Role Reversal
The narrative of the 2007 Democratic presidential campaign was this: Hillary Clinton declared her inevitability and focussed on the general election, whereas Barack Obama and John Edwards challenged her ownership of core Democratic constituencies that typically dominate primary voting.
But in 2008 Senator Clinton, responding principally to the Obama challenge, is focussing on the factions that vote in primaries. She has repositioned herself less as a moderate, and more as the candidate of women, liberal activists, and minorities, especially Hispanics and Latinos. To this end, she has employed Bill Clinton as her Attacker-in-Chief so as to create the highly tendentious impression that Obama is soft on women's issues and a johnny-come-lately or even an ambivalent supporter of various liberal causes, such as Social Security and universal health care. As the Bill Clinton tactics suggest and her many micro-sallies and mini-attacks against Obama make clear, Hillary Clinton is now running, as did Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis, to win the primaries, but at the expense of appealing to the broader base necessary to win the general election.
Obama, meanwhile, has brought new voters into the Democratic Party, and especially connected electrically to younger voters. He is establishing a national reputation for inclusiveness across the lines that have politically divided racial groups, geographic blocks, and some special interests. His campaign generates the sort of appeal that could give Democrats a very broad and deep victory in November, one where the Presidential nominee would win big and would have long coattails that brought in large majorities for the Democrats in the Senate and the House.
This reversal of roles -- with Obama appealing to the necessary audience for the general and the Clintons going after the traditional base for the primaries -- is what is alarming Democratic Party candidates across the country. What Obama is doing works for everyone else on the Democratic ticket in any jurisdiction. The Clintons, as most dramatically demonstrated in the unfortunate period of using racial stereotypes, are running the risk of intensifying impressions of the Democrats as the party of divisiveness, old constituencies that have a poor record for change or even accomplishment, and a lack of good new ideas for nation-threatening challenges.
The obvious problem of course is that the Clintons are doing what often works in primaries. Particularly in states where independents do not vote in Democratic primaries, it will be hard to beat the Clintons' patchwork of women, seniors, and longtime party activists. Yet everyone in this traditional assemblage would vote enthusiastically for Obama in the general. What's more, he would bring in many new voters who either have no natural affinity for the Clintons, or, as in the case of independents who voted in the 90s, actually compose a portion of the inveterate opposition to the Clintons.
Most pertinent to those down-ticket on the Democratic side, the Obama candidacy does not appear likely to inspire a high turnout of religious fundamentalists and other deeply committed conservatives. But the more the Clintons show themselves as running as a team, something more and more like a co-Presidency, the more the spectre of a high anti-Clinton turnout looms large in the visions of Democratic candidates for all the non-national jobs.
The Obama-Clinton contest is not necessarily over on February 5. The two campaigns have more or less divided delegates in the early going, and are likely to split fairly evenly the delegates in the 22 states voting on February 5. At some point fairly soon, John Edwards will drop out, having run a very honorable and very progressive campaign. His endorsement will be quite valuable. But ultimately whether most of the Democratic Party focusses on the general election -- the so-called electability issue -- may determine who wins the primaries.
One aspect of the general is clear even from many months away: Paul Krugman should win a Nobel Prize for economics and a Pulitzer for writing. But he isn't at the same level in terms of political advice. His view is that the Democratic candidates should lean to confrontation, emphasizing progressive positions and defining differences with the Administration. Moreover, he wants candidates in the primary to focus on policy differences, however subtle, and not on such big goals as creating a cultural climate for change.
In fact, the best recipe for change in 2009 will be a huge victory in November 2008. Most important to the next President is not what he or she said in the campaign but how big a margin of popular vote he/she wins by, and how big a margin in Congress exists for Democrats. Bill Clinton was hampered for eight years by the fact that twice he failed to get 50% of the vote, and he never had any coattails at all. In 1996 the Perot candidacy probably hurt Bill Clinton's total vote, but at least in 1992 Perot played a big role in helping Clinton's moderate budget approach to succeed, and arguably without Perot the Democrats wouldn't have won that year. Gore got a greater popular vote than Clinton but of course lost the electoral college. What Democrats need in the general the party hasn't had in decades: a winner who gets a large margin above 50% in the popular vote and crushes in the electoral college.
We can see from Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada that not only did Obama run well in all three but that his appeal was broad-based and inclusive of many new voters. The evidence suggests he would carry all three of these states in the general. If South Carolina supports the same conclusion, then Obama, and not Clinton, may be the ideal candidate for the general election. How he makes that a theme for winning the primary is his immediate, and large, challenge.
Comments (22)
Your analysis seems very shallow, Reed. Obama had all the momentum in the world coming out of Iowa, and it's stalled because he hasn't been skilled enough to adapt his vague message of "change" to address the real needs of working-class people.
To think that his narcissistic-fluff strategy (skim over the issues, and just encourage people to project their hopes onto you) would hold up intact through a fall campaign against the GOP when it couldn't even last a week in January is wishful thinking.
And to say that "arguably without Perot the Democrats wouldn't have won" in 1992 is simply ridiculous.
January 20, 2008 1:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Biil Clinton had 8 years to "address the real needs of working-class people." And what did he give them. Well Nafta for one thing that has done more damage to American workers than any single policy since the last depression. Then there is his so called welfare reform that was a brilliant act of triangulation and co-opting a republican issue, but working class people certainly didn't benefit from this. And as this campaign is so clearly showing, Bill Clinton is really the one who is running. As Bush is Cheney's puppet, we are beginning to see who is pulling Hillary's strings.
January 20, 2008 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
If Obama was making those arguments against NAFTA and welfare reform in his speeches and campaign ads, he might be doing better with working-class voters.
Unfortunately, his strategist seems to have convinced him that campaigning on issues is icky. So perhaps you should address your complaint to Obama rather than me.
January 20, 2008 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
My point is that the Clinton's are not friends of the working classes. Robert Reich, probably the most progressive of any in the Clinton cabinet knows this and is why he is supporting Obama.,
January 20, 2008 4:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Care to back any of this up with something other than weary cynicism?
January 21, 2008 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sure. Look at Obama's latest advertising, which gets a lot more concrete about addressing real-world problems:
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid353515028/bctid1382896025
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2008/01/21/politics/p104435S62.DTL&type=printable
January 21, 2008 5:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hillary first positioned herself as a hawk. Now, she's positioned herself to appeal to some, but not all, minorities, some but not all women, and older voters. But is she really appealing to them on issues or pitting them against other candidates? Seems to me all she's really doing is running for Bill's third term which he seems to feel entirely entitled.
January 20, 2008 1:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent essay. This past week I have also come to the conclusion that electability should be a prime issue in the upcoming general election. A few months back, it appeared that any of the six top candidates could beat the Republicans. However, as you so cogently explain, Hillary's negatives in the general public are growing with the way Bill is being used and to her narrow focus now on women and hispanics. In addition, what could make this even more important is that John McCain will have much more appeal to the general public -- indeed he will likely capture large numbers of independents that are now supporting Obama if Hillary wins.
I take issue with one point you made. Hillary's base is not strong among liberals, if by liberal you include progressive democrats. Long time party regulars here in my neck of the woods are split with a majority leaning to Obama or Edwards. Hillary's negatives extend to many of these people.
January 20, 2008 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I’m Barack Obama and I approve of this message.
My horse is going to lay back, run to the outside and then raid the front-runner in the stretch. I will not run in the mud to win, of course, and the front-runner must be taking steroids or something because she’s running like she wants to win. This is alarming the gamblers, but I tell you, it’s a hell of a horse race.
Isn't this just a twist on the 'Clinton has too much baggage to beat any Republican' argument? I don't support Clinton but I don't think the fact that she's focused on winning the nomination is a reason to vote against her.
It seems to me that Obama was playing victim of the race game to his benefit at least initially (with an eye on S.C.?) but it's all a distraction from choosing the best candidate. I think Edwards would score best on the electability account but is this what we should be choosing a Democratic nominee on? Isn't that what we've been doing for a couple of cycles now? How has that worked out?
January 20, 2008 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama is the victim of a race game and Bill is acting more like a party machine boss than a former President.
January 20, 2008 1:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bluebell,
I tried to edit my comment because I had second thoughts about opening that can of worms. But I agree with you about the machinations of the Clinton camp, though I think the race thing was blown up.
I think some in the Clinton camp attempted to smear Obama but not with race, which could only backfire on them. And, as I saw it, some in the Obama camp tried to exploit impolitic remarks as racial slurs while he, personally, stayed silent, above the fray. And I’m not judging him for doing that; this is the way politics are played and this is exactly the stuff our Enquirer media loves.
Regardless, it's all a distraction from the issues. The broad appeal that Reed is talking about is all tied to perception and both sides have been pretty good about protecting that. I really think that any of the candidates can win the general by painting the Republican with a Bush brush. I do not support HRC because I think she will compromise with corporate interests and is too much of a hawk, but not because she has a strong political machine. I feel the same way about Obama to a lesser extent.
The premise of this post, electability, is what gave us Kerry last time. This time, the horse-race media determined that it would be Hillary vs. Obama before the first primary and that can’t be changed. But we don’t have to play their game, either. All I’m saying is we need to debate the candidate’s positions and try to determine what they would actually do as president.
January 20, 2008 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't object to a party machine but when it's being used against people in your own party some things ought to be off limits and race should always be off limits. The Clintons know the code and I don't believe there was anything accidental in how race was used against Obama. That put him in a no win position on the issue.
I'm not particularly a fan of Obama's. I'm just sick of the Clintons. I don't have any interest in pay back. I want a President pushing my issues. I'm not out to settle scores with Republicans. I don't see any point in electing a Democrat if they are going to govern like a Republican. So much of this just seems a total sham. Like the Hispanics are for Hillary? So what is Hillary going to do for Hispanics? Is she going to stick her neck out on the immigration issue? When hell freezes over.
January 20, 2008 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
My sentiments exactly. I wish the pundits and pontificators would try to pin down the candidates on liberal and progressive programs that they will pursue. It was going pretty good until the “season” began (look at the programs for health care that were spelled out). The problem with the focus on the race and dirty politics and ‘electability” is that it forces the candidates into vague meaningless, feel-good pronouncements and appeals instead of hemming them into programs they have to try to enact if they’re elected.
January 20, 2008 2:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Comedian reed hundt:
"Obama, meanwhile, has brought new voters into the Democratic Party, and especially connected electrically to younger voters."
I guess obama's problem would be the voters keep voting for Hillary. Maybe he should try bring out voters that will vote for him?
More from comedian reed hundt:
"To this end, she has employed Bill Clinton as her Attacker-in-Chief so as to create the highly tendentious impression that Obama is soft on women's issues and a johnny-come-lately or even an ambivalent supporter of various liberal causes, such as Social Security and universal health care."
Oh that's a good one. Bill Clinton is the reason obama voted present on tough abortion votes. Bill Clinton is the reason obama voted present as a state senator and skiped tough US senate votes. Bill Clinton is the reason obama never met an Iraq war funding bill [except one since he started his run] he wouldn't vote for. reed you're killing me... Stop it.
If obama sinks it's obama's fault. The "liberal media" could not possible do any more to help him. So that comes out of the equation. What's left is obama. So far he doesn't add up for the voters.
How about this: Until proven otherwise obama is a light weight. He 'beat' alan keyes for his senate seat. If he wants to run with the The Big Dogs he has to prove he can keep up.
January 20, 2008 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I guess obama's problem would be the voters keep voting for Hillary."
So far, there's been three contests, Obama winning one by a relatively large margin, and Clinton winning the other two by smaller margins. The delegate count is basically even.
Why is it that Clinton and her supporters can't deal with facts honestly? Obama gets the highest rating possible from pro-choice groups. Hillary tries to muddy what are clear differences on the Iraq War through baldfaced distortion of their respective records.
I thought progressives felt that the truth matters. But, then again, both Clintons have proved time and time again that progressive values are easily sacrificed when their political ambitions are threatened.
January 20, 2008 8:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Amazing.
"So far, there's been three contests, Obama winning one by a relatively large margin, and Clinton winning the other two by smaller margins. The delegate count is basically even."
So far there have been 3 contests and obama lost 2. You can pretend record numbers are turning out for obama but facts are stubborn things.
"Why is it that Clinton and her supporters can't deal with facts honestly?"
And what is with obamavangelists throwing around insults? Try this: Grow Up
January 20, 2008 8:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
The "role reversal" here is that you're promoting Republican talking points about Democrats.
January 20, 2008 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama has got to start talking about issues and vision again, draw some starker contrasts between himself and Clinton, challenge her record and and hold the Clinton campaign accountable for the liberties they are taking with the truth. He's been letting them define his stance, their stance and the whole campaign policy debate. They're walking all over him as he tries to stay on the high, abstract road of grand themes and personal qualities.
Obama has let the Clintons define him as an impractical and unprepared dreamer while Clinton portrays herself as the hands-on Queen of the Policy Wonks, and they're just letting that sit there. This is ridiculous, because once you start chipping away at Clinton's campaign policy bullet points, you find that it is a lot of window dressing with no firm commitments, and a lot of buck-passing onto select bipartisan commissions and such.
People have already heard the Obama unity message. They like the unity message. But he's got to get back on a more substantive and hard-edged track or he's going to lose progressive Democrats. It's way too early to be running to the center. You can bet that if Hillary Clinton gets into the general election, she'll be right back on her hard line horse, moving back to the right, and reminding everyone why she is the favorite Democratic candidate of people like Charles Krauthammer. But right now she is shoveling phony-left horseshit for Democrats, when she is not boo-hooing about "finding her own voice", and the Obama campaign is letting her get away with it.
Some months ago, the chief appeal of the Obama campaign for some of us was the prospect of a new direction on foreign policy. While Clinton was blasting Bush for not taking a harder line with Iran, voting for Lieberman-Kyl, and basically continuing along with her Bush-lite approach to the Middle East, Obama was proposing talks with Iran, itemizing the costs of the war Clinton voted for, expressing some sympathy with the Palestinians and pointing toward something different. He pointed out that part of the reason Pakistan was a place where Islamic extremists could assassinate a leading presidential contender was because the war Clinton voted for had absorbed a huge amount of US resources and attention. The Clinton campaign whined and protested about this, of course, but that's because he scored a hit. Since then, what?
Since then, Clinton has moved to the left on foreign policy and she and Bill have completely falsified her record on the war and her subsequent foreign policy stances. Not only has the Obama campaign let them get away with it, they have completely stopped talking about foreign policy in sharp terms. We just had the President take a trip to the Middle East, a trip which was a colossal flop. He attempted to bang the war drum on Iran and round up more allies. But only the Israelis were buying his act, and he only ended up making a fool of himself and the country. This whole thing was teed up perfectly for Obama. Silence.
What's going on here? I have a feeling this has something to do with the campaign M.J. described here. Ever since somebody began to target Jewish voters for an anti-Obama campaign, the Obama camp has clammed up on Iran and everything else related to the Middle East. They appear to be running scared.
My whole approach to this campaign has been figuring out which candidate is most likely to keep my son safe and out of war, and stop bending over for the paranoid, war-besotted Israelis. Well, if I'm going to get the same Aipac-generated crap out of Obama that we've been getting from Clinton for the past six years, then what the hell is the difference?
January 20, 2008 8:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama has a clear opening to nail down the DFHs. The people who faught for Civil Rights, than against the first CF war (Vietnam) and then for the environment, and then for women's rights, and then against apartheid, and then for gay rights, and finally against this CF war, which is to say the demographic that largely overlaps with the Boomers has been begging for leadership to roll back the deeply destructive 'Reagan Revolution'. A lot of us admire the Clintons on tactical grounds, they played their hands as best they could given the stacked deck they were dealt, but at least among white DFHs they really don't stir hearts.
Obama had a clear shot at being the Second Coming of FDR, instead he managed to channel Ike. It is odd and disappointing because despite Obama's apparent campaign message DFH Boomers are not the problem, we would love to be part of the solution and it kind of hurts that Obama chose to spit in our faces instead.
January 21, 2008 6:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Paul Krugman should win a Nobel Prize for economics and a Pulitzer for writing. But he isn't at the same level in terms of political advice. His view is that the Democratic candidates should lean to confrontation, emphasizing progressive positions and defining differences with the Administration. Moreover, he wants candidates in the primary to focus on policy differences, however subtle, and not on such big goals as creating a cultural climate for change."
a "cultural climate for change" ????
It wasn't Bush rhetoric that created the vast and bitter partisanship that is America today; it was the actions and policies that were carried out by this criminal group. Does that mean in opposing these thugs, no appeal should be made to their supporters? No. Can't such an appeal be made in the context of an explicit, spelled-out, populist frame? Can't one talk of two Americas and still reach out as Obama does to Republicans and independents? I think so. Does Obama do this. A little bit heavy on the appeal to bipartisanship...very light on the populism and the progressivism. It is quite a feat to run to the right of the Clintons in the Democratic Party, but Obama seems to have done this. Mr.Hundt will have to excuse those of us who are not so taken with Obama's campaign. If he wants our support we need a lot more than paean's to Saint Reagan; we get a fairly steady diet of that from Republicans. That of course by itself is not a big issue, but Obama's campaign has been incredibly heavy with Republican talking points...erasing the role of Bush and the far right in creating the policies and politics that have destroyed this country.
"In fact, the best recipe for change in 2009 will be a huge victory in November 2008. Most important to the next President is not what he or she said in the campaign but how big a margin of popular vote he/she wins by, and how big a margin in Congress exists for Democrats."
I am not so sure. I thought the big Democratic victory of 2006 would have brought an energized new majority willing to seriously engage in fighting the Bush gang. Instead, we got the bipartisan spirit of the Bush dogs...if we bend low enough maybe the Republicans will only walk gently over us. Mr.Hundt here is wrong. Winning with the wrong Democrats seems to ensure a continuation of Bush policies.
Obama may be better than his campaign. I hope so. He could also be worse. In any case, whether Obama or Clinton wins the nomination, it would seem to me that progressives will have to have strong stomachs to vote for either.
January 21, 2008 5:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Reed is turning reality on its head.
The Obama campaign through its hiring decisions (Goolsbee, Liebman, Cutler) and rhetoric (Social Security crisis, no mandates) long ago made the decision to run to the right of Clinton on economic policy. The notion that any of that was the fault of Clinton campaign decision making or Krugman framing is just ridiculous.
Obama had a clear opening on the left, he chose to run to the center/right and Clinton is taking advantage.
Gag me. I am no huge Hillary fan, but Reed is so far in the tank for Obama and his specious message of change (which mostly sums up to 'Boomers suck') that any thinking progressive should be driven to turn out to canvass for Clinton.This is simply an Obama campaign piece hiding within the thinnest facade of political analysis. It is little less than an in-kind donation to the campaign.
Obama's overt decision making is what drove all this. No one put a gun to his head and make him start taking advice from Austan Goolsbee all the way back in 2004, the Clintons did not cleverly trap him into hiring Social Security privatizer Jeffrey Liebman last summer. People who actually know things about policy (think Paul Krugman) noticed these hires, put them together with campaign rhetoric and calculated that 2+2=4. A calculation that has been abundantly confirmed by Obama's recent talk supporting one or more aspect of Reagan's legacy.
Reagan's implicit message was that DFHs were not real Americans and that he would take us back. 'Morning in America' translated to 'forget everything that happened from Nov 1963 to Jan 1981. Nope instead it was forward to the past. Well screw that, on balance we DFHs got it right in 1968 and we got it right in 2003 and we really don't like being dismissed out of hand. If you are not angry about the state of this country at home and its now current image around the world you simply are not paying attention.
Not for the first time Reed is dead wrong here. The answer to America's problem may indeed lie in the past. But it isn't the mythical past of Ozzie and Harriet and fuzzy good feelings, it is the very real past of 1932 and the sharp elbows that went into putting the New Deal into action. The Reaganites declared not just a war but a veritable revolution in 1980, after 20 years of sustained victories the choice of a extraordinarily inept Commander in Chief ended up putting them on the run and now we have Reed Hundt playing Phil Sheridan when the times call for a U.S.Grant.
You don't know whether to call this piece 'fluff' or 'puff', either way it is embarrassing.
January 21, 2008 6:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
My guess is that Obama's been losing some ground by tacking right at the wrong time. He had a unique position. He could appeal to the left, which distrusted Clinton, and to the right, which always hated her, while his rhetoric of hope and reaching across the political spectrum held out something to both. He also kept raising the Iraq vote, and people could more or less take the debate over health care mandates as wonkish and positions as subject to change.
He made the mistake, I guess, of figuring that his rhetoric was working and the white guys were splitting the white vote. By now, however, Obama has got most of his mileage already out of his rhetoric, and the task has started to switch to who picks up Edwards supporters. Meanwhile, however, a lot of people were seeing the candidates as almost identical on almost all issues, which might ease some left fears of Clinton. And just at that moment, he turns down the gambles, as on who'd negotiate with Iran, and started citing Reagan just as the recession fears kick in and favor a little more economic populism in Democratic voters.
It's probably just a temporary glitch in a time where predictions are almost impossible. And I'm always decrying commenters here who assume that because they're on the left or a supporter of this and that, that it's the politically wise thing to do. But I'd still say he messed up recently.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
January 21, 2008 6:49 AM | Reply | Permalink