DEFINING THE DEMOCRATS
Last night, Bill Clinton gave one of the best speeches of his life. (He also demonstrated, by contrast, why he's the former president and Senator Clinton isn't.) I won't pick apart the distortions and policy fuzziness, since I'm sure by now countless Republican partisans have taken care of that. What interested me about the speech was how well it captured how Democrats--the mainstream, not the insane leftoid conspiracy freaks--understand themselves and their opposition.
We think the role of government is to give people the tools and conditions to make the most of their lives. Republicans believe in an America run by the right people, their people, in a world in which we act unilaterally when we can, and cooperate when we have to.
That's an interesting anti-elitist message, one that directly contradicts the Republicans' view of themselves and their opponents. Both parties, in other words, think the other guys "believe in an America run by the right people." Technocracy is certainly dead as a governing ideal, though not as a practice.
Clinton's statement can be read many different ways, depending on your point of view. "The role of government is to give people the tools and conditions to make the most of their lives" can describe anything from a classical liberalism that emphasizes the importance of underlying institutions--if I didn't know the source, I might endorse it myself--to a Swedish-style welfare state.
The other interesting thing about Clinton's speech is what it didn't say. It didn't mention "a woman's right to choose"--a phrase that used to be all but mandatory in Democratic convention speeches. It didn't mention gays. It didn't mention immigrants. On the social issues, where the parties disagree most emotionally (and where the chattering classes, including me, are liberal but swing voters aren't), Clinton said nothing. He aimed his speech at John Kennedy's Democratic party.
John Kerry is smart to put quite a few days between himself and Bill Clinton's star power. Maybe by the time Kerry takes the podium, people will have forgotten the contrast.