http://www.esquire.com/features/bill-clinton-interview-1009-4#ixzz0QXi2WbKB"> President Clinton says he should have set up a bipartisan process in Congress, so that the people would know what the Republicans were proposing, and vote against them in 1994. With all due respect, Mr. President, you could not be more wrong. A long slow build up to 1994 with the election as a referendum on competing proposals would have been a disaster. If the Democratic Party can't get their message straight now, with a majority, what chance Congressional representatives in the heat of an election, betting on their own survival? The only thing in your analysis that rings true is two sentences: "(The GOP's) only option is to beat anything. Kill it off". You see that as personal to Bob Dole? The lesson of the 1990's is that's standard issue Republican MO, a lesson you seem NOT to have learned.
(Today) one of the reasons you see so many Republicans negotiating is that they know we've got sixty votes with Specter switchingThe thing is I don't see "so many Republicans negotiating". I don't think they've moved an inch from 'beat anything, kill it off'. If that's you take on the 1990's, you took home the wrong lesson.
BILL CLINTON: WHY I FAILED ON HEALTH CARE
I should not have written Legislation in the first place
I realized too late that I couldn't get the health-care reform through in the ordinary course of business. If I had known in the beginning what I found out once we got into the weeds, I would have told the American people that I could not keep my commitment to them to put this bill up this quick, and that I was going to set up a bipartisan process and they need to realize that Congress as it currently existed would not pass health-care reform. So they needed to listen to the Republicans, and they needed to listen to us, and decide who they agreed with and vote in the midterm elections accordingly, and I would hope they would support our people, but we would respond based on what they did.
By fighting that against all the odds, without explaining it to people when we realized it, we made all our vulnerable Democrats more vulnerable. It lowered the turnout of our voters, and when we did pass the gun legislation in our budget, it raised the turnout of their voters.
I didn't have the numbers
And keep in mind, the distribution of parties in the Senate was 55 — 45. It wasn't 60 — 40 like we've got now. So when you add the fact that we were taking this up, they had the filibuster votes they needed in the Senate. one of the reasons you see so many Republicans negotiating is that they know we've got sixty votes with Specter switching.
Bob Dole was running for president
And we now know, and I'm surer of this than anything: We just couldn't do it as long as Bob Dole was running for president. He's a good guy, and he's a friend of mine, and the whole time I dealt with him, the only time he was not as good as his word was on this. After Rostenkowski had asked for a bill, I personally asked Bob in the Cabinet Room if we could sit down and write a bill together and send a joint bill to the Congress. Because he was really good on health care for a Republican, cared about it, and he said, "You know, you need to send a bill in and we need to produce a bill, so that people know there are differences between the two parties and our approaches. Then we'll get together and compromise it out." When he said that, I think he believed it. Then he gets Bill Kristol's famous memo that says, you know, If you let Bill Clinton pass any kind of health-care bill, the Democrats will be the majority party for a generation, and you can forget about your presidential hopes. Your only option is to beat anything. Kill it off.
"I'm surer of this than anything: We just couldn't do it as long as Bob Dole was running for president."
Sorry Bill, you just don't get it.