""A right-winger"" says one Madison liberal of Gov. Jim Doyle. ""He's Tommy Thompson with a ‘D' after his name,"" says another. ""I have no use for him at all.""
Despite the harsh words from these old-time stalwarts of Madison liberalism, each of them will be voting for Doyle come November 7, and because of them, Doyle just might come out on top. In doing so, he would emulate another centrist Democrat who won re-election despite similarly lukewarm feelings from the Democratic base: Bill Clinton.
Clinton and Doyle would never be mistaken for one another on the basis of personality, but the two have had strikingly similar political careers. Clinton began as a McGovern-esque liberal, and Doyle's parents were progressive icons who shaped the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. Both men eventually moved dramatically to the center in order to be elected governor. Both were elected for the first time, Clinton to the presidency and Doyle to the governorship of Wisconsin, largely due to third party candidates splitting the conservative vote.
The question now is whether Doyle will be able to ride Clinton's centrist model to a second term.
Democrats may pine for Clinton now after six years of his successor, but they conveniently forget that the first Clinton administration was no day at the beach for liberals. After going against his own party by pushing through the North American Free Trade Agreement, Clinton was unable to get the Democratic Congress to pass healthcare reform, and his attempt to lift the ban on gays in the military met with resounding failure.
His unpopularity halfway through his term caused Democrats to lose control of the House and Senate, and he spent the next two years playing defense, desperately trying to fend off Republican initiatives. His acceptance of welfare reform, a major Republican initiative, prompted his own Labor Secretary and longtime friend Robert Reich to resign, saying that Clinton had sold out working people and was ignoring the growing gap between rich and poor. Furthermore, his signing of the federal Defense of Marriage Act was seen as a craven re-election pander.
Despite alienating several Democratic core constituencies, Clinton won reelection in 1996 by a large margin and, six years after leaving office, is still indisputably the most popular Democrat in the country.
Doyle has run a similarly centrist first term, managing to fulfill his campaign pledge of balancing the budget without raising taxes, albeit with deep and unpopular government spending cuts. Unlike Clinton, he is not cruising to re-election and is instead in a tough fight with U.S. Rep. Mark Green, R-Green Bay.
Obviously, the Clinton comparison does have limits. Doyle is endowed with none of Clinton's personal charisma or the rhetorical skills that proved so useful in beating back Republican attacks and saddling Newt Gingrich with blame for the 1995 federal government shutdown.
Doyle's selling points with the base will be twofold. First, that he's been a good goaltender, blocking some of the legislature's more egregious proposals, and second, that liberals may not love him 100 percent of the time, but the opposition would be far worse.
On the other hand, Doyle has some advantages that Clinton did not have. First, a wind may be blowing at the Democrats' backs around the nation, the like of which Clinton never had. Second, Doyle has had to deal with a hostile Republican legislature for his entire first term and is in a position to argue simultaneously for continuity—re-electing him—and change—electing a Democratic legislature.
Clinton, on the other hand, had a Democratic Congress for two years and was unable to effectively govern with it, thus it was harder for him to run not only as himself but as the leader of the Democratic Party. In other words, Doyle could have political coattails where Clinton had none.
Depending on whether or not Doyle wins, one of two fascinating questions will arise. If he wins, will that provide new evidence that moderate centrism is the way to go in electing Democratic candidates? And if he loses, will Democrats conclude that they need to consolidate the liberal base first and branch out to moderates second?
Bill Clinton has been and still is a central figure in both of these debates. And whatever the outcome in Wisconsin, Gov. Doyle will be too.
