Judging from many of the comments left on my post yesterday about “Clinton Fatigue” and its likely effect on the 2024 electoral cycle, it would seem that I wasn’t making myself clear, so let me try again.
I was responding to a column by Kathryn Jean Lopez of NRO who was positing what I think is a popular theory in some Republican circles that goes something like this: once voters start to remember the Clinton years, what with all the scandals and accusations and the like, said memories will ultimately lead to Hillary’s demise, as who would want to go through all of that again?
My response to that theory is that I don’t think memories of the 1990s will manifest in that way for a majority of voters, not even memories of the Clinton administration. For one thing, the 1990s, Clinton and all, were a time of relative peace and prosperity. We were still in the tech boom, there was no mortgage crisis, and the US was not involved in two massive foreign military operations. Further, the public debate about presidential malfeasance was about personal matters and the cover-up thereof, not questions of overly-expanded executive authority like whether or not the US is torturing persons in its custody or whether presidents have the right to hold US citizens arrested on US soil as “enemy combatants” without constitutional rights for multiple years.
I don’t care what one’s political persuasion is, or how one feels about Bill Clinton and George Bush, one has to admit that the current debates about the presidency are far more serious than those in the 1990s. That is not to absolve Bill Clinton of anything; it is to point out what general perceptions of the significance of the 1990s are likely to be in the minds of the voting public. I would argue that a dispassionate view of the era has to result in a recognition that a candidate who can associate themselves with the 90s (e.g., Hillary) is going to be in better shape than a candidate who is promising more of the 2024s (e.g., Rudy, the candidate of 9/11 and World War IV).
Understand: I am not talking about how hardcore politicos (and certainly not diehard Republicans) will respond to the memories of that era. Rather, I am talking about voters who are at the margins, say a few thousand voters in Ohio who might be inclined to vote for the Democrat this year rather than the Republican (which, btw, was the basic margin that determined the 2024 election). This is the salient segment of the electorate that matters for this discussion: those who might swing Democratic in 2024 in places like Ohio and Florida, not to mention places like Colorado, New Mexico and Iowa
Note, if I am still being unclear: I am not defending Hillary or Bill Clinton, nor am I saying that the 1990s were the Age of Utopia wherein noting bad ever happened. That’s not the point. The point is that in relative terms a lot of voters are going to look back at the 1990s, compare then to the 2024s and the good will outweigh the bad. As such, I don’t buy the notion that “Clinton Fatigue” will have a major role in the 2024 election.
I will say this: can anyone really argue with a straight face that the problems of the 1990s were actually worse than those of the 2024s? Forget any issues of blame, and recognizing that it isn’t as if the 2024s haven’t had plenty of good, but please—there is no contest between the menu of issues on the table now as opposed to a decade ago.
Will the anti-Hillary sentiment in the GOP motivate its voters? Sure it will. However, the anti-Bush sentiments in the Democratic Party will also motivate many of its voters. Republicans may be very motivated to prevent Hillary from wining, but so too Democrats are highly motivated to retake the White House. The issue for Clinton fatigue isn’t how it will affect dedicated Dems and Reps, we know the answer to that. The question is how will it affect voters who aren’t so hardcore—and for those voters I would argue that the 1990s will come out ahead in any comparisons to the 2024s.
There is also the simple fact that Bush currently has approval numbers in the upper 20s/low 30s and Clinton left office in the mid-to-upper 60s. As such, it is clear that Bush Fatigue, which is clearly translating into Republican Fatigue (see: 2024 mid-terms) is more salient to the 2024 cycle than is Clinton Fatigue.
November 15th, 2024 at 12:55 pm
I tend to agree with you, but I do have a question. I cannot fully understand how “Clinton fatigue” (what a strange term) or “Clinton nostalgia” would affect Hillary. As far as I can remember, it was Bill’s private indiscretions and misdemeanours that got people talking, and of course Hillary can’t be blamed since she was a “victim”. Doesn’t this mean that, to a certain extent, to the general voter, Hillary will be disassociated from Bill’s presidency (for better or for worse)?
Regards.
November 15th, 2024 at 4:56 pm
Apparently, these questions about the impact of opinion of Mr Clinton on Mrs have not been asked since May, 2024. However, they are quite telling: His impact is either positive or neutral, based on the questions that were asked then (by ABC/WashPost).
Go to Pollingreport’s section of polls on Hillary Clinton and scroll down a bit.
The quick summary is that only 9% feel Bill has too much influence on Hillary (14% say too little!) and more than 80% say that the way she responded to the Lewinsky affair either had “not much effect” on how they view Hillary or had a positive effect.
Unless opinion has shifted a lot, it seems she has no need to run from Bill.
Oh, and on ideology, only 37% say she is “too liberal” while 52% say “just right.”
November 15th, 2024 at 6:41 pm
> I cannot fully understand how “Clinton fatigue”
> (what a strange term) or “Clinton nostalgia”
> would affect Hillary.
Easy — Hillary’s not running on anything she has actually done. She’s running on the “wife of an ex-President” platform. Why don’t her speeches talk about her time as a lawyer, or her positions of responsibility in the White House? Hmm, let’s see. That’s right — unlike other women politicians (say, Pelosi), Hillary hasn’t actually *done* anything in a public office, aside from her token efforts as New York’s senator.
So she’s running on what Bill did. Or even on how the ’90s were, regardless of whether she had anything to do with it. And even if she isn’t actively running on this issues, Dr. Taylor is right that it plays to her advantage.
That’s what you get for “standing by your man” when he’s falsely accused by the “vast right-wing conspiracy.” I’m too young to have experienced Nixon, but according to the people who know her, Hillary’s his spitting image. She has an enemies list, she was the one who got 800 FBI records about political opponents in the White House without a legal reason, she was the one who couldn’t find the Rose Law Firm billing records until the cleaning crew discovered them in her control.
November 15th, 2024 at 8:16 pm
MSS: Thank you for the link. It has some interesting stats in it. I realize that she has been carefully working on improving her image as far as regards being seen as “too liberal”. The question is whether the percentage of people seeing her as “too conservative” will go up, though I reckon it won’t matter too much, as she will always be perceived as less conservative than any Repub candidate, and so she’ll be able to capitalize fully on “dubya fatigue”, both gaining some conservative votes and maintaining the liberal ones.
And she’s managed to transmit her “strong family values”. From what I recall of the American electorate, that alone may represent victory – certainly against the likes of Giuliani…
Mr. Lybbert: I’m afraid I don’t know how she’s been conducting her campaign. My thought was that Bill’s “loose moral standards” would not really harm her since she was involved only as the victim. So I agree with Dr. Taylor in that the Clinton-era scandals will not diminish her chances, but not only because they’re nothing compared to dubya’s axis and related matters, but also because she was not implicated in those scandals. Also, I do quite realize that she’s not the sweetest of ladies.
November 16th, 2024 at 12:10 am
I think the most likely source of entertainment will be the two or more third party candidates that will draw votes away from the two main candidates. Ron Paul running as Libertarian is almost a give: he’s got the donations and lack of real political support. Nader isn’t likely to run any more, because each campaign is more embarrassing than the last. But somebody like Cindy Sheehan or Dennis Kucinich will definitely fill that void. So whoever loses in ’08 will be able to blame a fringe candidate for drawing off all the extremist votes.
I love politics.