Matt Bai, who covers national politics for the N.Y. Times magazine, has a very thoughtful article in the Sunday magazine about how the Bill Clinton presidency continues toexert a strong influence on today's Democratic Party. He notes that all three of the leading Democratic candidates have been defined, to a greater or lesser extent, by their attitude toward the Clinton era. Rank and file party members, for their part, have sorted themselves out among those candidates based on their own assesment of those years. Those critical of Bill Clinton's centrist policies seem more likely to favorEdwards or Obama. Bai observes, however, that the rhetoric ofboth men is deeply indebted to President Clinton:

Obama can rail about poll-tested positions and partisanship if he wants, but some of his most memorable speeches since being elected to the Senate have baldly echoed Clintonian themes and language. He has repeatedly called on poor African-Americans to take more responsibility for their parenting and their childrens education, and he has been skeptical of centralized federal programs for the poor, advocating a partnership between government and new kinds of community-based nonprofits. He has railed against a mass-media culture that saturates our airwaves with a steady stream of sex, violence and materialism. Such values stances were far outside the mainstream of the party before Bill Clinton expressed them....

Similarly, Edwards, doing his best William Jennings Bryan impression, lashes out at the policy priorities of the 90s and at poverty deepened by corporate venality, but his arsenal of specific proposals includes expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit and accelerating the process of moving people out of public housing and into mixed-income neighborhoods. These new ideas are actually extensions of Clinton-era programs; they may be notable for their boldness but not for their originality. And even Edwards, in criticizing the lack of aid for poor Americans, has constructed his ambitious agenda on the central premise that people should get assistance only if theyre willing to work for it. In todays environment, this hardly qualifies as noteworthy theres no serious Democratic candidate who would propose anything else but it represents a marked shift from the partys stance on welfare programs before Clinton started talking about those who work hard and play by the rules.

The irony that Bai notes, however, is that while Governor Clinton ran to some extent as an "outsider"--challengingDemocratic Party orthodoxyas much as he challenged George Bush--Senator Clinton's campaign often looks back to the past, with an implicit promise to restore the successful policies of theBill Clinton'spresidency.He closes with this observation:

Nonincumbents who go on to win the White House almost always take some greater risk along the way, promising changes more profound if potentially more divisive than a return to normalcy. The reformer runs great danger. The more cautious candidate merely runs.

I'll add my own observation that one of the ironies of the Obama candidacy is that it appears to be appealing both to people who would like to pursue more liberal policies than President Clinton pursued, but alsotoself-described "moderates" eager to move beyond the polarizationthat they associate with the Clinton era. It's reasonable to wonder which of these groups Obama will end up having to disappoint.