Recent Electoral History

     April, 2004

Thanks for the insightful piece. It does sum up quite well many of the realities hidden by the fog of war, the re-shaping of history and motive, and the fuzzy lines of imitative and responsibility created by the change in administrations. My views, of course, are somewhat tainted regarding George W. Bush and his whole existence. I find him an illegitimate president, who has taken his non-mandate to extremes, and has failed miserably in many areas, domestic and foreign. But, all in all, with that prejudice behind me, I do believe that the Clinton people were limited by his problems emanating from his social indiscretions. Unfortunately the excuse that most politicians' familial situations have been less than orderly does not help Clinton. Clinton was Clinton, and with all his baggage he was still well liked by many. He could have beaten GWB II with a drumstick in 2000, and now in 2004. But all of that is irrelevant. What is most relevant is that because of the impeachment circus promulgated by zealous Clinton haters, as Asa Hutchinson from Arkansas, now a Bush acolyte, as for an example, Clinton was hamstrung and basically crippled. The past is prologue, and without Clinton's foolishness, that sorry episode may have been dodged. But Clinton did lose his large majorities that he enjoyed when he was first elected. (The Senate 57-43 and the House 258-176 in 1992. By 1998 the Democrats had lost over his six years 47 House seats and 12 Senate seats and their majorities had turned to a minority position of 45-55 in the Senate and 211-223-1 in the House.) More or less Clinton's mid-term losses in 1994 were attributed to problems with his health care imitative, Hillary Clinton's controversial image and other missteps. But by 1998 and beyond, like all other two-term presidents, Clinton suffered from a case of political impotence. I have compared all of the two term presidencies from Woodrow Wilson to Clinton (included with that group; Nixon-Ford, FDR's 4th with Truman, and JFK with LBJ) and in the 6th year of those 8-year administrations, all suffered politically. They were either disliked (Truman, LBJ, Ford), sick and ignored (Wilson, Eisenhower) or seemingly out of energy (FDR 1938, Reagan). Clinton was well liked by his supporters but the GOP Congress and the demonization from the impeachment weakened his final years. When he did react with force against Al Quieda, he was accused of attempting to deflect public attention away from his own political problems. I am not trying to whitewash Bill Clinton, whom I personally like. I admired his centrist policies and I agreed with his approach to domestic issues. But in a parallel to FDR's famous Fala speech to the Teamsters in 1944, “The Republican fiction writers inside and outside of Congress…” these GOP fiction writers were out to ruin Clinton, even if they ruined the country. Clinton beat an ineffectual bumbler in George Bush I, who was out of touch with reality. Bush was an appointed flack, who had jumped from a failed Congressional career in Texas, to short stops as the RNC Chair, ambassador to China, CIA Head and finally the appointed VP and chief funeral attendee for 8 years under the great communicator. Now we have the return of Freddy Krueger with little Georgie Bush II, the moron, reformed drunk, womanizer, and rich playboy who ruined the Texas Rangers, but ran away with millions. His claim to fame was being the head executioner of mental defectives as governor of Texas and having a fraudulent record of school achievement. But, of course, money talks and when his primary run in 2000 was being challenged by John McCain, he had the big guns from Enron pump in millions to skewer the senator from Arizona. But, of course, he claimed he never knew Ken Lay and his Enron brigands who later ruined thousands, and crippled an industry. So here we are with terrorists ganging up all over the globe to attack the West, a morass in Iraq and Afghanistan, record deficits and oil prices here in the States and a clown in the White House, who has alienated most of our traditional allies, and is more concerned with the banning of stem cell research than global warming. Here is a guy who talks help for small businesses but has created inheritance tax give-always for billionaires. All in all, his record is sorry. But what is most disturbing is his shameless draping of the bloody flag of 9/11 around his election campaign. Hopefully it will become his political shroud.