How Cuomo resembles (Bill) Clinton
Is this the new face of New York’s Democratic Party? (Photo: Wikipedia)
When Bill Clinton rose to power in the 1990s, he went a long way toward re-inventing the Democratic Party.
His “third way” style of politics dragged Democrats back to the center, discarding much of the 1960s and 1970s-era rhetoric.
Clinton was tough on crime, he pushed for welfare reform, he balanced the Federal budget, and spoke harshly of “big government.”
It worked, in large measure.
Progressives were uncomfortable with Clinton’s rightward shift, but he positioned Democrats to win a plurality of the popular vote in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2008 and 2012.
There is a less successful side to Clinton’s political legacy, however, and that was his impact on the organization of the Democratic Party itself.
Even as Clinton was building his own brand, the internal strength of the Democratic Party was weakening, eroding, and in some parts of the US collapsing.
Democrats have seen major setbacks in state-level and congressional races in many parts of the US. By 1994, Democrats had lose control of the US House. With the exception of a few short periods, they have remained in the minority ever since.
It took major opposition to George W. Bush, the rise of Barack Obama, and Howard Dean’s “fifty state strategy” to begin reviving the Democratic Party’s institutional mojo.
I recount this story because I wonder if there’s not an important analogue here to the political fortunes of Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Cuomo is a third-way Democrat, a tax-cutter who bucks public employee unions. He’s partnered frequently with Republicans to pass major legislation, including the assault rifle ban and the property tax cap.
But while Cuomo has navigated a series of triumphs, his party has foundered, caught up in waves of corruption and arrests, and suffering bitter setbacks in state Senate races.
Now, Democrats are treated to the further spectacle of the return — in a single election year — of disgraced Democrats Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer.
In the political party vacuum that Cuomo helped to create, those two men have become, almost by default, the new faces of New York’s Democratic Party.
I say that Cuomo helped create the vacuum because he has declined to play an active role in reforming the political party which he serves as standard bearer.
He has played a limited role in campaigning for Democrats and done almost nothing to heal the risky divide between white Democratic state Senators and their counterparts in the black and Hispanic delegation.
This drift within his own party could haunt Cuomo if he makes a bid for the white house in 2016. The on-line magazine Politico addressed Cuomo’s conundrum in an article this week.
The biggest roadblock to Cuomo’s presidential ambitions remains Hillary Clinton. But if he does run, the core of his argument would be that he’s the guy who got an out-of-control state back in order. That’s already been threatened by an explosion of state government political corruption revelations.
Add Spitzer — whose history of bad blood with the governor is the stuff of Albany legend — and Weiner into the mix, and Cuomo by 2016 could end up looking less wrangler, more ringmaster.
The bottom line is that the most transformative American politicians — Roosevelt and Reagan come to mind — boost their political parties at the same time they are advancing their own ideas and political fortunes.
Clinton, arguably, failed to do that and it cost Democrats in ways that still impact our public culture.
As Cuomo plots his trajectory the next couple of years, it remains to be seen whether his state party will follow his ascent or be left behind.
What is this weird picture?
The Democratic Party had been a center-left party but Clinton and his cronies made it into a corporatist party to compete with the corporatist GOP. Bill Clinton completed the Reagan Revolution. In doing so, he pushed the Democrats to completely abandon the economic argument to the crony capitalists. And yet economic liberalism is precisely the coalition that held the Democratic Party together, since they had much more diversity on social issues.
Yes, the Democrats have won a plurality of the vote in 5 of the last 6 presidential elections after losing it in 5 of the previous 6. But something else happened as a result of the collapse of this coalition. Even though the GOP was winning presidential elections in the 70s and 80s, Democrats still dominated Congressional elections. However since the flip, Republicans have largely dominated Congressional elections.
The reason for this is simple. Both major parties are very similar on economic issues; the real differences are on social issues. Geographically speaking (Congressmen are elected regionally not nationally), more of America geographically is socially conservative, since the social liberals tend to be heavily concentrated. Since the Dems waved the white flag on economic issues, they conceded the Congress, especially the House, to Republicans. That’s been the trade off for winning the White House.
The dynamic in NY is different. NY is a socially liberal state. The GOP only controls the Senate by gerrymandering and an unholy alliance. That’s why Cuomo’s corporatism is getting a little more pushback, albeit not nearly enough.
The democratic party has been the party of big business for decades, long before Bill Clinton. Same holds in NYS.
I predict that the fall of the Republican party will be followed by the fall of the Democratic party.
We should all be Independents.
The only one in recent memory who changed national party dynamics was Ronald Reagan and his completion of the Southern Strategy. Arguably LBJ and the civil rights movement started that change. Southern Democrats turned into red-state evangelical republicans, and now the northern Rockefeller Republicans are turning into Clinton Democrats. There is a certain amount of inertia where change takes time.
Wait, I though Democrats were anti-business…
At least that is what every single conservative I know proclaims.
Therein lies the problem for some of these centrist politicians. Sometime they truly can’t win. A democrat who shifts his party toward a pro-business platform will still be thought of us anti-business by conservatives… since they are still not free market radicals and believe in things like basic regulations… and will now also feel the wrath of his or her own party for selling out to corporate interests.
You have to have thick political skin to stand in the middle and take the crossfire from both the left and right like that. Obama is feeling it, and so is Cuomo.
In terms of individual politicians being responsible for their political party… I am not sure what to make of that. I recognize that their party has an effect on them, I am just not sure how much of an effect they have on their party. And I question whether it is really their responsibility. I tend to believe the Party Chair is responsible for these things.
Dave, I disagree. Party chairs tend to be installed by presidents and governors (or candidates thereto), not vice versa.
Here’s the reality… Under Cuomo NY has experienced the demise of 39,453 NY state businesses last year, Cuomo is raiding $1.75 billion from the reserves of the already over budget State Insurance Fund (SIF). Cuomo can not even hold on to his democratic majority which is in the middle of a corruption scandal with “show-me-the-money culture” and “pay-to-play politics” throughout Albany. Cuomo has disenfranchised the Northern and Western part of New York with his SAFE Act. He has been unable to obtain funding for the flood stricken residents of upstate New York. Cuomo is afraid to take a stand and make a decision, either way with respect to Marijuana or fracking. No matter what your position is, Cuomo is leaving New Yorkers with no resolution to these issues or the ability to move forward. NY has experienced a 67% surge in Food Stamps users, and unbelievably, Cuomo wants to cease fingerprinting requirements to combat double dipping or identity fraud. New York has the highest taxes in the nation, is the most indebted state, with 33 percent of income dedicated to borrowing. It is ranked as the least “business-friendly” state in the country and if that were not bad enough NY has the distinction of being the least free state in the union and is called the “Nanny State” with politicians legislating what we eat and drink. Municipal governments from Nassau County to Yonkers to Syracuse are teetering. And during Mr. Cuomo’s time in office, unemployment has risen above the national average. 9% of the state’s 2000 population left for another state between 2000 and 2011 — the highest such figure in the nation, see the study by George Mason’s independent libertarian-leaning Mercatus Center.
Mike – under Cuomo it has rained almost every day for the past month and there are a lot more mosquitos and black flies than there should be.
“Dave, I disagree. Party chairs tend to be installed by presidents and governors (or candidates thereto), not vice versa.”
Party chairs are elected.
Yes Dave, but under the heavy influence of the chief executive. If a powerful governor or president wants someone as state or national chair, s/he’s going to get it.
“Cuomo wants to cease fingerprinting requirements to combat double dipping”
Probably because such requirements have been shown everywhere they’ve been used to cost more than they save.
Obama and Cuomo are shabby imitations of Bill Clinton, a man with great personal charisma and the ability to convince people that nothing was actually something or something was actually nothing, depending. Obama has been exposed as a do-nothing, know-nothing grifter. Cuomo is in even worse shape: he isn’t yet officially running for President and he’s already exposed as an opportunistic bully. The Democrats better get busy.
By the way, I forgot to mention that the photo looks like a cropped (thank god) version of Weiner’s self-destructive self portrait. That he is even mentioned seriously for office is almost as big a joke as Spitzer being mentioned for office. They will both win the Democratic nomination for the offices they seek. I don’t know whether to laugh or puke. THIS is who the Democrats want to represent them?
I look forward to a return of Spitzer. We could use an emm-eff’n steamroller. Cuomo is delusional to believe he will be the guy in ’16. Spitzer had Wall Street crooks on the ropes when he was AG; Cuomo came in and let them all off the ropes. He’s the tag team partner that is secretly allied with the Heels.
There is a case to be made that if Spitzer had remained AG the financial crisis that followed his departure may have been far less disastrous.
Cuomo can probably be reelected governor if he so chooses. I don’t think he can win in a run for President.
I care about the future of the Democratic Party about as much as I do for the future of the Republican Party.
As far as the politicians and their parties are concerned, I see one wanting to take away half of my rights and freedoms while the other is trying to take away the other half of my rights and freedoms.
There are days when I think the best thing all of them could do would be to go home, play golf, do whatever but don’t do anything in Washington because they seem to create more problems than they solve.
Well stated, Mr. Klein!
“Wait, I though Democrats were anti-business…
At least that is what every single conservative I know proclaims.”
They have been supporters of large corporations (the kind that a lot of liberals claim to hate) for as long as they have been around. They tend not to support smaller and medium size businesses with their policies but they are not anti-business.
Paul, liberals don’t hate large corporations, but we do hate people and businesses that create an unfair advantage for themselves by using their clout to undercut the wages and benefits of working people, or have laws written to evade paying their fair share of the tax burden, allow them to shift legitimate costs of business onto taxpayers, etc. Liberals celebrate corporations that they feel have good corporate policies and they are loyal customers often willing to pay premium prices to companies that pay higher wages or provide “green” products, fair trade, yadayadayada.
Or is it that you conflate Democrat with Liberal? Because the two are not the same.
Each party has their constituents within the corporate world. The Democratic Party has usually supported banking interests, credit card companies, mortgage companies, Wall Street investment banks, to name just a few, while Republicans have gone with Big Oil, defense contractors, real estate developers (some crossover on that one) and Heavy industry.
The green industries will be interesting if they explode and become mainstream. I think if wind really takes off as it might it will be a tossup which Party can garner their support? If the energy companies end up controlling the provision of wind power, you could see the Democrats turning against wind. We see a little of that already from the environmentalists who seem to be wavering on wind towers.
I think Coumo is a really good NYS politician, great tactician, he has ruled in a way that has gotten some things done in a very Byzentiene system of government with competing special interests from both wall street, public unions and others.
I don’t think it translates to a nationwide attraction. Being from NYS would likely be a deficit for him in a national race, I don’t think saying well I did really well within this corrupt declining system, will be a selling point.
I am trying to figure out who is in that picture in the background of Wiener’s selfie.
I think its HIM! Classic.