If Clinton wins the nomination, there will be many Obama staffers, particularly mid-to-high-ranking aides, who will refuse offers to help with the general election. The walk-away rate will be unprecedented.
And let me add – since I am not an adviser, since I have kept a very long distance from the actual official campaign, since I am not a Democrat, since I cannot be accused of being a closet Bush-supporter, since I am just a blogger.
Samantha Power is right. The Clintons are monstrous. Samantha has quit because she told the truth.
"I have a simple prediction. It will mean a mass flight from the process. It will alter the political consciousness of an entire generation of young voters – against any positive interaction with the political process for the foreseeable future."
Mass flight from the process, Andrew, isn’t a tactic. It’s the point of her campaign. The point is not a mandate. The point is not actually governing. The point is 50% plus 1, 270 electoral votes, and the power that comes with it for its own sake. The Clinton’s know how to win that fight, both in the nomination and in the general. That generation of young voters is what Rumsfeld would have called an "unknown unknown" and is inherently uncontrollable. They have no use for that at all.
The Clintons have, of course, never won 50 percent of the national popular vote – not even in 1996, for their second term against Dole.
The new meme is that politics has returned to normal and that this election will now be run by Clinton rules. Many are relieved by this. You could sense the palpable discomfort among many in Washington that their world might actually shift a little next year. But if elections are primarily about fear and mud, and who best operates in a street fight, Beltway comfort returns. This we know. This we understand. This we already have the language to describe. And, the feeling goes, the Clintons can win back the White House in this atmosphere. What she is doing to Obama she can try to do to McCain. Maybe Limbaugh will help her out again.
What I think this misses are the cultural and social consequences of beating Obama (or McCain) this way. I don’t mean beating Obama because the Clintons’ message is more persuasive, or because the Clintons’ healthcare plan is better, or because she has a better approach to Iraq. I mean: beating him by a barrage of petty attacks, by impugning his clear ability to be commander-in-chief, by toying with questions about his "Muslim past", by subtle invocation of the race card, by intermittent reliance on gender identity politics, by taking faux offense to keep the news cycle busy ("shame on you, Barack Obama!") and so on. If the Clintons beat Obama this way, I have a simple prediction. It will mean a mass flight from the process. It will alter the political consciousness of an entire generation of young voters – against any positive interaction with the political process for the foreseeable future. I’m not sure that Washington yet understands the risk the Clintons are taking with their own party and the future of American politics.
The reason so many people have re-engaged with politics this year is because many sense their country is in a desperate state and because only one candidate has articulated a vision and a politics big enough to address it without dividing the country down the middle again. For the first time in decades, a candidate has emerged who seems able to address the country’s and the world’s needs with a message that does not rely on Clintonian parsing or Rovian sleaze. For the first time since the 1960s, we have a potential president able to transcend the victim-mongering identity politics so skillfully used by the Clintons. If this promise is eclipsed because the old political system conspires to strangle it at birth, the reaction from the new influx of voters will be severe. The Clintons will all but guarantee they will lose a hefty amount of it in the fall, as they richly deserve to. Some will gravitate to McCain; others will be so disillusioned they will withdraw from politics for another generation. If the Clintons grind up and kill the most promising young leader since Kennedy, and if they do it not on the strength of their arguments, but by the kind of politics we have seen them deploy, the backlash will be deep and severe and long. As it should be.
He has a million little donors. He has brought many, many Republicans and Independents to the brink of re-thinking their relationship with the Democratic party. And he has won the majority of primaries and caucuses and has a majority of the delegates and popular vote. This has been a staggering achievement – one that has already made campaign history. If the Clintons, after having already enjoyed presidential power for eight long years, destroy this movement in order to preserve their own grip on privilege and influence in Democratic circles, it will be more than old-fashioned politics. It will be a generational moment – as formative as 1968. Killing it will be remembered for a very, very long time. And everyone will remember who did it – and why.
Before we all fall hopelessly prey to our own emotions and the daily spin surrounding the opposing camps at play in the Democratic Party, is it possible for us to pull back a bit from our ever-hardening positions to see what is really going on this election year, and (dare I say the words), to enjoy the process and be thankful for its meaning?
We are watching the American genius to determine by what and by whom our nation is to be led in all its gloriously-messy splendor, and for the first time in many a year, we are free of the boredom of knowing who the standard bearer will be for the Democratic Party way in advance of the election. For the first time ever, we have the real possibility that our President will be a black man or a woman, and for the first time since the Supreme Court took the power of the ballot box away from the Florida voters in 2000, we have the opportunity to openly debate and determine how best to address the dilemma of full voter enfranchisement versus the problem of ‘not playing by the rules’ so that the ideals of Democracy win instead of which candidate will benefit most.
I know that it’s asking a lot, but if we could just not be such slaves to the latest poll and pundit or to our own prejudices, and admit that maybe, just maybe Hillary is not as evil and self-centered, nor Barrack as much the shining Savior as their supporters and opponents make them out to be, and if we could understand that in all the struggle, uncertainty, lies, truth and hoopla of this contest there is the wondrous evidence of our ongoing vitality as inheritors of the Declaration of Independence, we could more dispassionately contribute to the issues at stake without malice and irritation, and thus enjoy and be part of what has become a very thrilling ride.
In a bunch of conversations – all casual, random, varied – with fellow journalists in Washington this past week, I’m struck when the talk moves to Iraq by one thing. I know no one who believes that either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton will actually remove any troops from Iraq beyond those that might conceivably be removed by John McCain. For those of you who believe that your vote in this primary season means anything, this might be worth passing along. Withdrawal in any meaningful way is off the table, as far as Washington is concerned. And when I have raised the serious possibility that this should happen, I am greeted with That Unserious Look.
Now, there are obvious pragmatic, short term arguments for staying with 150,000 troops or so in Iraq for the next ten years. There are also very powerful strategic, economic and moral arguments for getting out as fast as we can. But what troubles me is that these arguments are not really relevant. The Washington elites have already decided. It’s unthinkable for the US to leave Iraq at any point in the foreseeable future. This, as Greenwald would say, is the Serious Position. You can challenge it in the campaign or on the blogs, but no one actually believes anyone will actually do this. They’re humoring us.
And the primary candidate for maintaining the occupation indefinitely on the Democratic side is Hillary Clinton. As for Obama, I disagree with my fellow hacks. He will be in a very tough spot if he becomes president. But he will be able to leverage a unique movement in the country and a uniquely powerful honeymoon in world opinion with a uniquely potent rhetorical skill to at least attempt an exit from the quicksand of the Middle East occupation. He has a chance to shift the paradigm. The Clintons, to put it bluntly, will not. And Clinton will swiftly realize that the most potent antidote to conservative criticism of her at home will be buttressing her military image, working the Thatcher thing, constructing an Iron Lady persona that will both appeal to her white ethnic base and keep the Republicans at bay. She will no more withdraw troops from Iraq than John McCain will. Anything that could make her look weak – and it’s Hannity and O’Reilly to whom she will defer in this perception game – she will resist. She has so little raw political talent and so few rhetorical skills she will be a captive of polls and caution and, as always, self-preservation. Bush knows this, which is why he is so keen to prevent Obama from changing the Beltway consensus and to preserve his own legacy. In some ways, a return to the Clintons, his fellow dynasts, as long as they legitimize and extend his new empire, is what he really wants.
There are four candidates still left in this race: Clinton, Clinton, McCain, and Obama. The first two are a seamless team. Only one has a small chance of extricating the US from a lifetime of occupation of the Middle East. It’s Obama.
The good professor blurts out the truth. There is something monstrous about a couple so intoxicated with money, power and secrecy and so unencumbered by any ethical constraints that they will do anything, say anything, be anything in order to stay ahead.
The Clintons will not do what every other candidate does – release their tax returns – and they will not allow scrutiny of their period in the White House, the last time an unelected spouse exercized formal, unaccountable power (if nothing like what we will face if the Clintons both return to the White House in 2009). What are they hiding? The headline is misleading and more evidence of double-standards in the media with respect to the Clintons. This was ultimately the Clintons’ decision, not the archivists’:
That archivists’ decision, based on guidance provided by Bill Clinton that restricts the disclosure of advice he received from aides, prevents public scrutiny of documents that would shed light on how he decided which pardons to approve from among hundreds of requests.
Clinton’s legal agent declined the option of reviewing and releasing the documents that were withheld, said the archivists, who work for the federal government, not the Clintons.
My emphasis. David Brooks today argues that the Obama camp must not go negative. But this is one of those areas where the Clintons’ sense of personal privilege and passion for secrecy simply has to be challenged. Demanding answers to basic questions of accountability and transparency is not negative in the Rove-Morris sense. It’s called competitive campaigning. If Clinton is running on her so-called experience, why does she insist on keeping it under wraps?
