In less than a year, it will be time to go out and pick a brand new president for our country. Actually, the next president might not be so brand-new after all. If Hillary Clinton manages to hold on to her current popularity, she could well be the second Clinton to occupy the big desk in the west wing since 1990. And some people are saying that\u2019s a bad thing. For the past 20 years, we\u2019ve only had two names in the White House: Bush and Clinton. They argue that it\u2019s time for some new blood. Well, that\u2019s an argument that makes a lot of sense if you don\u2019t think about it too much. <\/p>\n
What that argument is really saying is that the second Bush was a lot worse than the first, so the second Clinton would likewise be expected to be worse than the first. But I think it would be the other way around. Bill Clinton was really just a hillbilly version of Ronald Reagan. Both of them were very good actors and very lucky presidents. They presided over sunny times; during Reagan\u2019s watch, America\u2019s arch-enemy, the Soviet Union, finally collapsed of its own weight; in Bill Clinton’s time, burgeoning information technologies and deregulation brought forth the fastest economic growth and most promising outlook since the 1920\u2019s. Despite a couple of minor military operations, both presidents presided over relatively peaceful times. So no wonder people look back on both with nostalgia, even though both had a lot more pearly teeth than integrity or virtue. These guys were not exactly Abraham Lincolns. <\/p>\n
By contrast, Hilary seems to trade charisma for substance. The question is, does she have the right substance for the unsettled days and years ahead, days when many evil chickens will come home to roost. The next president will face times just as bad as what Jimmy Carter faced (recall the energy crisis, inflation, recession and the Iranian hostage crisis). Carter had a lot of substance, but his lack of leadership doomed his presidency. At the other extreme, our most recent President Bush found out that all charisma and no substance eventually corrodes the public trust that propels one into the White House. <\/p>\n
Can Hilary strike the balance that FDR and JFK maintained (and made it look so easy)? I think she could — so long as she listens to Bill first, her own mind second, and then her heart last. I know that she\u2019s not without fault \u2013 she certainly didn\u2019t do very well in choosing a husband. But hey, she appears to be trying to make lemonade out of it, and I give her credit for that. Thus, I am personally ready for 8 more years of the Bush-Clinton era. They started out fairly well (George Herbert Walker Bush might well qualify for \u201cunder-rated\u201d status; he did a pretty good job with his own Iraq crisis), but they went down from there (although the prosperity of the Clinton years made Bill seem the better man). However, I think they could end on an up-note. I\u2019m willing to take a chance on Hillary, especially since the best alternatives seem too young (Obama) or can\u2019t gain traction within their own party (McCain).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In less than a year, it will be time to go out and pick a brand new president for our country. Actually, the next president might not be so brand-new after all. If Hillary Clinton manages to hold on to her current popularity, she could well be the second Clinton to occupy the big desk […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5441,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions\/5441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}