Many times, I’m amazed by how history repeats itself. If only we would pay attention to the lessons of the past. In 1988, the Democrats had lost three consecutive presidential elections. Liberal candidates like Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis were unelectable in the national election. There had to be another way. A little-known governor from Arkansas formed the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) to chart a new way forward for his party.
Bill Clinton was a very smart and savvy politician. At the University of Arkansas, he earned a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford. They don’t pass those out to dummies. Clinton’s DLC charted a new, more moderate way for the Democratic Party to follow. They did, and saw him through to election. Granted, the 1992 Presidential election saw the most successful third-party candidate in my lifetime – Ross Perrot, who garnered more than 18 percent of the popular vote. Clinton topped out at 43 percent, but won the majority of the electoral votes, and the presidency from incumbent George H. W. Bush. What followed were two largely successful terms in the White House, although his party was drubbed in the 1994 mid-term elections and lost the House majority for the first time in four decades.