General Discussion

Both he and Obama are two term Democratic presidents with political charisma. However, if you measure their ability to unite by whether they reduced the polarity in today's politics, they didn't. There has been a near constant increase in people not just picking a side, but especially on the right moving from the center to the extreme.

Obama and Clinton are extremely different as people and as politicians. Both tried as their goal to bring Americans together. Clinton's approach was to make the Democrats into "new Democrats" - mainly de emphasizing unions and being more business friendly, but nowhere near as much as the Republicans. This could be seen as trying to find common ground. The Republican response - contract "on" America and impeachment, not rapprochement.

Obama first came to major public notice with a brilliant speech at the 2004 convention that argued in an almost prayerful way against the polarizing view of two completely different incompatible red and blue groups. His campaign was not just hope, but reaching out to everyone. Yet, Republican Senators and Congressmen almost all voted against the ACA, including some who actually had been sponsors of similar legislation since the 1990s.

Both of these Presidents were willing and capable of leading a unified country. The problem was that Republicans have long considered their role, when out of power, to be to prevent Democrats from doing anything. They are not willing to consider meeting us half way.