Bait and switch: Hillary and the end of the "children's crusade"
In a sense Barack Obama naming Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State would be as if George W. Bush had named a pro-choice feminist to the Supreme Court: an insult to his base. All the youngsters that rang the doorbells and manned the phones and computers, expecting a change they believed in, are now learning what the word "sucker" means.Barack Obama's serious flirtation with his one-time rival, Hillary Clinton, over the post of secretary of State has been welcomed by everyone from Henry Kissinger to Bill Clinton as an effective, grand gesture by the president-elect. It's not playing quite as well, however, in some precincts of Obamaland. From his supporters on the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, to campaign aides of the soon-to-be commander-in-chief, there's a sense of ambivalence about giving a top political plum to a woman they spent 18 months hammering as the compromised standard-bearer of an era that deserves to be forgotten. "These are people who believe in this stuff more than Barack himself does," said a Democrat close to Obama's campaign. "These guys didn't put together a campaign in order to turn the government over to the Clintons." Ben Smith - Politico
In America's divided political environment offending the base is not a wise thing to do. The base, as its name implies, is what keeps the whole thing from falling down and going boom. When times get tough all that keeps things going are people with real commitment; they are a precious resource and not to be frittered away. Times look like getting really tough and gratuitously offending the people that put Obama in the White House seems to me a huge mistake on his part. Making an enthusiast feel like a fool is one of the cruelest and dumbest things a leader can do.
As an example of how valuable the hardcore base is, some observers are of the opinion that Sarah Palin hurt the Republicans this year, but I would maintain that the enthusiasm she generated in the Republican base is all that kept McCain from sharing the fate of Barry Goldwater, George McGovern or Walter Mondale.
If McCain had chosen Mitt Romney as his running mate the base would have stayed home and his defeat could have been much worse.
In a year that should have been an epoch making Democratic landslide the Republicans lived to fight another day... Sarah Palin got the base out and voting. The "undecided" and the independents are like sand: the lukewarm are what you add to the base. You can build nothing upon them.
Saying that Hillary is a disastrous choice is not to say that Hillary Clinton wouldn't be a competent Secretary of State. Simply that she voted for the war in Iraq, carries too much baggage (Bill) and doesn't seem to be the ideal person to carry out the policies that those who voted for Obama thought he personified when they voted for him. David Ignatius writes over at the Washington Post:
The idea of subcontracting foreign policy to Clinton -- a big, hungry, needy ego surrounded by a team that's hungrier and needier still -- strikes me as a mistake of potentially enormous proportions. It would, at a stroke, undercut much of the advantage Obama brings to foreign policy. And because Clinton is such a high-visibility figure, it would make almost impossible (at least through the State Department) the kind of quiet diplomacy that will be needed to explore options.A job without any of these conflicts that Obama could offer Hillary and which would not offend his hardcore base might be to put her in charge of making health care happen, which is something she could do without leaving the Senate.
What all this probably means is that Obama simply hasn't been around long enough to have any real team of his own, he has not had the time to acquire as collaborators people of stature that he has worked with over years, people who owe their careers only to him: his people that he can trust to put his interests first.
Not having those people, it looks like he is already being managed by the fixers and the arrangers: he is not managing them. This will surely get worse as the game gathers speed.
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