Steve Benen<...>
It's a
pretty fascinating piece about the former president's campaign efforts, which are considerable. By Election Day, Clinton will have appeared in more than 100 events from coast to coast.
Clinton's concerns strike me as pretty compelling. He thinks his party, for example, has been ineffective in fighting to defend its accomplishments, and I'm very much inclined to agree. The former president isn't satisfied with Democrats' messaging and communications strategies, and that strikes me as more than fair.
But there is a pertinent detail that the article largely overlooked. Bill Clinton is arguably the most naturally gifted politician most of us have ever seen, and long-time readers know that I make no secret of my fondness for him (I even interned in his White House in 1995). But for all of Clinton's considerable talents, in his first midterm cycle, his party's candidates ran away from him; he wasn't welcome in districts nationwide; his fellow Democrats allowed themselves to become "human pinatas"; and his party lost both the House and Senate.
I mention this because there's a subtext to articles like these: why can't Barack Obama play this game as well as Bill Clinton? The answer is: there's a problem with that question.
Josh Marshall had
a good piece on this yesterday: "Being president is hard. Being president two years into your first term is hard. And being at the center of the polarizing political storm -- as Obama is today and Clinton was 16 years ago -- tends to wipe the political genius and midas touch and all the other good stuff right off of you. 10% unemployment doesn't make you look that good either. This isn't justifying any mistakes. But I'm surprised how short the memories are of many people who do this political analysis thing for a living."
The real story behind Clinton's campaigning is that Democrats are doing everything they can to win.
Biden nears 100-event tally on behalf of DemocratsThis is a fight, it's not about who has the better message (Republicans have none and somehow that isn't working against them). It's a contrast between Democrats and the RW kooks, the greedy corporations and Republicans who do nothing but embrace/are kooks and shill for greedy corporations.
Mr. DEAN: I don't think we should be making the case right now. Elections are not the time to educate people. You win the election, then you educate people afterwards. But the president's doing what he should be doing. This is a bare-knuckle fight. It's between the far right, which has taken over the Republican Party, and the rest of us.
I'm pretty sure Dean understands that grassroots educating is necessary, but the notion that politicians are going to spend the few minutes they have at every campaign stop educating people via speeches is impractical.