Four more years! That’s what Hillary Clinton promised voters during the Democratic debate – another term of President Obama’s policies, only “more so.”
Since only 27 percent of the country thinks we’re on the right track, and since voters overwhelmingly repudiated Obama’s record by voting Republican in 2012, it seems a risky campaign pledge. Especially during an election in which voters have shown themselves to be especially cranky. To have millions of people turning out to cheer a bullying braggart and an aged socialist suggests an appetite for something new. But then, Hillary’s political antennae have never been finely tuned.
In fairness, Hillary Clinton is walking a treacherous path, trying to keep the Obama coalition in her pocket while also promising Americans that better days lie ahead. It’s hard to laud the policies of your predecessor when so many have failed and when so many problems remain unsolved.
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For example, our K-12 public education system is in terrible shape, with virtually nothing to show for the much-lauded “race to the top” program undertaken by Obama and Education Secretary Arnie Duncan. It was astonishing that during the Democrat debate not one candidate considered this topic worth mentioning. There was plenty of chatter about college affordability, and a couple of soft balls about pre-K, but the Democrats cannot take on the failures of our public schools. They need the endorsements of the teachers unions and those enormously valuable pledges come with a price tag--the years between Pre-K and college are off-limits.
Education always ranks in the top ten concerns of Americans, ahead of income inequality, race relations or crime. Making our public schools better is a platform Republicans should own. They have no allegiance to the teachers unions, for whom “reform” is a dirty word, right up there with “accountability.” If the GOP could stop fighting amongst themselves over Common Core, this would be a powerful weapon.
Then there’s the economy, in recent years the dominant concern of most households. Do Democrats ever wonder why we haven’t grown faster these past seven years? Do voters think the best way to reboot a stricken economy is to ladle on vast new complicating regulations, perpetuate the highest corporate taxes in the West, stifle our enormously productive energy industries, and complicate the process of hiring workers?
President Xi Jinping of China is visiting England, and Prime Minister David Cameron has rolled out the red carpet, hoping to attract investment from that country to further trade. Compare that boosterism with the approach taken by President Obama, whose only goal in meeting recently with the Chinese head of state, and only accomplishment, was to elicit a meaningless climate promise that Beijing needed to issue to staunch increasing criticism at home.
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Business investment is one of the softest spots in our economy. Encouraging corporate leaders and small company owners to commit money to long-term projects means bolstering their confidence. This takes partnership, not hostility of the sort emanating for seven years from the Obama White House. The GOP needs to promise progress on this front, and drop the mindless anti-business rhetoric that purports to attack corporate “cronyism,” but in fact sends managers looking for investment opportunities overseas. Our largest companies typically offer workers the highest wages and the best benefits available. When did they become the enemy?
And how about race relations? Who would have thought that electing the first African American president would lead to a serious widening of the gap between black and white? But then, no one expected Al Sharpton to have a seat at the table.
Or, how are we doing on income inequality, which has clearly worsened during the past seven years? How can Democrats, who despair over the broadening chasm between rich and poor, pretend to have the remedy? Battling economic torpor with zero percent interest rates has benefited the top one percent by pumping up the stock market, but punished many low-income folks living on fixed incomes. Not the fix most Americans were hoping for.
To her credit, Hillary senses that all is not well, hence her vow to “get things done.” Americans are fed up with stalemate, and rightly so. We do have problems, and we are not moving forward on many of the issues that claim bipartisan support. Tax and entitlement reform, infrastructure repair, solving our immigration mess – even the politicians in Washington understand we need progress on these fronts. President Obama has failed to make meaningful change on but a handful of issues, citing the obstructionism of the GOP.
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But many fault his inability and unwillingness to lead. Though he was elected on the promise to bring the country together, he has done anything but. From his early days in the Oval Office he was dismissive of Republicans, (see: “I won”) and scornful of compromise. Ramming Obamacare (the first of his “legacy” priorities) through Congress with not one GOP vote set the tone of his administration.
Hillary imagines that she can do better, and it would be hard to do worse. On the other hand, when asked during the debate to name the enemy she has made in the course of her political career that she is most proud of, she listed Republicans right up there with insurance companies and the Iranians. Does that sound like someone prepared to reach across the aisle?
If Republicans cannot retake the White House after seven years of an ineffectual and wrong-headed president in a contest likely spearheaded by the profoundly corrupt and disliked Hillary Clinton, they do not deserve the post. And no, Joe Biden, who likewise promises to carry the Obama torch forward, won’t change the calculus should he enter the race.
