Maybe, more significant was that he was ideologically a center-right neoliberal, the same as the dominant faction of the Republican Party at the time he was elected.(but not the same as the right turn the Republican Party took in response.)
> he shifted to a more moderate position after 1994
Not really. Overall policy outcome shifted from what a center-right neoliberal with weakly progressive stands on social issues could agree with a Democratic Congress that was to his left on both economic and social issues on to what athe same President could agree with with a Congress that was slightly to his right on economic issues and far to his right on social issues.
Welfare reform, for instance, may have passed after Republicans took office, but it wasn't Clinton “shifting to a more moderate position”, as it was a major part (though not as significant as health care, on which he was defeated by Democratic defections before Republicans took control) of his 1992 platform.
But the point is, in either case, while you can find excuses for each of the exceptions to the supposed “divided government is normally total gridlock outside of unusual emergencies” idea, the history of divided government has far more exceptions than cases which support the rule.
Maybe, more significant was that he was ideologically a center-right neoliberal, the same as the dominant faction of the Republican Party at the time he was elected.(but not the same as the right turn the Republican Party took in response.)
> he shifted to a more moderate position after 1994
Not really. Overall policy outcome shifted from what a center-right neoliberal with weakly progressive stands on social issues could agree with a Democratic Congress that was to his left on both economic and social issues on to what athe same President could agree with with a Congress that was slightly to his right on economic issues and far to his right on social issues.
Welfare reform, for instance, may have passed after Republicans took office, but it wasn't Clinton “shifting to a more moderate position”, as it was a major part (though not as significant as health care, on which he was defeated by Democratic defections before Republicans took control) of his 1992 platform.
But the point is, in either case, while you can find excuses for each of the exceptions to the supposed “divided government is normally total gridlock outside of unusual emergencies” idea, the history of divided government has far more exceptions than cases which support the rule.