The GOP Thinks It's Still 1993

Greg Sargent resurrects Kristol's 1993 health care memo:

Kristol repeatedly says defeating Clinton on health care would deal a death knell to something that at the time already appeared on its way towards extinction the “welfare-state,” or the idea that government can improve the lives of the middle class.

Kristol describes this idea as “firmly in retreat,” in the process of being “rolled back,” in need of “re-legitimizing.” At the time the defeat of health care was viewed as a potential final victory over liberalism.

Fifteen years later, of course, political conditions are dramatically different. Polls show the public broadly supports a far more activist role for government and backs Obama’s plans to expand the federal government’s role in a way not seen in decades. And it’s conservative ideas that are in retreat. Yet the GOP is pursuing roughly the same strategy today that it did then.