Opinion of Bill Clinton

[Beet]

It'll never happen oakvale, because while Reagan was revered on the conservative Right, Clinton remains a practical dirty word on the progressive left.

I don't see how you can credit Hart or Dukakis for anything. The newfound Hart obsession these days is bizarre - Matt Bai writes a crappy article about him, he comes out of the woodwork to join the O'Malley campaign, and now he somehow helped the Democratic party?

It's especially strange why progressive Democrats who oppose Clinton for the DLC and moving the party to the economic center would like Hart, since Hart was basically the proto-Clinton. He was John the Baptist to Clinton's messiah. A young, unfaithful red state guy taking about new ideas and economic centrism and modernizing the party. The only thing he doesn't have that Clinton has is the Arkansas hick thing. Well, that and the unusual wife. But the main difference is that he lost.

Dukakis was like the Neil Kinnock of the Democrats. He tried to give himself a New Democrat makeover, but his coalition was still the old Democrat coalition. I mean, he won West Virginia while losing Maryland, for crying out loud. It's hard to believe that was only 26 years ago.

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Actually, Clinton was struggling in the polls until Perot dropped out - then he suddenly surged to near landslide levels. Most of Perot's spring voters clearly preferred Clinton as a second choice.

[Beet]

I mean, a fair way to measure how a president expanded a party's coalition is if he carried a state that went for the other party in the previous election, and stayed with his party until the present day. For example, George W. Bush definitely brought Arkansas into the Republican coalition. In 1996, it voted Democratic, but Bush flipped it, and it's remained GOP ever since.

By that standard, for the Democrats, we have-

Johnson 1964 - DC (3 present-day electoral votes) total: 3
Carter 1976 - MN (10) total: 10
Dukakis 1988 - MA (11), RI (4), NY (29), WI (10), WA (12), OR (7), HI (4) total: 77
Clinton 1992 - ME (4), VT (3), CT (7), NJ (14), PA (20), DE (3), MD (10), MI (16), IL (20), CA (55) total: 152
Obama 2008 - VA (13), FL (29), OH (20), IA (7), CO (9), NM (5), NV (6), NH (4) total: 92

The Clinton transformation clearly is what this country competitive for two parties again.

[Beet]

I mean, a fair way to measure how a president expanded a party's coalition is if he carried a state that went for the other party in the previous election, and stayed with his party until the present day. For example, George W. Bush definitely brought Arkansas into the Republican coalition. In 1996, it voted Democratic, but Bush flipped it, and it's remained GOP ever since.

By that standard, for the Democrats, we have-

Johnson 1964 - DC (3 present-day electoral votes) total: 3
Carter 1976 - MN (10) total: 10
Dukakis 1988 - MA (11), RI (4), NY (29), WI (10), WA (12), OR (7), HI (4) total: 77
Clinton 1992 - ME (4), VT (3), CT (7), NJ (14), PA (20), DE (3), MD (10), MI (16), IL (20), CA (55) total: 152
Obama 2008 - VA (13), FL (29), OH (20), IA (7), CO (9), NM (5), NV (6), NH (4) total: 92

The Clinton transformation clearly is what this country competitive for two parties again.

Minnesota was already solidly Democratic having only yielding to GOP for Eisenhower. A case for Truman or Kennedy? Maybe

But to claim Carter brought Minnesota in is just laughable,...Carter won an artificial victory with the last of old coalitions.

He brought in Minnesota by picking Mondale as is running mate.