Democrats love Bill Clinton despite huge party losses

PHILADELPHIA — When Bill Clinton began his first term as president in 1993, the Oklahoma congressional delegation had five Democrats and three Republicans.

By Clinton’s final year in office, there wasn’t a single Democrat left. Most of the seats held by Democrats were won by Republicans in 1994, the first midterm election of Clinton’s presidency.

Oklahoma wasn’t alone; in 1994, Republicans captured Democratic seats all over the country and took over the U.S. House for the first time in 40 years.

Democrats don’t seem to hold it against him.

Clinton took the stage at the Democratic National Convention here Tuesday night a beloved figure in his party, and in the Oklahoma delegation, which helped nominate his wife for president.

“I was a fan then, and I’m a fan now,’’ said Betty McElderry, of Purcell, who was vice chairman of the Oklahoma Democratic Party in 1994 and is now on the party’s national committee.

Mike Turpen, an Oklahoma City attorney and longtime friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton, said here Tuesday that the former president’s legacy in Oklahoma is tied more to 1995 and the Oklahoma City bombing than the political realignment of 1994.

Clinton went to Oklahoma City the weekend after the bombing to speak personally to families and give a national address. He has returned numerous times for anniversary observances.

“His relationship with Oklahoma City is close and ongoing,” Turpen said. “Bill Clinton has said that Oklahoma is his favorite state that he never carried.”

Bill Clinton to blame?

Clinton had close Democratic friends in the Oklahoma congressional delegation before he was elected president. McElderry recalled that Clinton, when he was governor of Arkansas, attended the late Mike Synar’s annual barbecue in Muskogee.

Clinton and former Rep. Dave McCurdy were founding members of a group of conservative Democrats, and McCurdy gave a nominating speech for Clinton at the Democratic convention in 1992.

Synar and McCurdy were both defeated in 1994, after voting for several Clinton-backed bills, including the waiting period for handgun purchases and the ban on some semi-automatic weapons.

That was the year Republican Jim Inhofe coined the term “God, gays and guns” in beating McCurdy for the open U.S. Senate seat that had been held by Democrat David Boren.

McCurdy blamed the loss on Clinton, saying the election had become a national referendum on the president.

Synar, who was defeated in his re-election bid for the House, never publicly blamed Clinton for his own loss before succumbing to cancer about a year later.

But Clinton blamed himself, saying at Synar’s memorial service in Washington, “When he was defeated in 1994, there was probably no person in America more responsible for it than me.”

Turpen, who was chairman of the Oklahoma Democratic Party early in Clinton’s administration, said Tuesday that gun control probably cost McCurdy his election.

Said McElderry, “We allowed the Republican Party to label us. And they were all trained to use the same phrases.”

Lasting appeal

Gun control is again part of the Democratic platform and was featured as an issue here on Tuesday night, along with health care.

The agenda of Hillary Clinton is likely to be as problematic for Oklahoma Democrats as the one of her husband.

All seven members of the Oklahoma congressional delegation — the state lost a House seat after the 2000 census — are Republicans and all oppose much of that agenda. And all up for election this year are expected to win.

McElderry said, “You can’t take away the accomplishments of Bill Clinton. He left office with a budget surplus.”

She also credited his charisma for his lasting appeal.

“He’s just a people person,” she said. “It’s just incredible how he relates to people. And he’s an exciting personality.”