What liberal wave during the Clinton years? Clinton was dead center ideologically.
He never proposed a single budget with more than 3% growth over the previous year. Bush on the other hand has averaged 8% growth in his budgets and Reagan averaged 11% growth in his budget proposals. During the Clinton years, NAFTA was passed and an immense amount of deregulation was instituted. What was that liberal agenda of the Clinton years?
You guys on the right just don’t get it and that’s why you have never managed to stay in power for a long period of time. Most people hate ideology, and that’s all the right ever offers anymore. That’s why they like McCain, because by and large, he is a pragmatist. That’s why they liked Clinton so much because by and large, he was a pragmatist. I mean do you guys honestly believe that Joe southerner votes Republican because he believes in the principles of Supply-Side Economics? I am from the south, and that isn’t the case, Joe Southerner votes Republican because the Republicans tell him that if he votes Democrat, gays will get to marry each other and his guns will get taken away. It's wedge issues that Republicans win on these days, not their core ideology, and that is why Bush has such consistently poor approval numbers. People get scared, they vote for him, but they really don’t like how he runs the country. Contrast this with the Clinton years, people thought Clinton was an adulterer, but they really did like how he ran the country. Despite all the smear the Republicans threw at him (remember the supposed Trouper-Gate or him supposedly giving spots at the National Cemetery to his contributors), Clinton consistently managed to have record-high approval ratings.
I mean you right-wingers are criticizing the Democrats for no solutions. They are not the party in power, they can’t get their solutions passed. No one likes those Republican solutions at all; Social Security reform is absolutely dead in the water. I mean look at what Bush offered up. Basically, it was “Social Security may run into financial trouble at some point in the future and as a result, it is possible that benefits may be cut if we don’t do something. So I propose that you agree to a guaranteed cut in benefits.” Really hasn’t sold too well. Wow, imagine that. This war in Iraq, people just love that, I mean gosh a war for nothing but ideological reasons, wonder why the support for it is so low now? Oh and let's not forget interfering with personal decisions at the federal level, that whole fiasco over a woman in Florida who we now know after the autopsy was practically brain dead, blind, and had no hope at all for any improvement. I can go on and on here.
The thing is, most people want two things out of the government: they want the government to largely stay out of their wallets, and they want the government to largely stay out of their personal lives. Basically, they want low taxes and beer on Sunday. Now Democrats have not been that great at times at staying out of folks wallets, but the old Big Brother Republicans can't seem to stay out of our lives at all. Right now, you have 20% of so of the population, the fundies, pretty much designing the whole GOP social platform. If they get their way, you can forget about your beer on Sunday, boobies on the internet, and keeping the government out of your bedroom, and when push comes to shove, average Joe American would take cold beer and boobies on the internet over a small tax cut any day. And that is why folks like moderates like Clinton and John McCain.
