Bill Clinton Makes His Pitch for Hillary

July 27, 2016

Bill Clinton is the Cal Ripken of convention speeches; he's spoken at the past ten of them. Going into last night, we knew Bill's speech was going to be well-delivered, full of detail, probably extremely long, and likely to hit all the emotional notes. He didn't get that nickname "Slick Willie" for nothing.

But the first thirty or so minutes felt like an interminable slog through the courtship and early years of the Clinton marriage. It wasn't a compelling sales pitch for the nominee; it felt like Grandpa giving a long and meandering story about how he met Grandma at their anniversary dinner, one that you know is going to end with a cringe-inducing punch-line about her finally going all the way. Considering what we know about the Clinton marriage, this was a potentially supremely awkward course for Bill to take.

For all the aspects of Bill and Hillary Clinton that Americans might admire, I suspect very few would want to be married to either one of them. We know he was a relentless womanizer during those years, and quite possibly much worse than that. We know names like Juanita Broaddrick and Paula Jones and Gennifer Flowers.

But clearly Bill Clinton felt he needed to "humanize" Hillary Clinton, and so he tried to show us all the little moments of their lives that the public never got to see. (Robert Caro would have said there was too much detail.) He conveniently skipped from 1997 to 1999, ignoring the year when his troubles and the state of his marriage consumed a year of his presidency.

Dennis Miller used to joke that the Clinton marriage couldn't be any more about convenience if they installed a Slurpee machine. But she obviously chose to stick with him through all the grief and aggravation, and he never, as far as we know, decided he wanted to divorce her. This is a mutually-supportive marriage . . . at least partially based upon mutual presidential ambition. That's what makes the Clintons tick and maybe some folks will find that romantic and inspirational; some will find it a twisted reflection of what a marriage ought to be.

That relentless, transparent ambition is, I suspect, one of the things that adds to her low approval ratings and low trustworthy numbers: These two will lie about anything in order to get what they want. Will Tuesday night help Hillary Clinton? Well, what undecided voter out there was waiting to see if Bill thought electing her was a good idea?

From a reader: "What might unite them is the law that states you can't force one spouse to testify against the other."

McAuliffe: Relax, Trade Fans, Hillary's Totally Lying About Opposing the TPP Deal

Hey, relax, Democrats, it's not like Bernie Sanders supporters care a lot about the TPP trade deal, right?

"I worry that if we don't do TPP, at some point China's going to break the rules -- but Hillary understands this," [Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe] said in an interview after his speech on the main stage at the Democratic National Convention. "Once the election's over, and we sit down on trade, people understand a couple things we want to fix on it, but going forward, we got to build a global economy."

Pressed on whether Clinton would turn around and support the trade deal she opposed during the heat of the primary fight against Bernie Sanders, McAuliffe said: "Yes. Listen, she was in support of it. There were specific things in it she wants fixed."

Ha, ha, joke's on you, Bernie Sanders!

Later, McAuliffe's spokesman sought to clarify the governor's remarks after this story published, saying he was simply expressing what he wants Clinton to do if she is elected president. "While Governor McAuliffe is a supporter of the TPP, he has no expectation Secretary Clinton would change her position on the legislation and she has never told him anything to that effect."

I'll bet the spokesman did try to clarify his remarks. "Hey, remember when my boss said "yes'? He totally meant 'no.'"

Conservative Ideas Are Designed to Work or Everybody, Right? Right?

Walking around the streets of Philadelphia, it's pretty obvious that the delegates to the Democratic party are a lot more racially diverse than the Republican ones.

We more or less know why the majority of African-Americans lean towards the Democratic Party. Despite popular perception that the voting patterns reflect Nixon's "Southern Strategy," the drift started during FDR's presidency. As Kevin Williamson noted, "the majority of black voters were Democrats by the 1940s — a remarkable fact, given that the Democrats were still very much the party of segregation at that time." African-Americans, generally facing more economic insecurity than whites, gravitated towards the Democrats' vision of a more and more extensive government safety net. In the years since, the Democrats have largely supported affirmative action and Republicans have largely opposed it (Donald Trump is an exception). This creates a reinforcing cycle: more African-Americans vote Democratic, more African-Americans run for office as Democrats, the party focuses more on African-Americans as a key voting bloc, and so on.

We more or less know why the majority of Latinos, outside of Cuban-Americans, lean towards the Democratic party. Much like African-Americans, many within this group like the idea of greater government spending. Households in this demographic are more likely to be poor, and thus wary of the traditional Republican argument for a smaller government with less social spending:

U.S.-born Hispanic households in California use welfare programs at twice the rate of native-born non-Hispanic households. And that is because nearly one-quarter of all Hispanics are poor in California, compared to a little over one-tenth of non-Hispanics. Nearly seven in ten poor children in the state are Hispanic, and one in three Hispanic children is poor, compared to less than one in six non-Hispanic children. One can see that disparity in classrooms across the state, which are chock full of social workers and teachers' aides trying to boost Hispanic educational performance.

They don't see these programs as being wasted on other groups of people who should be supporting themselves; they see those programs as needed.

You're now seeing Asian-Americans, a demographic that is not disproportionately poor and does not heavily use public assistance programs, break heavily towards Democrats, particularly "young Asians, who now view the Democratic party far more favorably than the Republican party (77 percent compared to 12 percent)."

This phenomenon predates the Trump campaign and nomination. Those of us on the right can fume about the GOP's paltry performance among these groups, but it would probably do some good to ask: Is there something the Republican party is doing to make members of these demographics feel unwelcome?

About a year ago, Ben Domenech asked if the Republican Party was going to be organized around freedom or white identity politics. The dominant themes of the Trump campaign suggest that question has been answered in favor of the latter for the 2016 cycle.

The GOP is seen as the party of and for white Christians, and a lot of Republicans are just fine with that. But even if you love this identity for the party, what do you want to say to everyone in America who isn't a white Christian? What's your sales pitch? Or is it that some Republicans don't want to even bother trying to appeal to other demographics?

Back in 2014, I remember hearing at conservative blogger declare from the stage of a free-market conference that you couldn't really be a conservative if you weren't Christian. I remember the head of a prominent health policy analyst snapping up at that comment. We have some really brilliant, driven, hard-working non-Christian conservatives in this movement. Do we really want to so casually declare that they're not really one of us?

You can't really be conservative if you're not Christian? What, are we gonna expel the entire staff of Commentary from the movement? Half the Weekly Standard? What, are we gonna check baptismal records before we start telling anybody about the benefits of free market economics?

Conservatism was supposed to be about seeing people as individuals and embracing policies that gave everyone the maximum freedom and opportunity to live their dreams as they see fit. You don't have to have a particular skin color to prosper in the free market. A strong national defense protects everybody. School choice gives the same variety of options to every parent of every child of every culture. I thought one of the reasons we believed in all this was because it was good for everyone.

What's more, our problems are color-blind. The debt doesn't care what our skin color is. ISIS will happily kill us no matter what our culture or beliefs. Vladimir Putin's hostility and ambitions aren't going to take it easy on one group of Americans.

ADDENDA: In case you missed it, some pictures from yesterday's Black Lives Matter/Bernie or Bust rallies in downtown Philadelphia . . .

From the DNC e-mail leak: "There are emails that describe a donor angling for seats next to President Obama at a roundtable discussion, and one in which staffers apportion seats for donors at a White House State Dinner. In one, a major contributor from Maryland who has cancer is bumped from a seat next to the president because another, more prolific giver is attending the same event."

Forget the cancer guy, give the seat to the bigger donor!