Gary Pearce posted on August 02, 2012 09:50
Here’s why I’m glad Bill Clinton will have a big role at the Democratic convention: Nobody in American politics today is a better contrast to how brain-dead American politics is today.
Clinton is the one national figure who can weave sensible policy proposals from the extremes of left and right, the one politician who can talk policy in a way that speaks to real people’s real problems.
“American politics went through tremendous changes between 1900 and 1936, and then again between 1940 and 1976. But our big government/small government debate is back where it was a generation ago. Candidates don’t even have to rehearse the arguments anymore; they just find the gaffes that will help them pin their opponent to the standard bogyman clichés.”
It’s like the prisoners who know the jokes so well they just call out the numbers and everybody laughs. We know exactly what both sides are going to say, and they oblige us.
Republicans bear most of the blame, but Democrats aren’t blameless. Nobody on either side dares depart from orthodoxy.
Clinton, in contrast, can be a breath of fresh air. Sometimes more a hurricane (remember his interminable 1984 convention speech).
He’s a real person in a campaign that seems to be a contest between Android Obama and Robot Romney.
Feel our pain one more time, Bill.