David Sirota makes a good argument on what "Clintonism" is and is not and the lessons it provides for today:
Former Kerry aide Andrei Cherny has a piece in the New Republic that desperately - and quite ineffectively - tries to make the case for Democrats to return to an ethereal thing called "Clintonism." I put "Clintonism" in quotes because I think Cherny tries way too hard - and falls very short - in making the case that Clinton's record constitutes a "ism" that should - or even can - be followed as a bedrock ideology for the Democratic Party in the future. If Clinton espoused anything, it was the need to have a deft sense of pragmatism and willingness to surf the political tides - skills that protected his own power and helped him achieve some good things, but certainly cannot serve as a coherent ideology for a national party. Even Cherny basically admits that, saying "if there is one central tenet of Clintonism, it is that we live in a fast-changing world, and we must forever be changing with it." Exactly, and his statement's contradiction in terms proves my point: an "ism" is defined as "a distinctive doctrine" and a "doctrine" is defined as a "principle" - something that inherently doesn't "forever change." If, as Cherny claims, Clinton taught that Democrats must be forever changing, then Clinton's lessons do not constitute a real ideology, and certainly not a way back to the majority.
Excellent and correct in my view. However, I think David goes too far in describing how Clinton was elected:
According to Cherny, Clinton believed "that America's increasing global interdependence meant that the nation's entire approach to economic policy had to change radically." This is true. But what he fails to note is that Clinton was elected as an economic populist who pledged to change the nation's approach to economic policies in a way that put the interests of America's middle class above everything else. Clinton was elected as a quasi-economic populist - not the sort of super-Wall Street free trader that many of his international economic policies embodied.
I don't think Clinton was elected as a populist or free trader or any particular thing. He was elected as the guy who recognized a problem and thought he had some good ideas to deal with it. "Feel your pain" is a cliche, but it explained a lot in my opinion.
This may sound cynical, but Clinton taught us a lot about SELLING policies, in my opinion largely the right policies for the time. Are those policies right for today? Maybe some are and some are not. But it takes new thinking on the issues for formulating the right policies.
But the one lesson Clinton really provides is that politics is the art of the possible - and it is impossible to enact policies until you win.
To me, a more interesting discussion of Clinton would revolve around whether his political model works for us today. I think it mostly doesn't in the sense of the "positive" message, and finding the agreement with the other side model - commonly derided as triangulation.
I love and loved Clinton, but as I have stated many times, I am convinced that the politics of contrast, Lincoln 1860, is what we need for this political time.