William Saletan in Slate crystallizes why Clinton won (twice) and Gore lost:
Like Clinton, Gore said he would fight to help ordinary people. But Gore seemed more interested in fighting than helping. “I’ve taken on the powerful forces, and as president, I’ll stand up to them, and I’ll stand up for you,” he proclaimed. In the environmental war, he boasted, “I’ve never backed down, and I never will.” To Gore, conflict seemed noble. “The presidency is more than a popularity contest,” he said. “It’s a day-by-day fight for people. Sometimes you have to choose to do what’s difficult or unpopular. Sometimes you have to be willing… to pick the hard right over the easy wrong.”
This love of fighting was exactly what Clinton criticized in 1992. “The Republicans have campaigned against big government for a generation,” he observed. “They’ve run big government for a generation, and they haven’t changed a thing. They don’t want to fix government; they still want to campaign against it, and that’s all.” Besieged by Republican attacks on Arkansas, Clinton smiled and talked about lifting people up rather than tearing them down. The objective, as Clinton described it, wasn’t a victory of one group over another but a nation in which “no one is left behind.”
I love the us/them quote, which is remisniscent of Orson Scott Card’s ramen/varelse dichotomy, which as an evocation of the liberal arts concept of The Other, one of the central ideas of our civiliization and culture.
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