The what?
"The puke-funnel theory." Look it up in Lexis-Nexis. C'mon. Does anybody really think that Ken Starr wasn't part of it? Now we find out Robert Ray, his supposedly nonpartisan successor, is running for Senate in New Jersey. You know, when I pointed out all these things about Starr, the media went crazy. But I kept doing it, and you know what? I was right. And it worked. You can't let chitchat at a cocktail party determine what a major party is gonna do and not do. You can't be intimidated by cocktail chitchat.
Well, not to pat Salon on the back, but we were vilified in those same circles when we ran the story of Henry Hyde's adultery as impeachment was getting under way. Your boy George Stephanopoulos called us bottom-feeders. They vilified us at those Washington cocktail parties. But we did the right thing. Then the rest of the media ran with the story, and I think the American people, in the end, got it: Impeachment was about sex, not about lying under oath, and the Republicans are hypocrites -- their leaders are having affairs, too. We don't impeach folks for this.
Absolutely. You know a lot of people thought I'd given you the story -- everybody in Georgetown and Cleveland Park probably thought that -- but of course no such thing was true. A guy was shopping the story around, and you guys decided to publish it.
After much soul-searching.
Yes, and again, what I'm suggesting is, stand for yourself, be for something, and the hell with it. Because the hand-wringers and the editorialists and the sigh-and-pontificate crowd will be against you, whatever you do. But look, if Tom DeLay was a Democrat, we would control the House.
But is it really that simple? I have an ideological question for you. I know you're a populist, but you were a Clinton person, and there's no question that Clinton pulled the party to the center -- in ways that it probably needed to, to win the White House again. But it also cut the party off from its left-wing base. I think part of the reason the Republicans are so strong is that they're well connected to their rabid right-wing base, the zealots and the maniacs.
Sure.
And the left is so dysfunctional, I'm not sure how the Democrats could connect to it, but it seems the lack of an ideological base keeps the party from drawing a line in the sand and fighting as hard as Republicans do.
Well, I don't know. Look, there are choices people have to make in politics and public policy. And when Bill Clinton had choices to make, he generally came down on the side of the working poor. He wasn't the best friend that the rich had, and he wasn't the best friend that the poorest of the poor had -- he wasn't terrible, but ... basically, more often than not, he was a very good president for people making between, say, $7,500 and $45,000 a year. The best ever probably.
I've been reading reviews of Joe Klein's book ["The Natural: The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton"], by Jonathan Yardley and Richard Cohen, saying how Clinton disappointed them. They act like the whole world is what they think. But of all the things in the world that I care about, I just don't really care if Jonathan Yardley and Richard Cohen are disappointed. I mean, they're not bad people, but what I really care about is that a woman who cleans bedpans in a hospital has health insurance, or has a better life. Now if that's what I care about, I gotta be a Clinton person.
But one of Clinton's problems was, the interest groups don't care about the working poor. The Republicans don't care about the working poor -- they don't know any. The Op-Ed writers don't care about the working poor. The editorial writers don't care about the working poor. The talking heads don't care about the working poor. Now the disabled have a lobby in Washington, the charities do, the welfare people -- they all have lobbyists. The folks who wanted to get rid of the capital gains and the estate tax certainly had a lobby. But Clinton's entire constituency -- well, there are about 30 people in Washington who care about them.
The problem wasn't so much with Clinton, though. He was mostly able to placate his left -- sure, people quit over the welfare bill, but he mostly kept folks in line. Liberals and lefties felt like he was one of them, deep down. Black people had a cultural affinity with him. He was able to convince the left that he was trying to do the right thing, even if it didn't look like it. But then you get someone like Gore, who isn't able to telegraph that he cares about that constituency, and people can't get excited about him. And now there's no one who has the fire to take a leadership role and stand up to Republicans on much of anything.
Look, I agree. But we've got a lot of people in this party. And I think there's a real hunger in the party, and in the country, for someone who's gonna stand up for them, stand up and fight for something.
Who might that be? Do you have a candidate for 2004?
You know what? I'm for the person who can stand up and articulate where this party ought to go, who can do it in a tough way, who's not saying something one day and apologizing the next. I'll be for that person. But first let's give them all a chance to do it.
So you don't have a candidate yet?
No, I don't have a candidate. But hey look, it could be somebody who -- I don't care what they did in the past, I care what they're doing now. It's a new world, so let's have at it.
About the writer
Joan Walsh is the editor of Salon News.
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