At the dedication of the Clinton library, George W. had some nice words to say about his predecessor, the one who beat his daddy in the 1992 election. Now, we all know that as a card-carrying neo-conservative, Dubya hates Clinton. But as Bush was thanking him "for loving and serving America," he should have also offered his appreciation for laying the groundwork for Bush's own eight years in office.
First off, let me say that I think Bill Clinton was a good President. Although many conservatives would find it hard to believe, love for Clinton is not unanimous from the left. Many feel he governed too much from the center and missed the opportunity to do much more.
Policy-wise, Clinton did all right; he dealt with a Republican majority in the House for 75 percent of his presidency, and the press always seemed more interested in personal scandal that political victories. Sure, some of his ideas went against progressive/Democratic theology, i.e. NAFTA, which looks good on the surface, but has positives that are going to come after years of apparent negative for Americans. He governed from the center, but this country isn't afar-left leaning one --remember the last election?
Now, getting back to that personal scandal thing...
It was back in the days of Nixon that Republicans came up with the theory that they could win by painting Democrats as morally-deprived hippies, but it took a few years for it to really stick. For one thing, during the Reagan and Bush the First years, the national Republicans courted the Christian vote but didn't pander too much.
Then came 1992, and Bill Clinton, a particularly interesting individual. He wasn't a stuffed grandfather figure like every President since Kennedy, and his personal life was often figured more interesting than his political life by those feeding the 24/7 news cycle. And Clinton certainly did nothing to dampen that interest; most of the things he was accused of were not true, but one (remember Monica Lewinsky?) was true, and it gave credibility to every salacious untrue story.
Now, the Republicans had their immoral Democratic poster boy.
Further infuriating those in the moral majority was Clinton's re-election in 1996 (it should give us some solace knowing they felt some of the pain we feel in 2004). Come 2000, they managed to put it all together: they had moral indignation and a candidate who proclaimed his own Christianity.
For the GOP, the Clinton legacy was two-fold. First, it enforced the image of moral-less liberal (the last Democratic President, Jimmy Carter, didn't fit that bill), and secondly, it motivated the base against that image.
The Bush campaign managed somehow to use Clinton's fallibility against his vice-president, Al Gore. Now, the rise of "morals" as a pivotal issue in Presidential politics has been given more face time in this election, but it was a large reason why Gore (and the Democrats) lost their hold on the South, including Gore's home state of Tennessee, which went for Clinton both times and even Dukakis in 1988.
Clinton's legacy for the history books will no doubt be a positive one; he oversaw a booming economy, which wasn't entirely not his fault, and did manage to get many of his policy proposals into law. But his legacy as it pertains to party politics may be treated very differently in the political science textbooks.
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