Election 2008 Preview - The Democrats
I want to believe in the Hillary hype. Not the part about her being the first woman president, or a Bill Clinton redo, and certainly not any of the hope of people who think (and hope) she really is a true 60s liberal. No, what I’m hoping for is the contention that she’s a hardass who shouldn’t be messed with. Does this mean I want Hillary to win? No. Pretty much the opposite actually. But, I’m a betting man and I’m also just old enough to have seen multiple pendulum swings in my lifetime. The fact is that sometimes voters just vote for a change, regardless of any real ideology. Trust me, the majority of Americans, and a not insignificant portion of loyal voters believe in the “they are all the same” meme. So, changing parties is seen as a change of pace, but done with no real hope that things will change, but an expectation that they’d like to deal the devil they know, the incumbents, a nice dose of humble pie. I believe fully that this was the case with this last election.
So, come 2008, after 8 years of a truly mediocre President Bush, voters will be inclined against a Republican president. Now there is a good chance they’ll be generally tired of people named Bush AND Clinton as well, so it’s not a done deal. But, if I’m a betting man, my money is on Hillary. With that said, I’d say she’s a 3 to 1 favorite. Good odds, but not insurmountable, since after the primaries it’s her or one other foe and you never really know how elections will play out. So, without further ado, let’s break down the Democratic candidates (both declared candidates and those strongly hinting at it). The first of a three part election preview
The Democrats, aka the party of Euro-fetishists:
Former Vice President Al Gore (he won the popular vote and don't you forget it)
I'd be shocked if he runs. He'll be to busy snuggling with his Oscar and will miss the deadline to file his papers or start his exploratory committee.
Senator John Kerry (you can call him JFK)
Damn. He’s not running. I honestly wanted him to run. I think he’s the worst candidate of my lifetime with the possible exception of Jimmy Carter. Look, say what you will about Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis but at least they were honest liberals. Sure they made their pitch to be “tough” but they both stuck fairly consistently with their liberal playbook. Bob Dole and Gerald Ford represented a really stale Republican establishment and ran vanilla campaigns that excited exactly no one but their staff. Good men, but really unimpressive candidates. But this John Kerry fellow was (IS) just an insufferable elitist who simply can’t believe he wasn’t handed the presidency. Kerry is a man who was anointed by the Kennedy royalty to be Senator (he grew up a friend of the family, natch) and has spent his 20 years in the Senate running for president, just because he figured it was his turn. He accomplished absolutely nothing in his legislative career accept rooting for the Sandinistas. He’s had no timely controversial position to speak of and has worked really hard to say what he thinks people want to here. He’s just a vapid individual. Yes, I know he’s not running but I want to lament the fact that he won’t be there for us to kick around anymore. And yet it’s also important to note what a week candidate GEORGE BUSH was and how powerful the media still is. Kerry almost won. Mark Steyn addressed this point perfectly a couple of weeks ago:
I agree with Jonah’s column on the general ghastliness of the Botoxicated Brahmin, but it’s hard not to see that the Goldberg disparagers also have a point. If Kerry was so unlikeable, why was it so close? If Karl’s Rovebot laboratory had spent years constructing the perfect candidate to run against, it would have looked pretty much like John F Kerry – a vain thin-skinned self-regarding tone-deaf francophile insecure not-quite-blue-blood incoherent anti-war war-hero from a Swiss finishing school with nothing to show for 20 years in the Senate other than getting wrong every foreign policy question of the day and so alien to the habits of his electorate he’s unable to engage in as routine a photo op as eating a hot dog without looking like a Grand Duchess dropping in on the village idiot’s hovel.
And yet the media came within a whisker of pulling him across the finish line. If it’s a 50-50 nation with John Kerry dragging down one half of the seesaw, what would it have been with someone marginally less unlikeable on the ticket? A blowout? With hindsight, 2004 should have alerted Republicans to significant weaknesses in both the Bush and Congressional brands.
Yep, November 2006 should not have shocked anyone. We’ll see if the Republicans can learn anything. So far, the results aren’t good.
We’ll miss you John F Kerry. I really wanted to see just how Hillary would have chosen to crush you. My guess is she would have ignored you as a has-been. That would have rankled you I imagine.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Mars)
He's an utter moonbat. No chance in hell. You can find his candidacy somewhere in John Lennon's Imagine.
Senator Joe Biden
He offiicially started his exploratory committee today. So he's in. What's that? He said what? Looks like Biden's legendary foot in mouth disease, one of the longest running phenomenons in Washington, has finally turned fatal:
In the article published Wednesday, Biden is quoted evaluating presidential rivals Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-New York, former Sen. John Edwards, D-North Carolina, and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois. His remarks about Obama, the only African-American serving in the Senate, drew the most scrutiny.
"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," Biden said. "I mean, that's a storybook, man."
No, no, Joe isn't being condescending or isn't acting shocked that an African-American could be articulate, bright, clean (CLEAN?!!) and nice looking. I mean, I'm sure some of Joe's best friends are black.
Joe Biden 2008. We hardly knew ya.
(and before you think he shouldn't sink based on what was surely a well intentioned remark...ask yourself...what if Trent Lott said this?)
Governor Tom Vilsack
The former governor of Iowa with a somewhat interesting biography is running because, well, he’s the governor of Iowa and every four years, a candidate in close proximity to Iowa or New Hampshire runs with the hopes their geographic location and name recognition translates to early delegates that turn into delegates down the road. In most early pols, he seems to be running well behind Obama, Hillary and Edwards IN IOWA. Mark him down as dead in the water. Future secretary of something in the next Democratic White House.
Governor Bill Richardson
Ed Morrisey, of the must read Captain’s Quarters blog, thinks Richardson is the sleeper candidate that could surprise. I don’t think I agree. He’s got a heck of a resume, but that and George HW Bush’s only term as president will get you a nice t-shirt and an early retirement to Kennebunkport (Bush Senior had the most impressive presidential resume of anyone in the last half century and only got as far as he did because Reagan let him ride his coattails). Richardson may have a good resume but he’s done nothing of note in any of those jobs. As an ambassador, he did nothing to thwart our enemies and was as responsible as anyone with the Clinton/Carter attempts to bribe North Korea with nuclear technology on the hopes they won’t use said technology to, you know, build nukes.
Mickey Kaus, among others, have referred to a few skeletons in his closet that could sink him should an opponent chose to shine a light in the right direction. Anyone bet that Team Clinton wouldn’t turn these rumors into “fact” if he became a threat? Remember, the Clintonites wrote the book on the politics of personal destruction (and proudly signed the book jacket). Yes, I know he’s a Hispanic, and that will be powerful in future years but I’m betting immigration to be a huge issue in ’08 and that issue won’t swing in the direction official Hispanic interest groups want. But if he flames out early without his opponents taking a real swipe at him, mark Bill Richardson down as the leading Vice Presidential candidate for the Democratic ticket in 2008.
Former Senator John Edwards
Let’s give a shout out to the two Americas. The one that can afford a 28,000 square foot house that John Edwards will live in and the one the rest of live in, that Edwards claims to champion. Look I’m not about to speak ill of obscene wealth. Three cheers to those who can build 28,000 square foot houses. Granted, when your income is built off sueing doctors and medical companies that are usually just trying to help people (for a decent profit of course), then perhaps you are less deserving than others. Ambulance chasers are not my cup of tea.
Still it takes some gall to be the single biggest class warfare artist in the upcoming election and still think it’s a good idea to build a ridiculous mansion in the deep south with the hopes that no one but North Carolina contractors will notice. Team Hillary and the Obamarama have already prepped their black and white attack ads with the internal code name “Plantation Hypocrite”. Coming to a battleground state near you.
Now, of course, that’s a single storyline. Campaigns are made up of more than boilerplate attack ads (but granted not much more) and Edwards conducted himself as a mostly positive and apt campaigner. Unfortunately for him, he’s a white lawyer from the deep south with an estate the size of some counties, running against the Woman and the Black Man in the DEMOCRATIC primary. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb here by saying he won’t exactly have the liberal media helping him out. Good luck John. At least you got a nice house out of it.
On a side note, this house he’s building WHILE RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT displays an almost John Kerry-esque political daftness. Certain things you don’t do when running for president as a Democrat. Unless your name is Kennedy (or like Kerry, you think the initials JFK work just as well), don’t flaunt your wealth until the election is over with. You might want to turn away because I’m about to say something borderline sexist. I think this is his wife’s doing. I remember reading during the ’04 election that Mrs. Edwards would be a heck of a media magnet if Teresa Heinz hadn’t of been almost bag lady flaky. I’m thinking she oversaw this project and John Edwards doesn’t have the power to tell her to cool her jets until January 2009. Just a guess. Or he really is so elitist he doesn’t understand how this will play.
Senator Barack Obama
I have been telling everyone who would listen that the idea that Hillary is vulnerable in the ’08 primaries simply doesn’t understand the Clinton machinery. Well, then I started to question that with this Obama boomlet. Perhaps I drank the same bad Kool-Aid as the American media because we are already seeing the pols (with the usual caveats about pols a year in advance) that show Hillary starting to show strength over Obama after some initial scary numbers (one that had her 4th in Iowa, though that seems to have been an outliner). I’m back to thinking Hillary will squash him like a bug and that he’s merely building a network for 2012 or 2016.
The more fascinating aspect of Obama is how the media created his stature. First off, don’t misunderstand me. I think Obama would be insane NOT to run. If you think you’ve got what it takes to be president (and your fallback position as Senator from a large state is relatively safe) then you should take your shot when it’s most advantageous. Now is most definitely his time to run. Hillary is potentially weak IF Iraq is the primary prism of the ’08 election (or if the electorate freaks out about going Bush Clinton Bush Clinton as if we were some sort of banana republic). She did vote for the war and has up until like two days ago spoke in terms of changing strategy but not cutting and running. She has always been a war critic but a war supporter at the same time. Becoming THE anti-war candidate simply isn’t in the cards for her without getting laughed off the stage. She has to do a Clintonian straddle and hope that the majority of Americans aren’t anti-war, just not happy with its direction (the correct assessment in my opinion). Of course, it’s not the majority of Americans that is her immediate problem. It’s her party base that is the threat. The party base is anti-war and very liberal. And obsessed with diversity. Barack Obama is everything their hopes and dreams represent in 2007. He is the great black hope (yes, I know I’m not the first to use that line).
Are Americans ready for a black president? I think absolutely we are. But, it has to be the right black American. I always thought the first black or female president would be a Republican. My thinking was that a black or female Democrat simply couldn’t help wearing their identity on their sleeves and that would wear thin on most Americans. Well, with exception of Nancy Pelosi most NEW black and female Democrats (call them 2nd generation or post-60s minority politicians) have wisened up and toned down the “black power” or “I am woman hear me roar” shtick. And given the relentlessly negative media attention on minority or female Republicans, it’s just hard for them to get the pub necessary to be a viable national candidate unless they are hopelessly moderate like Colin Powell. So I think, much to my dismay, that the first black or female president will be a Democrat. Sigh. And probably in 2008. Republicans as the white male party is not good for the party or the country. This is a case where diversity really is a good thing.
What about Obama on the merits? He’s a liberal. A textbook liberal. You’ve probably heard that he is articulate, and perhaps you’ve also heard, that’s a nice complement to give to a black person. If by nice, you mean well intended but usually condescending. He’s been in Congress for two years. This is good for him in that he hasn’t had to accumulate a record of kneejerk partisanship mixed with the uncomfortable compromise votes on legislation that everyone voted for but no one actually liked. His record is fairly clean, other than the textbook liberal voting record.
Many Republicans have pointed to this liberal voting record and tried to say he hasn’t done ANYTHING to distinguish himself and this is flat not true. The anti-pork or anti-earmark movement has had a big impact on the two parties in a very short time. Not bad for a movement that was started exclusively on the web by radical lefties and staunch conservatives. The establishment of both parties have tried in vain to ignore this as loud revolts have taken place in both parties to try to bring some transparency on the earmark process which is the very essence of congressional corruption. The earmark process is at the heart of every congressional scandal that doesn’t involve sex. The Abrams scandal is an earmark scandal. Tom Delay and Trent Lott are hated by independents because they represent the back scratching ethos of the post-Newt Republicans who were the very stereotype of Republican fat cats. Republican Tom Coburn has been a hero in the U.S. Senate trying to bring some accountability and transparency of the earmark process, usually over the protestations of the party leadership. After many attempts he finally got some earmark reform legislation through the Senate. The co-sponsor for his bill? Barack Obama. As a freshman Senator you NEVER take on your party leader but that’s exactly what he did since Harry Reid is the Democrat’s Tom Delay. In fact, Reid has the Abrams stench on him as well, the media just hasn’t gotten around to really going after him since they don’t want to give a new Democratic congress any scandals after Pelosi promised to “end the culture of corruption.” To Obama’s credit, he’s at least walked the walk on this point.
One big problem for him though is that there is evidence that he doesn’t even have the overwhelming support of the black community, the single biggest voting block in the Democratic primaries. The long and short of it is that were he a Republican you’d be hearing the Oreo slur (black on the outside, white on the inside) at every turn. Jonah Goldberg pointed this out a couple of months ago and many other columnists are starting to pick up on it. His mother is white and his dad is Kenyan. His bio doesn’t really scream “being African American” even though he quite literally is an AFRICAN American. But that’s the demented politics of multiculturalism for you. Being one generation removed from Africa doesn't count.
In the end, he’s a straightforward liberal. If the Republicans are looking like they’ll run someone who can string two sentences together and can’t be smeared as a right wing extremist (McCain or Guliani) expect to see a flight to “electability.” An Illinois liberal won’t fit the bill in that scenario, especially if he’s only got lukewarm support from what is supposed to be his solid voting block.
The Obama boomlet will peter out nearly as quickly as it blossomed. He’ll sell a lot of books and get a prime time convention spot in Denver. And he’ll start forming his own PAC in preparation for his next shot at the title. But it won’t be in 2008. Ultimately, this isn’t hard to understand. He’s running against the wife of the first black president.
Senator Hillary Clinton
Bill Clinton was the most skilled politician since maybe JFK, and probably FDR. As a POLITICIAN he was raw talent and world class skill. Do I think he was a moral abyss of a man? You bet. Do I think he was a bad president? That’s not an easy answer. He wasn’t particularly presidential in many of his acts, but his policies were mostly in the “do no harm” realm, which is really what a libertarian/conservative like myself wants out of a Democratic president. This excludes foreign policy of course, but if you remember his elections which were right after the cold war, foreign policy was far away from everybody’s mind. Bill Clinton passed some of the most successful Republican initiatives any recent real Republican president could have hoped for (welfare reform, free trade, capital gains tax cuts). His strategy of “triangulation”, i.e. steeling your opponents’ ideas and making them your own, or at least finding the magic middle ground on every possible issue, was wildly successful, if you rank success in terms of getting elected and remaining popular.
So will his wife be a Bill Clinton redo? No doubt she learned a lot from her husband. She clearly has her own ideology though. Call it mild socialism by way of The Children. Her record is also fairly liberal, with the “not totally liberal” votes coming on big ticket issues: immigration, the war, No Child Left Behind, etc. There is a reason behind every one of her votes and that reason has less to do with principle and more to do with setting the stage for a presidential run. She’s firmly pro-choice and anti-conservative judge. This plays to her base and doesn’t particularly upset the majority who would vote in a general election. The swing voters usually have more pressing concerns than abortion or federal judges. Pro-choice Democrats and Pro-life Republicans make swing voters yawn. They are simply playing to type. So when she’s liberal, its on issue the voters in a general election could care less about but the base are rabid over.
Every Democrat and every Republican know good and well that Hillary is out there to get elected to the Oval Office and has been from the get go. Republicans will scream in vain at this since the Democrats simply won’t care that much about her calculations. They’ll ask “can she win.” The answer to that question matters far more than principle to the great majority of partisan Democrats, though trust me, they won’t admit it. Bill Clinton went against his party on bread and butter issue after issue and they still loved him. Why? Because he was a winner. Everyone loves a winner.
The modern Dems are basically split between the Deaniacs and the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). The DLC (which Bill Clinton was formerly a chair of) has been the dog that wags the tail on the national front since after Dukakis lost handily to Bush Senior. The DLC is made up of what are usually called Blue Dog Democrats. These are moderate, usually southern, democrats who occasionally have a conservative streak. Since most of the southern DLC types have either switched parties or been defeated by real conservatives, the DLC’s overall power has slipped. Since 2004, the Howard Dean crowd has exerted serious muscle on the party, even though John Kerry was nominated specifically because they thought Dean wasn’t electable. Well, Dean and Co. are back with a vengeance. Pelosi and Dean are two sides of the same coin. San Fran and Vermont. Berkely meets Ben and Jerry’s.
We are about to witness a great political story, for political junkies anyway. The Ideologues vs the Machine. When it comes to American party politics, always bet on the latter. Sure many on the left, the netroots for example, can’t stand Hillary and have an impressive grass roots organization. They not only want us out of Iraq but they want us to cede military authority to the UN. They love this country except for pretty much everything that makes us different and more prosperous than Europe. They have Marxists assumptions though only a few will speak glowingly of ol’ Karl (not Rove) on Meet the Press. The ideologues are the Deaniacs. The Machine is the Clintons and the DLC. The Clinton political machine has basically engulfed the DLC and has basically replaced it. Two other DLC stalwarts, Al Gore and Joe Lieberman, have gone their separate ways. Gore has become a radical movie producer and Joe Lieberman has become an Independent war supporter. All that’s left are the Clintons.
Obama will likely be the candidate of choice for the Dean crowd. The Machine is all about Hillary. Pelosi in this case is probably a “swing vote” since I think she’ll ultimately back her sister Hillary even if she agrees more with Obama. The media is also a swing vote. I think they will ultimately go with Hillary. While we all know the media is predominantly liberal, they also have to sell a story so they NEED Obama to give her a run for her money. But the Clinton team plays hardball and you can bet your exclusive interview that certain campaign spin will get free play with the understanding that the media types who don’t question the spin will not be frozen out of her campaign and White House. It’s about power and the Clintons wield it like a fork.
Ultimately, I think the primary race will be fairly clean. John Edwards will have great hair but a floundering campaign. Richardson won’t get within a 20 points of Hillary and Obama will be a graceful runner up. The Clintons will make it very clear to her opponents that if they want to advance in their careers post ’08, they better not damage Clinton to the point that she is weakened when facing the Republican challenger.
In the end, the Machine will win out. Obama is from Illinois, land of the original Democratic political machine (the Daly family) and he knows the score. The netroot juveniles will gripe. Some might even beg for Ralph Nader or write in Dennis Kucinich's name, but when the media finally kicks in and tries to sweep Hillary to victory, they’ll get in line and say they are counting on the 60’s version of Hillary to resurface after her inauguration.
Can she win? She WILL win the Democratic primaries, barring an unforeseen scandal (which the Clintons have proven they can weather). Can she win the general election? If the Republicans were still in charge of Congress, I’d say she was 2 to 1 odds to win it. But with Pelosi and Co. stealing a lot of Hillary’s thunder I’m not as sure. Pelosi and Hillary simply can’t say two words without mentioning “The Children.” I think that will get very old very quickly as most adults start to wonder why they need to give up freedoms and pay more taxes just so the kiddies are taken care of by a government who says it knows better than you how to raise your children. In a time of war, focusing entirely on mundane played out domestic issues will worry most voters. Given the fact that most of the new Democrats who won this past November were actually quite moderate to conservative, I think the country is still mostly conservative. I don’t think we turned blue overnight. The Republicans just got stale and could not have been lead more astray by arrogant leadership that completely missed the whole point of the 1994 Republican sweep: less government, more accountability, fewer scumbags.
Hillary can win. I think she is the odds on favorite to win. But, if the Republicans manage to nominate someone with crossover appeal (Guliani more so than McCain) or with a Reaganesque aura and street cred (please, for the love of God, insert a name here) then it could be a real race. We shall see.
Next up: What I’m looking for in the 2008 candidate.