Michele Walk, Associate Editor
Ideology: Moderate | Writing from: George Washington University
Recently, many of my Facebook friends have been participating in something called “Celebrity Doppelganger Week.” Instead of their usual picture, users post up a picture of a celebrity that they resemble. While the exact time frame of this meme’s “week” is uncertain (some posted their celebrity lookalikes early last week; some, today), it seems to enjoy a great amount of success and a good deal of people are participating.
The last person I expected to participate, however, was Barack Obama. (No, Tea Partiers, a picture of the “Joker” didn’t pop up on the South Lawn.) Rather, during his State of the Union address last Wednesday I couldn’t help but think of former President Clinton.
Of course, the most frequently drawn comparisons between the president’s rightward policy shift have been to George W. Bush and John McCain. Cutting capital gains, emphasizing the War on Terror, and endorsing off-shore drilling? Sure sounds a lot like George W. Bush in his first term. And didn’t John McCain advocate for a spending freeze during the campaign? You betcha!
What struck me the most was not the policy changes – many of which I welcome with open arms, such as cutting capital gains and cutting small business taxes – but rather the environment in which they were announced, and how it is 
reminiscent of the Clinton Administration. It was a fairly predictable shift considering the election of Republican Scott Brown in my home state and token liberal bastion, Massachusetts. Brown’s victory has perhaps made Obama realize that the center is, well, the actual center – not a mythical place where everyone regardless of ideology accepts his policies as God-sent. But I digress.
The Beltway has been abuzz with talk of whether 2010 is the new 1994, a fire which Brown’s election only stokes. After the “Contract with America” propelled the GOP back in the majority in Congress, Clinton had to shift right. The left is wont to forget it, but the most conservative policies of recent years were implemented under Clinton: NAFTA, DADT, DOMA, and welfare reform, to name a few. These shifts happened after the Republican resurgence in 1994, but if the majority of pundit prognoses are to be believed, a GOP takeover is imminent in 2010. 2010 might be 1994 in Congress – but also in the Presidency? Will Obama, like Clinton, end up passing just as much right-wing legislation as Bush? Considering the similarities in struggles with health care reform and rightward shift after electoral pressure, one cannot help but wonder if Obama’s term will just be a rehash of the Clinton Administration.
The larger question that I can’t keep myself from asking, however, is not which Clinton-era policy approach Obama will raise from the dead, but rather when Obama will start being his own president. In addition to being marked by policy failures, Obama’s first year has been filled by frequent comparisons, by himself and his supporters, of the President to past presidents: Nixon during his China trip, FDR, and, most often, Lincoln. Every president should be a student of history and aware of the legacy of their predecessors, but Obama seems overly concerned (and almost basking) in his guaranteed slot the history books. Fearful of gaining a reputation like George W. Bush (for whom many voters have actually become nostalgic for), he is preoccupied with his legacy and is thus largely ineffectual. If he continues on the current path of policy failures, the Obama “doctrine” might end up being a warning about overzealous campaigns, not a landmark approach to policy. Unless he charts his own path soon, Barack Obama could very well end up as just another “doppelganger” story lost in America’s collective News Feed.
I don’t see how NAFTA can be considered a conservative policy. Defeating mercantilism and liberalizing trade policy is an objective shared by people across the aisle, except those in bed with special interests of big business oligopolies and/or labor unions.
Tim, NAFTA is not necessarily a “conservative” policy, but it was perceived as such; Clinton received a lot of criticism from unions, a group that almost always votes Democratic. More recently, Hillary Clinton was also criticized by Obama during the campaign for supporting it. Also – when it passed in the Senate, only 8 Republicans voted against it. I agree with you that trade liberalization helps everyone, but the unions and protectionists don’t often see it that way.
Unions and protectionists (I call them mercantilists in my last post) are not, of necessity, democrats or republicans. NAFTA is not a “conservative” policy in the least bit. It does not preserve any status quo. In fact, if it was implemented as it was written, it would have totally upset the status quo, replacing it with entirely free trade between the three states.
I agree with you. However, the union (leadership) largely opposed the original NAFTA (without the amendments that Clinton was forced to sign) because they feared that it would cause them to lose jobs. Unions by and large historically support the Democratic Party. It wasn’t “conservative,” necessarily, but with how this country works, more right wing – you don’t often hear Democrats trumpeting the benefits of free trade.
“you don’t often hear Democrats trumpeting the benefits of free trade”
That’s not true at all. The benefits to trade are undeniable. So undeniable, in fact, that I’ve heard President Obama mention things about international trade and that we should have more of it.
There are basically no economic arguments against free trade. Politicians would be fools to not tread very lightly before making anti-trade comments with the current knowledge of the benefits.