Republicans in 1992 faced a new threat from the Democrat Party, and one which ultimately proved successful for our competitors on the left to win the White House for two terms and capture a large number of the nation’s governorships.
That threat was the movement known as the “New Democrats,” led by Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas. Following the pasting Democrats received in three consecutive national elections with tickets led by Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis, the Democrats recognized they had run out of ideas and had lost touch with a majority of Americans.
Clinton and others formed the Democratic Leadership Council to provide a new, more realistic governing philosophy for their party. Its centerpieces included a less-than-automatic embrace of higher taxes, support for welfare reform, limited support for the death penalty, free (or at least, freer) trade, and other policies traditionally supported by Republicans.
By rejecting the activist left that had steered the Democrats to three national defeats and defined the party out of the mainstream, the New Democrats proved far more successful than their predecessors in the 1980’s. A similar movement in Britain, New Labour, led by Tony Blair, met with similar victories at the ballot box. Blair actually went so far as to rename his party New Labour.
In California, the most prominent New Democrat proved to be Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, who in 1998 defeated Republican Dan Lungren in a landslide governor election after publicly affiliating himself with the New Democrats. Davis supported the death penalty, and was even solid in opposing a new Streamlined Sales Tax (SST) plan to tax online sales.
In 2012, twenty years after their first victory, the New Democrats are politically dead and the party they once led has reverted back to its natural tendencies on the far left of the political spectrum. The Democrat Leadership Council has effectively shut down, and today’s leader of the Democrat Party, Barack Obama, in 2008 appealed to moderate, centrist voters not ideologically (as Bill Clinton did), but merely rhetorically.
Instead of a presidential candidate who publicly distances himself from the far left, as Bill Clinton did in his famous “Sista Souljah” speech in June 1992, today’s leader of the Democrat Party provides indirect praise for the extremist “Occupy” movement.
In California, Democrat Governor Jerry Brown has shown he has little in common, stylistically or substantively, with his former chief of staff, Gray Davis. While the Davis of 1998 might of shown some skepticism for a big, broad tax hike on already overburdened Californians in an economic downturn, Brown has proven to be an unrefined liberal whose pursuit of higher taxes has been relentless since taking office for a third time less than two years ago.
The Democrats’ turn to the left has not been limited to taxes, but can be seen across the policy spectrum. While Bill Clinton and Al Gore forcefully supported NAFTA and free trade (punctuated by Gore’s lively debate with protectionist Ross Perot on CNN’s Larry King Live program), President Obama has negotiated zero new free trade agreements since assuming office. The few trade agreements that have been ratified by the Senate since January 2009 were actually negotiated by the Bush Administration.
While Bill Clinton and Gray Davis supported the death penalty and were determined to change the Democrat Party’s soft-on-crime reputation, today an initiative to water down California’s three strikes and death penalty laws are advancing in California. Meanwhile, Democrats passed a law, AB 109, in the middle of the night changing more than 500 provisions of the state’s penal code and criminal justice system in ways that have local law enforcement officials alarmed.
The lack of any interest in Democrat moderation extends down to major local races as well. Liberal Democrat Congressman Bob Filner, a member of the House Progressive Caucus, has shown zero interest in distancing himself from the party’s Nancy Pelosi wing, even while running for mayor in San Diego, a city known for electing moderate Republicans to the post.
Filner opposes Proposition B, a defined contribution pension reform measure that will go before San Diego voters in June for ratification. The popular measure would move most city workers into 401(k)-style pensions that prevail in the private sector. Even Democrats in the liberal bastion of Rhode Island last year embraced defined contribution plans as part of a new hybrid pension system for state and local government workers.
Twenty years ago, Democrats embraced a number of specific policies long supported by Republicans. When those policies were implemented on a bipartisan basis (NAFTA, welfare reform), the results were positive both for the country and voters rewarded many New Democrat candidates at the ballot box.
Today, however, from the White House down to campaigns for city hall, we see a Democrat Party that is once again in the hands of its most extreme ideological elements. The results are bad policy, and more divisive politics.