Something else that was absent from Clinton’s speech was any sensing of intelligently reforming government, which used to be one of his favorite themes. That’s because he was addressing a party that has doubled down on government. Here’s my column from Politico today on this theme:
The Charlotte host committee knew its audience at the Democratic National Convention. “Government,” the narrator in a video produced by the committee for the opening of the convention says, “is the only thing we all belong to.”
The Obama campaign quickly disavowed the video. But it captured all that was to come. The Charlotte Democrats are of, by and for government — especially when it is guaranteeing and facilitating access to abortion.
God might have been left out of the party platform in a fit of absent-mindedness, but government would never suffer such an indignity. It is the Alpha and Omega. The maker of dreams, the giver of succor, the ultimate expression of community. When Democrats say “We’re all in it together,” what they really mean is that the Office of Extramural Research, Education and Priority Populations in the Department of Health and Human Resources needs twice as much funding.
For Clinton Democrats, the era of Big Government was over. For Obama Democrats, the era of Big Government is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Prior to prime time, the convention luxuriated in reproductive rights. Democrats apparently held the convention in the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, N.C., only because the local Planned Parenthood clinic down on Albemarle Road wasn’t available.