JONATHAN CHAIT noted in the LA Times, "Something strange happened the other day. All these different people ~ friends, co-workers, relatives, people on a liberal e-mail list I read ~ kept saying the same thing: They've suddenly developed a disdain for Bill and Hillary Clinton. Maybe this is just a coincidence, but I think we've reached an irrevocable turning point in liberal opinion of the Clintons."
I've noticed the same thing, with one twist. Even before the Clintons started playing the race game, I hadn't run into a single person who was enthusiastic about Hillary Clinton the way others were about Obama, Edwards or Kucinich.
But certainly the past couple of weeks have been unusual. As one of the first journalists outside of Arkansas to take on the Clinton myth ~ including listing in the spring of 1992 two dozen individuals and institutions almost all later part of the Whitewater scandal . I have been just this side of stunned by the current implosion of the Clinton campaign.
From the start, the story the media created about the Clintons was a badly misleading myth. Liberals kept applauding as Clinton undid the work of Democratic administrations from Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson and sent jobs abroad.
And the Democratic Party paid for it. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Democrats held a 1,542 seat lead in the state bodies in 1990. As of 1998 that lead had shrunk to 288. That's a loss of over 1,200 state legislative seats, nearly all of them under Clinton. Across the US, the Democrats controlled only 65 more state senate seats than the Republicans.
Further, in 1992, the Democrats controlled 17 more state legislatures than the Republicans. After 1998, the Republicans controlled one more than the Democrats. Not only was this a loss of 9 legislatures under Clinton, but it was the first time since 1954 that the GOP had controlled more state legislatures than the Democrats (they tied in 1968).
In addition, according our count near the end of the Clinton administration:
- GOP seats gained in House after Clinton became president: 48
- GOP seats gained in Senate after Clinton became president: 8
- GOP governorships gained after Clinton became president: 11
- Democrat officeholders who have become Republicans after Clinton became president: 439 as of 1998
- Republican officeholders who have become Democrats after Clinton became president: 3
Clinton, the allegedly wondrous politician, was actually only good at holding his own office, not at helping others win theirs.
Allen L Roland http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2008/01/28.html
