You’re analogy is off. Clinton turned the radical left against him in that election. Remember him running around promising to fix those laws if he was reelected? Also there was a major thing that happened that election. Ross Perot. He siphoned off 9% of the vote and some of them were Dims. Also we had a terrible candidate in Bob Dole who fumbled the ball all through the campaign and was too old at that time.
Obummers reelection is shaping up to compare more like Johnson ‘68. Passed massive Gov’t programs nobody wanted and had a war that wasn’t going well. The left is starting to sound exactly like they did then with the open sniping and calls for a challenger.
I don’t think my analogy is off at all.
First of all, Perot ran in 1992, not 1996 and got about 19% of the vote. George H.W. Bush, not Dole, ran for the GOP that year and Perot threw the election to Clinton. Clinton beat Dole fair and square in ‘96 (if you don’t factor in the shady Chinese contributions).
In ‘94 the GOP took the House and Clinton responded by moving to the center and going along with the GOP on balancing the budget and welfare reform (http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1996-08-23/news/1996236084_1_welfare-reform-clinton-white-house). Dick Morris told Clinton he had to sign it or he would lose the election in 1996. Morris was probablt right.
Clinton lost the support-temporarily- of many liberals, inc. Marian Wright Edelman-Children’s Defense Fund and her husband, e.g. (http://blog.buzzflash.com/editorblog/034) over his signing of welfare reform.
But in 1996 those so-called angry liberals came right back to the plantation. Clinton did promise to fix it and they bought it. Of course, with a GOP Congress, he couldn’t fix it. The GOP didn’t really provide a good choice in Dole, but libs weren’t going to vote for any GOP candidate even if they were angry with Clinton over welfare reform.
The analogy I’m drawing is that Clinton faced the same ire from the left that Obama is facing now. I haven’t heard Obama say he’s going to fix it like Cliinton did, but no doubt that message is being relayed privately.
In the end, the left’s ire will be assuaged and they will line up behind Obama in 2012 just like they lined up in support of Clinton in 1996. It’s all bark and no bite.
You’re correct in that in 1996, there weren’t as many calls from the left for a challenger to Clinton (there may have been-I just don’t recall) like there are now for Obama. My analogy didn’t extend into that aspect.