the GOP loses its usual advantages on fiscal prudence and national security.