Old-time new Democrats.

• Author: Reed, Adolph, Jr.
• Position: Column

It's Lundi Gras, the day before Mardi Gras, and I'm in New Orleans. Both time and place seem particularly appropriate for beginning to reflect on the Clinton Presidency. Louisiana was one of the few Southern states that the Democrats won last November--despite our having been told that Clinton had to run a center-right campaign because he had to win the South. The city, which went heavily for the Clinton/Gore ticket, is predominantly black and chronically depressed economically, and the local economy shows clearly the evils of segmented labor markets. Coming back here for Mardi Gras for the first time in twenty-five years gives me an interesting occasion to think about race and change in Southern politics and the curious role of the Left in the Democratic Party.

I should state at the onset, though it's probably not a surprise to Progressive readers, that I've never been a Clinton enthusiast. His identification with the Democratic Leadership Council was reason enough for skepticism, which was reinforced by his campaign's sly pandering to white racism. Only naifs or lapdogs could miss the point when he projected himself as champion of the forgotten "middle class" and repeatedly linked "welfare reform" and "personal responsibility."

Looming over everything else about Clinton, however, is the specter of Rickey Ray Rector. Rector was the black sacrifice to the candidate's ambition. He also embodied the least common denominator of the DLC's agenda for the Democratic Party: Appeal to disaffected white voters by demonstrating willingness to get tough on minorities.

For those who may not recall, Clinton went home from the campaign trail to oversee Rector's execution by the state of Arkansas on January 24, 1992. In 1981, Rector, who had always been mentally disabled, had killed a police officer in the town of Conway and then turned the gun on himself, blowing away the front of his brain. Despite his subsequent mental impairment--described in poignant detail by Marshall Frady recently in The New Yorker--Rector was convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white Conway jury. After a decade of vain appeals, the only hope left for saving his life was gubernatorial action. Clinton offered only promises to pray and other such bromides. He noted that he "personally" opposed capital punishment, but refused either to commute the death sentence or even to stay its execution. At the same time he allowed his operatives to boast that he was the only Democratic contender who had ever actually executed anyone.

Clinton is often seen as an avatar of (yet another) New South liberalism, and the DLC itself grew from the Southern wing of the party that has led the...