Month: January 2008

Oh dear.

A reader writes:

Your reader asked, "Can anyone imagine, say, Harry Truman in 1960 traveling to West Virginia to deliver such a blast against John Kennedy?"  No, but Truman delivered a strong blast against Kennedy, just before the 1960 Democratic Convention, in support of his favored candidate, Senator Stuart Symington:

In a effort to boost his fellow Missourian, just before the convention Truman called a news conference, during which he spoke out against Kennedy’s youth and inexperience and asked him to withdraw from the race.  When he concluded that the convention was "rigged" for Kennedy, Truman resigned as a delegate.  Unfortunately, Truman’s support was not sufficient to garner widespread enthusiasm for Symington.  His speech attacking Kennedy, coupled with his failure to attend the convention, may even have alienated potential support for Symington. (Linda McFarland, Cold War Strategist: Stuart Symington and the Search for National Security, Greenwood Press, 2001, p. 106)

Bill Clinton’s behavior isn’t some sort of unique aberration from past norms of American politics.  It’s probably typical.  Whether it’s any more successful than Truman’s was remains to be seen.

Is this Romney’s e.e. cummings-style future?

When Christianists attack:

And then on the issue of, on social conservative issues, you point to me one time John McCain every took the floor of the United States Senate to talk about a social conservative issue. It never happened. I mean, this is a guy who says he believes in these things, but I can tell you, inside the room, when we were in these meetings, there was nobody who fought harder not to have these votes before the United States Senate on some of the most important social conservative issues, whether it’s marriage or abortion or the like. He always fought against us to even bring them up, because he was uncomfortable voting for them. So I mean, this is just not a guy I think in the end that washes with the mainstream of the Republican Party.

"People in our generation who’ve come of age during the Bush administration and want the country to move in a new direction think he can get us there. When Obama talks about politics, it doesn’t sound like politics is a fight between people who did and did not burn their draft cards in the ’60s," – Alec Schierenbeck, president of the Iowa College Democrats.

I wonder how many people have noticed what this reader has:

I won’t soon forget the sight of Bill Clinton – after all, still the titular head of the party – savagely attacking Obama’s integrity at Dartmouth. Can anyone imagine, say, Harry Truman in 1960 traveling to West Virginia to deliver such a blast against John Kennedy? Or Lyndon Johnson in 1972 visiting New Hampshire to issue such a deeply personal, highly public condemnation of George McGovern? And yet virtually no one in the party suggested that he might have behaved inappropriately.

I’m a lifelong Democrat who has never voted Republican for any office in my life. But in a McCain-Clinton contest, I’d vote for McCain. Though I disagree with him on many issues, at least he has integrity.

Bill Clinton has never been a classy person. But I think his conduct over the last couple of weeks is tacky even for him. Think about it for a minute. Here is a former president going out on the campaign trail in the early primaries and trashing one of his own party’s greatest new talents. Can you recall any other president doing such a thing in an election campaign? The abuse he has heaped on Obama both tarnishes his former office and cheapens his role as an elder statesman in the Democratic party. Donna Brazile has bravely pointed this out as well, noting that Clinton’s abuse had some racial tinges to it:

"For him to go after Obama using ‘fairy tale,’ calling him a ‘kid,’ as he did last week, it’s an insult. And I tell you, as an African-American, I find his words and his tone to be very depressing."

It could be argued that an exception should be made because his wife is running. But that seems to me to compound the offense. Supporting your spouse is one thing; trashing his or her opponent from the powerful position as leader of his party is another. President George H. W. Bush supported his son in his campaigns but never came near the attacks that Clinton has unleashed. And Bush Senior always insisted, as did his son, that he would not be involved in the politics of a second Bush administration. Clinton will be deeply involved in a possible future Clinton administration, just as his wife was in his. He is trashing fellow Democrats to extend his own power.

What we are witnessing is the corruption of nepotism and the abuse of a former office for the pursuit of dynastic power. Anyone who has ever followed the Clintons knows how unscrupulous they are. But even I didn’t expect a former president to be as tacky as this. You want this kind of character back in the White House? You want another dynasty, defending itself and attacking others in the same party? You know what to do.

(Photo: Win McNamee/Getty.)

Tom Edsall has some interesting analysis of New Hampshire:

"Anytime you’ve got white undecided voters pulling the lever choosing between a white and a black candidate, that is when the race issue is most important," notes Drew Westen of Emory University. "Both campaigns’ internal polls showed a 10 to 12 point Obama lead; to see that evaporate into a three-point loss, when he didn’t have any gaffes, that has a ring to it."

According to Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center, "The failure [of polling] on the Democratic side has to do with the fact that Clinton ran best among groups of voters who most often refuse polls — poorer, less well-educated people. These are also the very people who are reluctant to vote for a black candidate."