Restoration or Regurgitation

I'm not so sure how smart this is as a strategy. Bill Clinton has famously said that elections are about the future--and yet here they are, a deux, strongly implying that this election is about the past.

Now, I was a pretty big fan of the Clinton Administration. My book, The Natural, chronicles the substance--as opposed to the constant, scandalous Republican and media silliness--of those years. But this is a different time and anything that raises the vaguest hint that what we're really talking about here is bringing HIM back is not only unseemly, but also constitutionally, well, slick. The sad thing is that Senator Clinton has run, to my mind, the most substantive campaign in either party. She seems solid, more judicious that he was, more knowledgeable about foreign policy and national security than he was. One would hope that Clinton campaign would realize that that should be enough. In any case, I don't want two for the price of one. I don't want the same old ratpack of shills and donors (and the accompanying pack of right-wing nutballs, bottom-feeding off the Clintonphobia of the wingnut base).

I want a candidate who is, unapologetically, about the future. I think Hillary Clinton has the ability to be that candidate--but it's sad to think that, in the end, this is going to be about them, not her.