Legal Commentary

Better Than 1990s Triangulation?

By Big Tent Democrat

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

Discussing the seemingly NOT departed Mark Penn (did the Clinton campaign get rid of him or not? Apparently it was a demotion, not a firing. Bad move by the Clinton camp.), Ezra Klein wrote:

[quoting Mark Schmitt] "[T]he ambitions of the early Clinton years were abandoned for safe, symbolic gestures appealing to the middle-class swing voters -- 'soccer moms' -- in a few swing states." An argument can be made that that was the only viable strategy in 1996. I'm not adept enough with counterfactuals to really know. But there's no argument that that's all that can be hoped for in 2008. Penn might have once been necessary, but he's never been desirable. Now, however, he's neither.

Indeed, 1990s style triangulation is not desirable, necessary or effective now. But someone needs to tell that to Senator Barack Obama, whose campaign has been a case study in the fine art of Bill Clinton-like 1990s triangulaton. Has no one noticed this? Ezra Klein is a foremost health care blogger, who endorsed the Edwards health care plan. The one most like Hillary's. That Obama has ATTACKED that plan with "Harry and Louise" ads seems to not have entered Klein's thinking in that post.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on April 09, 2008 (boomark / email).