Loser Tells us How to Run the Country

(Disclosure: Global Trade Watch has no preference among the candidates.)

Hey, remember that guy named Mark Penn? Yeah, he worked for the paramilitary-linked government of Colombia to help pass a NAFTA expansion to that country, while at the same time running a presidential campaign of someone who opposed that pact. Hey, how did that work out for that particular consultant, and that particular candidate?

Gee, I can't remember back that far. But he sounds like the kinda guy I want to take advice from. Here's what Marky Mark wrote in Politico today:

Much of today’s gridlock problems are the fault of President Bush, who in his 2000 campaign pledged to defuse partisanship but who, upon entering the White House, pushed it as far as it could go at every turn. Virtually every initiative that would have required the common-sense center to coalesce has collapsed. ... Trade and global economic policy are also a mess because the center could not win out.

And yet, freed from the constraints of the left and the right, and under the right leadership, there is a vital center waiting to enact all of these measures. If Obama wins the presidency, it will fall to him to put together coalitions that would earn congressional support. Yet even the likelihood of expanded Democratic congressional majorities does not ensure success. After all, during his first two years in office, President Bill Clinton enjoyed Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, but conservatives succeeded in 1994 by portraying his first two years as surrender to liberal big government.

During President Clinton’s next six years in office, working with Republican congressional majorities, he achieved partial immigration reform, welfare reform, a balanced budget and significant increases to the minimum wage. While some on the left denigrate these achievements as triangulation, it was actually a centrist government molded by the left and right pulls of Clinton and Republican leaders such as House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, each bound by what centrists in both parties would be willing to pass.

This brings us back to the bailout. Solving this immediate economic crisis is just a first step. America needs reform of energy policy, entitlements, immigration and health care, to name just a few pressing national problems, if it is going to remain competitive with the rest of the world in the 21st century. Free and fair trade represent further challenges.

The nation’s center could probably find solutions to all of these problems pretty quickly.

Ow, mom. This historical revisionism stuff hurts! Didn't that Bill Clinton administration Mark is talking so fondly about LOSE its congressional majorities after pushing NAFTA instead of health care? And, he y, wait, didn't the Bush administration Clinton go almost its entire two terms without any Fast Track trade authority because people just didn't trust him on trade?

Most people would say something is centrist if it serves the interest and matches the view of the median voter / citizen. Folks, I don't know how many polls, and more polls, and research papers have to be published before establishment elites start realizing that a centrist position on trade is a fair-trade position. I guess when you're gunning for the Colombian gunners, your sample gets a bit skewed.