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Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes is running for the U.S. Senate in the great state of Kentucky. She is a woman of conviction, of substance, of principle. I'm not an empty dress, she insists, I'm not a rubber stamp, and I am not a cheerleader! I am a Clinton Democrat.

Back when Bill Clinton first ran for president, he did so as a new kind of Democrat. He was so determined to dispel the image of the Democrats as being soft on crime that he took time off from the campaign trail to approve the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a man so mentally disabled that when he ate his last meal, he left some of his pecan pie on his plate and told guards he was saving it for later.

Clinton vowed to reform welfare (though it took a Republican Congress to get him to follow through) and to end the era of something for nothing government handouts.

Clinton Democrats were spawns of the Democratic Leadership Council, a proudly centrist, pro-business and hawkish (by liberal standards) outfit within the Democratic Party, which is why left-wing Democrats often distrusted and occasionally despised it.

The DLC closed up shop in 2011, in large part because the Democratic Party has moved so far to the left (a fact repeatedly confirmed by Pew and Gallup surveys).

So it's interesting that Grimes, and a number of other Democrats, are calling themselves Clinton Democrats. What does she mean? When asked, she said that being a Clinton Democrat involves growing the middle class the right way.

As we saw under President Clinton's tenure, she explained, especially when you increase the minimum wage, you actually help to expand the middle class.

On another occasion, she said, We all know what being a Clinton Democrat is all about ... it's about remembering what President Clinton said in his campaign in 1992 it's the economy, stupid!

The only serious response to this has to be, Huh?

While it's true that Clinton raised the minimum wage, few economists would argue it had much to do with the booming economy of the 1990s. More to the point: President Obama has been campaigning relentlessly to increase the minimum wage. (I'd also note that the economy, stupid was James Carville's phrase, not Clinton's).

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The return of Clinton Democrats?