April 28, 2008
Column: Self-destructive Democrats
Last week’s vote in Pennsylvania was an even worse result for the Democratic party than is widely supposed. Hillary Clinton’s impressive victory will sustsain her campaign through all the remaining presidential primaries, even if Barack Obama bounces back on May 6 in Indiana and North Carolina. At the same time, though, Mr Obama’s campaign did not collapse. Far from it: he made big inroads into the lead that Mrs Clinton once had in the state.
Therein lies the problem. The result in Pennsylvania does not license the party’s “super-delegates” to get behind Mrs Clinton and overrule Mr Obama’s unassailable lead in elected delegates. Pennsylvania was a calamity because it resuscitated Mrs Clinton without coming close to crippling Mr Obama.
Of course, prolonging the ill-tempered battle between Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton hurts the Democrats and helps John McCain, the Republican candidate. For the Democrats, this is bad enough – but it is not the half of it. When this race is over, there will be a loser with ample reason, in either case, to challenge the winner’s legitimacy. The prolonging of the campaign is not the main problem. The greater danger for the Democrats comes at the termination of an exquisitely close race – in a bitterly divisive outcome, whoever prevails, regardless of whether it happens sooner or later.
The remainder of this column can be read here. Please post your comments below.
Mr Crook
While I understand this reasoning that the Democratic race remains close, I don’t agree. Obama and the Clintons are not working from the same ground. The Clintons are a known quantity (two, or so it seems, and then his eight years). Obama is the chosen runner for a campaign created by an impressive cadre of the seriously discontented in the US. Yet his persona–discounting the boldness of his 21st-century person–comprises many unknowns.
For Obama to win and succeed in November, he needs a resounding and commanding lead. He had it; the Clintons masterfully undermined it with tactics just short of dragging his cajones onto the set of The Jerry Springer Show; and he stooped to the agendas they and their ‘New Labour’ Neocons set before him. Thus, he has lost one identifiable and influential support base: wired wonks and financiers. Now his youth support is losing interest.
He took blacks back from Hillary with a lot of noise, and now they are drifting back to the tough white lady with some bland sweets in her hand. Obama’s wife has not helped him bring the black debate into the 21st century. Now the country is mired down in politics reminiscent of the Jimmy Carter campaign. All the blacks in the US cannot put him in office, and the middle-middle in the US heartlands and suburbs is back to where they were in January. They are wondering if anyone knows who this guy is.
A US friend has sent me a note saying I would be surprised to see what Rev Jeremiah Wright is now saying, raising the question as to whether he is back with the Clintons. One needs to remember that this slick pastor counseled Bill on how to pull his zipper up and play the stage during his impeachment hearings.
A Republican American friend calls it the theatre of the absurd. I say this scenario justifies a Constitutional review and subsequent reforms. These campaigns may be entertaining, but we in the rest of the world will continue to face more futures with failed and deeply flawed US leadership. We will need to care until the Fed can no longer fund the show.
Posted by: WCM | April 28th, 2008 at 11:00 am | Report this commentThe selection process is certainly flawed, but the real problem for the Democrats is that the party is split - possibly terminally. The old working class core constituency and its traditional issues don’t necessarily fit well with the urban liberals who broadly fall into the Obama camp. That is, beer Democrats and wine democrats don’t make a cohesive party.
Posted by: Dan Thisdell | April 28th, 2008 at 11:17 am | Report this commentCome November, the Republicans will do what they do well, which is rally behind their candidate; McCain isn’t the strongest candidate, but he will carry that half the electorate which is either Republican or Republican-leaning independents. The Democrats will neither carry all their own nor all the Democrat-leaning independents. If the candidate is Hillary, expect a Republican landslide - she is too widely loathed, even by much of her own party, to have any hope of winning. Obama would do better but still lose by a good margin.
After that, look to one or the other wing of the Democratic Party to split off and form a third to fight the next election.
Yes, it is very true that the Democratic Party is split almost to the point of ceasing to be a true national party.
This is both because it has become a self-satisfied, conservative imperial country and because the Civil Rights Bill of Lyndon Johnson created waves that have not calmed. This last makes the rise of Obama all the more remarkable.
Dear old Bill Clinton exploited this fact of the Democratic Party politically. Imagine a Democrat taking credit for ending traditional public assistance?
Bill did something else, too, that is now intensely at work with his wife. He was extremely cavalier with human beings.
He would appoint someone highly qualified, and then back off as soon as there was some opposition or noise, leaving the appointed person in the public stocks of a lowlife press and Republican Party.
In other cases, he appointed people and, without ever announcing it publically, effectively reduced their jobs if he thought they were not quite up to the mark for some reason.
Hillary’s basic approach now is to behave ruthlessly and make Obama upset, standoffish, and awkward about her behavior. He is a far more thoughtful and decent-minded person than she, and he is repulsed by such behavior, as am I and many, many others.
Obama has genuinely tried to run a campaign of which he could be proud, a rare thing in American national politics, still pretty much in the Political Stone Age.
But Obama faces a terrible dilemma when confronted by an opponent willing to say close to anything to win. Hillary truly has proven herself an Appalachian throwback, a grinning political predator exactly in the tradition of Richard Nixon.
It is unforgivable and shocking beyond words that she threatened the lives of eighty million people on the morning of the Pennsylvania primary.
And her ad with Osama’s image is in the disgusting tradition of the infamous Willy Horton ad. These are the behaviors of a low-grade psychopath, the kind of individual who has been president for more than seven years.
And there really are bad intentions at work in America’s press covering the election and re-inforcing the impact of her tactics.
There is the endless repetition of the same meaningless anecdotes as though they were defining matters of substance, a kind of idiotic mantra which, like catchy advertising slogans, stick in the minds of many.
Today’s corporate consolidation of news corporations means fewer and fewer sources, and those in the hands of people whose interest and focus is anything but genuine news. It also means cost-cutting and shortcuts. And it means a propensity towards audience-building sensational entertainment rather than hard information.
And, like the phenomenon we see in the primaries with Hillary Clinton’s stooping to the lowest approach, once one major news source takes the low-road, competitors find it awkward to remain above the low tactics, the basic phenomenon which has kept American national politics in the Political Stone Age.
Posted by: JOHN CHUCKMAN, TORONTO | April 28th, 2008 at 2:18 pm | Report this commentThis has been going on so long it’s more of a brain-washing contest. All the Clinton campaign is doing is repeting things over and over until the ignorant uneducated voters beleive it.
I dont think its any surprise that the more educated civil people support Obama and the beer guzlin hicks, or degressing elderly would support the school house play ground bully tactics of the Clinton Campaign.
Posted by: Sade | April 28th, 2008 at 2:44 pm | Report this comment“Obama is the chosen runner for a campaign created by an impressive cadre of the seriously discontented in the US”
Let’s see, if the discontented are the multi-millionaire (or billionaire) donors, the mainstream press, and the Chicago Machine, then I should agree with you.
JBP
Posted by: John Powers | April 28th, 2008 at 3:18 pm | Report this commentI wouldn’t worry about it, America will get the President it deserves. We have George Bush don’t we? I’m sure that if we end up with John McCain we’ll have another small non-industrial country to invade for no good reason at all. McCain said our economy is fine so that should tell us where his head is at.
Posted by: Betty Chambers | April 28th, 2008 at 3:55 pm | Report this commentMr. Crook, once again, merely repeats the obvious. It does not take a great deal of insight to realize that the Democratic rules were so well designed to produce a Republican victory in the fall that they probably would have been no different if Karl Rove himself had written them. Moreover, Mr. Crook’s proposed solution, namely having Senators Clinton and Obama (listed here in alphabetical order only) run on the same ticket, would, if anything, make things worse. It would do little to assuage the feeling of loss on the part of the side whose candidate was awarded the Vice-Presidential slot since, except for the unprecedented Cheney power grab, the VP usually has no power at all. How much influence did Al Gore have during the Clinton years?
It would, in addition, lead to even more bickering and rivalry between the two camps as they jockey for influence over the campaign. Worst of all, each side would take on the other’s weaknesses, in addition to his or her own. Hillary would be constantly on the defensive over Jeremiah Wright (and not just because Bill invited him to the White House for “counselling” after the Lewinsky scandal), and Obama would have to take on the burden of defending both the real and imaginary scandals of the Clinton years.
A better, but even more unlikely solution, might be for both candidates to agree to withdraw in favor of a “dark horse” candidate with broad appeal who presents a less inviting target to the Republican smear machine. One possibility might be Virginia Senator Jim Webb, a plain talker and former Republican and member of Reagan’s cabinet - who could possibly appeal better to the “Reagan Democrats”? New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, with his impressive negotiating experience and appeal to Latino voters (just as crucial this year as white blue-collar workers and African-Americans) would make a strong Vice-Presidential candidate on any ticket, including one headed by either Clinton or Obama. Of course, having a white male at the head of the ticket would, justifiably, infuriate Democratic voters on both sides who look forward to having a woman or an African-American as president.
These fantasies aside, however, it is important to look at the Republican role in shaping the outcome of the Democratic campaign. While the myth of “liberal bias” in the media is a staple of Republican propaganda, the fact is that the large corporate interests that control the Republican party also own most of the television channels and newspapers. Judging by one of the most biased and partisan of all of the media, Fox News channel, the Republican establishment has chosen sides in the Democratic race, and its choice is surely not Barack Obama.
Fox News Channel might better be called the Wright/Ayres channel, because its programming is now virtually given over to the sole objective of smearing Obama, around the clock, as an America-hating terrorist supporter. If Obama is on the ticket in the fall, it would not be a big surprise if not only the Murdoch owned New York Post, but the Wall Street Journal itself, devoted most of their space to repeating the most offensive parts of Wright’s speeches, day after day, until most of their readers know them by heart. In addition, the North Carolina Republicans are now running what could well be the most vicious, inflammatory, disgusting and lying campaign ad in American history, in which Wright’s face changes into Obama’s while the American flag is burning, in an obvious attempt to swing the state primary to Hillary.
Is the Republican strategy based on the belief that Hillary, with all of her alleged “baggage”, is the weaker candidate against McCain? Or is it based on the belief that, if a Democrat is elected president, Hillary would be the lesser of two evils, because of Bill’s “centrist”, corporate friendly policies as president? This is something that has been suggested on Fox News, which, while not a very good source of accuracy in the news, is an excellent guide to Republican strategic thinking.
Certainly, the Democratic campaign against McCain may not be able to begin in earnest until after Denver. But the campaign, by both Obama and Hillary, against the Republican Swift Boat tactics of Smear, Fear and the Big Lie should begin without further delay, if the Democrats wish to have the luxury of choosing their own candidate, not having one chosen for them by the Republicans. This means, for one thing, that Hillary should strongly disavow smear attacks on Obama by anyone, just as McCain himself has done. And Obama himself has to fight back harder, not so much against Hillary, as against the Republican politics of racial innuendo and character assassination. While his dignified performance on Fox News last night deserves to earn him the greatest respect, whether this approach can win the nomination and election for him is another question entirely.
Roger Algase
Posted by: algasema | April 28th, 2008 at 4:03 pm | Report this commentNeither the populists nor the Strict Constructionists will stand back while invisible hands slip the drugs into the HRC and BO Evian bottles that will be required to get them to resign “for the good of the Party”. Nonetheless, given McCain’s poor profile, perhaps cancelling the election is not a bad idea. George will object, but Dick will be pleased to stay the course.
When this mess is sorted for better or worse, the US should 1) recognise it is too large to run a direct election (through increasingly manipulated primaries); and 2) it should revisit a more representative/parliamentary approach, wherein the party caucuses in the Congress select the candidate. Firstly, the US needs to restore meaningful powers to its states and jurisdictions. That is where democracy works. Not here and not through corporate media.
Posted by: WCM | April 28th, 2008 at 5:13 pm | Report this commentDan Thisdell writes: “if the candidate is Hillary, expect a Republican landslide - she is too widely loathed, even by much of her own party, to have any hope of winning.”
Isn’t there a flaw in this argument? The people who most loath Hillary will vote Republican in any case. I would not think she is LOATHED by independents, who probably will determine the race (the right-wing base is not as charged with McCain as the Republican nominee; the Rove strategy will not work this time). In fact, her centrist tendencies would probably appeal to them (as they do to me).
Why am I wrong?
Posted by: RCS | April 28th, 2008 at 5:32 pm | Report this comment“Why am I wrong?”
Hillary is loathed more widely than the writer credits, and this loathing is now spreading into the Left, which has the option to cast a protest vote with Nader.
Also, McCain is going to make a strong appeal to those just left of center. He’s already started this with his forgotten-things trip.
His party’s Right has always accused him of being a closet Democrat, something I sincerely doubt, but I think he will be able to do a credible job of posing himself as a touch left of center on some issues.
At the same time, Hillary is terribly vulnerable with the background she has. Obama has been reluctant to bring such things up, but the Republicans sure won’t, and they have a warehouse full of material to draw on.
Further still, while it is difficult for a man to treat a woman in public the way Hillary treats Obama, after sinking as low as she has, it will be far easier. Anyway, the republicans are expert at innuendo and using stand-ins, as Hillary should know from the 1990s.
And no matter what some may say, I do believe in American-style campaigns, which are little more than duopoly advertising campaigns, that the unpleasant aspects of Hillary’s persona will feature heavily.
She does have a voice that resembles finger-nails scratching a blackboard. She does say some surprisingly absurd things at times. She does make some genuinely goofy faces which have been captured by cameras.
And she has the burden of Bill. Who wants that creature stalking around the corridors of power again? Remember, even nice guy Al Gore blamed Bill Clinton for his 2000 defeat, reportedly in an ugly scene.
Lastly, Mr. Rove’s recent comments on the Democrats do tell us whom the Republicans view as the weaker candidate, and it ain’t Obama.
That is, unless Hillary keeps tossing crap the way she did in Pennsylvania.
Posted by: JOHN CHUCKMAN, TORONTO | April 28th, 2008 at 6:07 pm | Report this commentBulletin: Don’t worry, folks, it’s all over anyway. The Supreme Court has just upheld a restrictive state voter ID law, expressly designed by a Republican legislature (in Indiana) to disenfranchise as many minority and elderly voters as possible, because they are the ones who would have the greatest hardship and difficulty in obtaining the required documents.
Many other states (mostly or exclusively red ones), have passed such laws and many others are now free to do so. Forget about any Democratic candidate having any chance at all of winning in any of those states, or in any swing state with such a law. One can now almost ask what point there would be in going through the motions of having the conventions or holding an election this fall at all. A big waste of time, effort and money, it would seem, since now we already know the result.
Posted by: algasema | April 28th, 2008 at 6:39 pm | Report this commentAmazing to see Hillary and her sidekick Governor Rendell of Pennsylvania attacking Obama and Rev.Wright when it was then Mayor Rendell of Philly the one standing right next to Louis Farrakhan in Philadelphia a few years back and thanking him for his great work in Philly with the poor and the discontent, and now the Media silent about this , except for the Washington Post yesterday April,27,08,Sunday by Colbert I. King ,so what a farce !
and this phony reporting is what is turning voters to Obama, the same Media that took us into Iraq with lies is the one pushing bits of Rev.Wright speeches without ever mentioning Rendell’s flirts with Farrakhan before, a shameful double standard.
Posted by: blogger | April 28th, 2008 at 8:02 pm | Report this commentNor, blogger, did I see anything in the media about Wright’s invitation to the White House from Bill Clinton. In addition, today’s Supreme Court decision may throw Indiana to Hillary in a big way, because many of the voters there who will be disenfranchised because they cannot not obtain the required ID will inevitably be African-Americans, as was the obvious intention of that state’s restrictive law.
I have not seen the actual Supreme Court decision, but it looks as if American democracy has suffered a terrible blow today, one from which it may not recover for a very long time, if ever. The “Permament Republican Majority” is now one giant step closer to becoming reality.
Posted by: algasema | April 28th, 2008 at 8:29 pm | Report this commentI am also a little curious about the timing of today’s Supreme Court decision, coming just over a week before the Indiana primary. Never let it be said that the Republicans have no interest in who wins the Democratic nomination.
Posted by: algasema | April 28th, 2008 at 8:34 pm | Report this comment