Clinton Retreads Can’t See Failure When It Smacks Them in the Face
Posted by Jeff Pruitt - 12/30/09 @ 4:51 pm - Filed Under National Politics
I have a pretty low regard for Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel due his to policy positions during the Clinton administration. I guess I still held out some hope that fools like Emanuel would at least recognize their previous failures and learn from them. Alas, I was wrong.
See, Clinton-retreads like Emanuel still see NAFTA as some sort of rousing success - at least politically. While he’s incorrect the real point is that all of this is some sort of electoral game to him. Even though he can witness the havok his policies have wreaked on citizens around the country he still boasts of them as a “political victory”. Not only is he too ignorant to realize that it wasn’t a political victory but he’s also too cold-hearted to see how insulting such an argument is to the millions of people who’ve lost their jobs. This may all be a game for elitists like Emanuel but for everyone else it is real life and he was the main driving force for weakening the standard of living for working class families.
Enough of my rambling, I’ll let A Tiny Revolution take it from here:
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has been telling Democrats a win on the health issue will reverse the slide in public opinion, just as passage of another controversial proposal, the North American Free Trade Agreement, lifted President Bill Clinton in the polls…
This would be a bizarre thing for Emanuel to be telling other Democrats under any circumstances: NAFTA passed at the end of 1993 in Clinton’s first year, and then in 1994 the Democrats promptly lost control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate—the House for the first time in forty years. You wouldn’t think hearing Emanuel compare today to that would really get Democrats to break out the champagne.
This would be a bizarre thing for Emanuel to be telling other Democrats under any circumstances: NAFTA passed at the end of 1993 in Clinton’s first year, and then in 1994 the Democrats promptly lost control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate—the House for the first time in forty years. You wouldn’t think hearing Emanuel compare today to that would really get Democrats to break out the champagne.
But what about Emanuel’s specific claim: that passing NAFTA “lifted Bill Clinton in the polls”?
To start with, that’s nearly impossible on the face of it. NAFTA was unpopular. It was debated throughout 1993, and a September poll that year got these results:
Do you favor or oppose the proposed free-trade agreement between the United States and Mexico?
Favor 35% (7% strongly, 28% moderately)
Oppose 41% (21% strongly, 20% moderately)
No Opinion 24%Moreover, few people even knew what Clinton’s position on NAFTA was: the same poll found 31% thought he supported it, 1% thought he opposed it, and 68% weren’t sure.
That’s what we need with health care “reform”; another rousing success like NAFTA!
Comments
3 Responses to “Clinton Retreads Can’t See Failure When It Smacks Them in the Face”
Leave a Reply
Jeff:
Perhaps if WE, the PEOPLE start smacking them in the face….
(just a thought)
;)
I would agree that if NAFTA had any impact on the 1994 elections, it helped the GOP and not the Democrats.
Clinton was savvy enough to know that it would hurt his poll numbers, which is why he pushed it through in his first year in office. The time for unpopular legislation is during the POTUS’s first year in office and during his second term.
NAFTA anf other free trade agreements wreaked the
economy. It lower the standard of living for the
entire working class in the US. Accerated immigraton also during the Clinton Administration
enhanced the economic distruction by further displacing American workers.