Bill Clinton Affirms To NBC That "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" Is Attacking Obama

In an interview on NBC today, reports Politico.com, "Meet The Press" interviewer David Gregory asked Former US President Bill Clinton, "Your wife famously talked about the vast right wing conspiracy targeting you. As you look at this opposition on the right to President Obama, is it still there?"

Clinton answered in the affirmative; "Oh, you bet. Sure it is. It's not as strong as it was, because America has changed demographically. But it's as virulent as it was. I mean, they're saying things about him. You know, it's like when they accused me of murder, and all that stuff they did... Their agenda seems to be wanting him to fail."

Bill Clinton's mention of the political import of demographic changes likely referred to an analysis, popular in liberal think-tank circles, which projects that because much the GOP's base has been rooted among white European-Americans, Democratic Party fortunes will rise in coming decades as non-European minority groups, which historically have tended to vote for Democratic Party candidates, come to constitute an ever-larger share of the voting electorate.

But that analysis ignores aggressive efforts to move the American conservative movement past its latter 20th Century ties to race-based politics. While the 2008 election amounted to a resounding defeat for the GOP, a multi-ethnic constituency of Christian conservatives managed unexpected upset victories in Florida, Arizona, and California by passing resolutions against legalized gay marriage in those states.

Those victories suggest the rise of a new, non-aligned but decidedly right-leaning faction in American politics, the Rainbow Right.