Posted 9:26 AM by Robert

Listening To Bill

Bill Clinton says this about what he characterizes as the Republican strategy for this November:

The Republican strategy is weak, he said. "Let’s forget about global warming and talk about flag burning and gay marriage,” Clinton said. “I don’t know how long you can milk that old cow.”

So Mr. Clinton wants the Democrats to campaign and talk about issues such as global warming, although he personally never bothered to ask the Senate to ratify the Kyoto Accord after (July 25, 1997) the U.S. Senate sent then President Clinton the Byrd/Hagel Resolution condemning the Kyoto Accord by a vote of 95 to 0, with Senator Kerry (for example) voting with the majority against the Accord.

In the mean time, Howard Dean, the New York Times and lots of others on the left are running around condeming the New York Court of Appeals for refusing to impose judicially-mandated gay marriage on that state - thereby making it crystal clear that many Democrats would like to install federal judges who will impose judicially-mandated gay marriage. Republicans are bringing all that up. But Mr. Clinton says that Democratic candidates shouldn't talk about any of that because he doesn't "know how long you can milk that old cow."

Bill Clinton has a great record of electing Democrats to Congress, one that has been said warrants him a prominent statue in the lobby of the Republican Party headquarters. In 1992 he was elected with actual net losses for Congressional Democrats. Then, in 1994, he helped the Democrats lose both houses of Congress - from which they have never really recovered, despite picking up a few seats here in 1996. If they listen to him this year, they'll surely extend that pattern.

Frankly, I hadn't fully realized just how bad the Democratic position is going into the fall elections until Bill Clinton made it so clear.