Sorting Tray
A brief on the bubbling of the Democratic presidential contenders.
The people are all but begging for a Democratic president, but John McCain has to be knocked down hard before the Democratic nominee has to do it personally. Giulliani will not likely survive the GOP nomination process, because, unlike McCain, he cannot cultivate the far right, and cornered by nationwide enmity for the Administration, Congress and the growing internal breaks over immigration, the far right will be in no mood to compromise.
No molly-coddling at all. No mercy must be shown to John McCain. The Keating Five scandal should be raised again. His anti-abortion beliefs must be made prominent in a changed legal environment: the South Dakota law makes this a viable issue. He must be closely associated with the failure of Congress to supervise the war. McCain is the best hope of, to borrow Lou Dobbs' astonishing phrase, the corporate supremacists, and his vaunted independence proved to be a thin style.
Which brings us to Hilary Clinton. Notice how quiet we've been about her. The problem, strangely enough, is that she's a effective politician with strong policy experience and has been an extremely successful Senator. She's smart and tough. However, I have yet to meet a Democrat locally who really supports her. Part of this is practical: we know the irrational enmity she generates on the other side, and we know it will be hard to win Independents to her with any enthusiasm. In response, she is also heavily positioning herself as a fair-to-middling centrist, a feminist ceding huge ground in the alleged culture wars, going with the one-hour Liebermanizing. Her recent moves read self-serving and insincere, and something of a betrayal to ordinary progressives in rough times.
Her indistinct position on the war, generally supporting it, will not play well in the West Coast primaries, judging by the serious grief Maria Cantwell is getting. It will feel like Kerry's major weakness all over again. And like Kerry, maybe fatally, she seems to lack that self-deprecating ease with people that McCain and even Bush has that people find compelling in American politics: it's a legitimate point coming from an egalitarian political culture. If the people smell your belief in your own entitlement to power, you're likely cooked. W's singular genius - yes, there is one - is pretending he doesn't believe in his own entitlement. He brilliantly fakes sincerity, his accent waxing and ebbing depending on the audience. Reports of him in personal circumstances describe his hypocritical imperiousness.
All that aside, however, polls are showing close races with her and McCain, although any Democrat who can hold up a hat beats Jeb Bush. Conclusion: she could win, but it would involve a brutal tear-down of McCain, which is fine by me, and a new ability to fake sincerity well.
Democrats have an interesting depth of field this season: John Edwards, John Warner, Al Gore, Barak Obama, Bill Richardson, Russ Feingold. Warner made a bit of a splash earlier this year, but strikes me as a lightweight, and it is uncertain whether he can recover from that photo on the NYT Magazine. Personally, I think Bill Richardson would be an excellent president, with an easy wit, an underestimated political instinct, and fatherly demeanor, but, like Warner, there's not enough evidence of his national appeal. John Edwards has impressed me recently: he's spent the last years working very hard on poeverty policy, building up a foundation, getting cooly passionate about injustice, and is showing the depth and fire he appeared to lack last time. Barak's charisma is real, and a rock star with a brain and leadership is something Democrats need- I worry only that he's might get Senatisis, the wasting disease.
That leaves Al Gore. I think I'm over my anger at him for caving in 2000, out of what I think was a misapplied love of country. Here's what interesting: progressives out here are lighting up when you talk about Al Gore these days, with his increasingly impressive voice on the environment, an issue where we destroy the GOP when the people take it seriously. He is also at heart a moderate, rather than a centrist (in other words his beliefs seem sincere, rather than seeking a middle target), and he's relaxed, funny and righteous in public, leagues away from his caricature- which gives him an opportunity to impress people. Unlike 2000, and if you go by the environmental model, he's learned when and how to be both progressive and popular.
The NYT suggested in that long odd story about the Clintons that Bill might be behind Al more than Hillary. That SNL sketch with it's imaginary contrast of the last eight years doesn't hurt. If you ask me who might run who could unite and inspire the Democratic party, it's Al Gore, Barak Obama, or John Edwards.
To bring in progressives, the candidate would need a fresh position on the war and a record of action on a core issue: the environment for Gore, poverty for Edwards. The progressive left will respect real work even if the ideology is essentially moderate. That solves the basic Democratic problem: moderates appeal naturally to the majority of the people, and a record of effective work on key issues keeps the progressives active.
Hillary might win through sheer organizational force. But Gore, Edwards, Warner, and Richardson have the huge advantage of not having voted on the war, so their positions would be at least fresh. And a genuinely united and inspired party would take back the nation in 2008.
posted by JAB at 10:59 AM
2 Comments:
Unfortunately, because the Democrats are a minority party, more than they alone must be inspired and united to rescue the nation from the GOP. Because we'll need someone who can secure a Diebold-proof margin of victory from a lot of former GOP voters.
We'll need someone who, in addition to (and I would say overwhelmingly more than) pointing at accomplishments in social or environmental areas, will take the initiative away from the GOP and the neocons, and never give them the opportunity to land a blow by making people afraid that the Dem candidate cares more about global warming than about their near-term security.
This candidate will have to tear the Republicans a new one their handling of the war, and the economy, as well as their overwhelmingly greater tendency to corruption.
On this last point, the candidate will need help from William Jefferson, who must at a minimum resign his committee seats. Otherwise, the swing-able voters won't listen when the Dems try to position themselves as less slimy than Republicans.
If they pull all of that off, the candidate will still need to sell a big idea, one that will inspire people to contribute to a cause greater than their self-interest.
The rehabilitation of the U.S. image abroad springs to mind, but too many people don't see that as a problem to solve, or even one that exists. Here's to hoping somebody comes up with a more appealing banner to follow than can I.
Your last sentence makes my case - we have to break people out of their self-interest. People generally want to be pulled out of their narrow self interest.
Energy and Environment, united as one issue, offer an opportunity; the people are with the Democratic party on this more than than Democrats seem willing to believe. (It would be interesting to propose profit/price controls on gasoline, good policy or not, just to see the split between the rural ranks and the leadership of the GOP).
The issue of poverty, exposed to the public mind in Katrina, and linked with basic government competency, is also an opportunity if handled with a sense of restoring national pride.
We're the minority party in government, but a plurality of U.S. voters ID as Democrats. Act like we can run the country and we will.
But the point was that Democratic ranks are calling for blood, and centrists -as opposed to moderates who know when a fight matters- will neither win primaries nor be able to destroy McCain, assuming, and this is a big assumption, McCain can win his primaries. He is sucking up right and right, and I'm not sure they're buying it, while he's rapidly losing his appeal to moderates. But he had no other option to win GOP primaries.
As for security, Americans at the moment are more worried about the certainty of their sons and daughters dying in Iraq, rather than the by now rather abstracted domestic terrorist threat. Yet even here the GOP is vulnerable as a result of Katrina. They've screwed up or failed to fix the basic functioning of all kinds of domestic emergency systems, and we can say in all truth they're not trustworthy to keep us safe.
The Democratic candidate with a clean record on the war has a big advantage if the focus is on the future. The GOP is hugely vulnerable on this, because of the large bases still being built in Iraq, and their total lack of credibility.
It is mistake to overestimate your strength. But it is a worse mistake to underestimate it. This robs your ability to act, and is defeat before you begin.
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