Politics & Power Quote by Rich Lowry

Lowry’s line isn’t really about Clinton so much as it’s about the political magic trick Clinton represented: a Democrat who could wear liberal priorities while speaking fluently in the cultural accent of the right-leaning South and exurbs. “Bubba” does a lot of work here. It’s a shorthand with a smirk, conjuring the white, working- to middle-class voter who responds less to policy white papers than to vibes: guns, church, country music, suspicion of elites. Lowry’s intent is to name a rare crossover figure and, at the same time, to needle the Democratic coalition for needing one.

The subtext is transactional. Clinton’s appeal wasn’t presented as ideological conversion but as cultural translation. He could be “liberal” on paper and still reassure conservatives that he wasn’t sneering at them. That implies a critique of modern liberalism as culturally estranged from large swaths of the electorate: not wrong on issues, but tonally alien. The compliment contains a warning.

Context matters: the 1990s “New Democrat” era, when Democrats were rebuilding after three straight presidential losses and triangulation was a governing strategy, not a meme. Clinton’s Arkansas background, rhetorical folksiness, and performative normal-guy ease created permission structures for voters who were economically flexible but culturally conservative. Lowry, as a conservative editor, frames this as an exceptional political talent - and an implicit rebuke to Democrats who later chased policy purity or activist language without the same retail empathy. The sentence is simple; the worldview beneath it is that elections are often won by cultural comfort, not philosophical alignment.