Hillary Clinton to (Still!) Get Democratic Nomination Whether We Like It Or Not Watch
I think Kevin Drum is right:
The audience for presidential debates is still small, but obviously it’s growing as we get closer to the primaries. And a lot of people who have vague, media-fueled recollections of Hillary as a conniving, ball-busting uber liberal, are starting to watch these debates and realize that…..she seems pretty reasonable. Pretty normal. Not at all the Hitlery of wingnut fame. What was all that nonsense about, anyway?
Anyway, I’ve mentioned this before. Just thought I’d repeat myself. An awful lot of people are effectively seeing Hillary for the first time ever following a very long hiatus, and they’re not likely to see any resemblance to the fever swamp creation of Rush Limbaugh ravings from the 90s. Her negatives are never going to be as low as, say, Obama’s, but I betcha they go down five or ten points by the time this is all over.
That’s why I think Andrew Sullivan’s argument that the Dems are sunk if they nominate Hillary because of her high negatives doesn’t stand up. I think that Clinton’s negatives are “soft” with enough of the country that she can easily overcome them because she’s actually an engaging public performer. Hell, I was as anti-Clinton as anybody in the 90s and I like her when I see her. Plus, outside the 26%er-sphere, the country would love to have the Clinton years back. I think this is why polls don’t show much “dynasty fatigue” counting against her. The “Clinton” name and Bill connection help her politically.
The reason to hope the Dems don’t nominate Hillary is the real risk that she would provide all too much continuity with the Bush years. But I don’t think it’s going to matter.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 7, 2007 @ 9:38 pm
Yeah, I’ve never bought the notion that she was this far left radical. Those who want to can point to her attempt to socialize medicine, but even then she seemed more wonkish than far-left.
No, I’m not defending the policy or suggesting it was sensible, just suggesting that to view her through the far-left lens is to misunderstand the nature of the beast. As Jim said, the biggest danger is that she’ll be like Bush. (And Bush, as we might recall, signed the largest expansion of federal involvement in medicine since LBJ gave us Medicare.)
Plus, although it might be a minor thing, I just have a deep-seated objection to politocal dynasties.
Comment by Dave W. —
August 7, 2007 @ 10:02 pm
Plus, although it might be a minor thing, I just have a deep-seated objection to politocal dynasties.
Actually, if you have time, you should blog more on your reasons about this. I have seen that you feel strongly about this issue of dynasties, and I am inclined to agree with you, but I am not sure what you think the particular risks are.
Comment by mds —
August 7, 2007 @ 10:17 pm
Weird. It’s conventional wisdom that the Republican nominee must pass muster with the hardcore activist base, yet the hardcore activist Democratic base is helpless to stop the loathed Clinton juggernaut. And note that I’m not talking about the general, but the race for the nomination, which is supposed to be dominated by the most motivated partisans. Back in college, we used to joke about how bizarre it was that Michael Jackson was such a successful pop musician, since we never met anyone who actually liked him. Do other Dems secretly still have a crush on the name “Clinton”? Something disengages their brains when it comes to the candidate that might as well wear a button with a picture of George W. Bush and the caption “Me, Too!”
(Personally, I’m still with Boing Boing’s Mark Frauenfelder: “My dream candidate would be Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich’s love child.”)
Comment by Jim Henley —
August 7, 2007 @ 10:24 pm
mds, I think your confusion is that the real Democratic Party “base” is not the mostly white, mostly male “netroots.” It’s public employee unions and teachers and women’s organizations and African-American churches. Plus the centrist DC think-tank and lobbyist community. That’s Clinton’s wheelhouse. Plus she really does appeal to the average woman Democrat, and the average woman Democrat is the modal primary voter.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 7, 2007 @ 10:30 pm
mds-
I think there are 2 reasons why a Dem can alienate the base and win while a GOP candidate has to placate the base:
1) The Dem base is more fragmented than the GOP base. The GOP coalition is certainly not seamless, but they can stitch together some sort of narrative to paper over the differences. Since they have found a way to make it work, they expect a candidate to do likewise. And they don’t really step on each other’s toes too much. The Dems, OTOH, are more fragmented and they know it, so placating “the base”, whatever it might be, means a balancing act. The GOP candidate starts balancing in the general election, the Dem starts balancing in the primaries.
This does NOT necessarily mean a Dem candidate is any stronger or better at uniting America. A balancing act can come across as wishy-washy rather than unifying. It just means that the Dem doesn’t need to be a red meat candidate.
2) The Dems are more concerned with electability. Or at least they’re more concerned with some notion that they call “electability,” although this notion may not necessarily translate into electoral victory.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 7, 2007 @ 10:34 pm
Jim said it shorter and better. A Dem candidate has to satisfy DC think tanks and black churches, rust belt union members and environmentalists. These elements step on each other’s toes. With the GOP, OTOH, there’s no reason you can’t hate taxes AND go to church AND own a gun AND be hawkish AND favor deregulation. Not every person is big on all those stances, but they don’t collide in the same way as steel workers and environmentalists.
Comment by matthew hogan —
August 7, 2007 @ 11:16 pm
“A Dem candidate has to satisfy DC think tanks and black churches, rust belt union members and environmentalists.”
Let’s not forget pro-choicers.
Comment by matthew hogan —
August 7, 2007 @ 11:17 pm
Hillary is an extremist. A centrist extremist.
Comment by Things —
August 8, 2007 @ 6:02 am
OTOH, there’s no reason you can’t hate taxes AND go to church AND own a gun AND be hawkish AND favor deregulation.
You can’t hate taxes and be hawkish at the same time.
Cut military spending now.
Comment by Uncle Kvetch —
August 8, 2007 @ 7:36 am
That’s why I think Andrew Sullivan’s argument that the Dems are sunk if they nominate Hillary because of her high negatives doesn’t stand up.
Fair enough. Me, I think it doesn’t add up because it’s simply a reflection of the solipsism we’ve come to expect from Sullivan. He’s gone on record saying Hillary gives him “the willies,” so how could anyone possibly find her appealing?
Comment by KCinDC —
August 8, 2007 @ 7:38 am
My father gave money to Obama specifically because he seemed to be the best choice to stop Clinton. I talked to him last night after the “debate” and he said he was feeling better about her, though he’s still thinks the dynastic implications are unhealthy for the country.
Comment by soullite —
August 8, 2007 @ 7:51 am
Hillary is a poor choice because she will deeply inflame the Republican base, and there is a good 10% of the Democratic base that will simply never show up to vote for her. Anti-hillary sentiments are not widespread within the party, but they run extremely deep and can not be papered over by “lesser of two evils” arguments. Most people who dislike her view are as too evil for that to apply.
The Democratic Party can not risk depressed voter turn-out, especially not after the damage they’ve done to themselves with the FISA bill. We are much better off voting for someone who will unify the party and not someone who’s candidacy and presidency will cause sizeable rifts for decades to come. When she still has troops in Iraq in 2012 (and she has reportedly told insiders that she intends to have them there until 2016) that will make it virtually impossible for her to obtain a second term and it will split the Democratic party more severely than the Vietnam war ever did.
Comment by Barry —
August 8, 2007 @ 10:30 am
Thoreau: “OTOH, there’s no reason you can’t hate taxes AND go to church AND own a gun AND be hawkish AND favor deregulation.
Things: ” You can’t hate taxes and be hawkish at the same time.
Cut military spending now. ”
Yes, you can. As proven by the past few years.
My comments, from a liberal perspective:
The biggest difference, IMHO, is that the GOP social base doesn’t generally conflict with the GOP economic elites. There are occasional conflicts (stem cell research, immigration), but not major opposition. Immigration was the rare one, but I’d bet that the business elites will get their way more than not, once things are actually being done in Congress, and not in the headlines.
The GOP social base is quite happy, almost ecstatic, to cut taxes on the rich (with the tiniest token for themselves), gut government regulation on corporations, install highly corrupt government officials, install judges who are some mix of right wing batsh*t crazy-in love with helping the elites (but *always a large chunk of the second), hand out huge subsidies and fat, no-bid, hard to audit, unaccountable government contracts to cronies.
Given all of this, some occasional difficulties with social issues are quite tolerable.
Comment by sglover —
August 8, 2007 @ 1:49 pm
Where have you been these last 27 years? It might not make sense to favor both “small gummint” and “big Pentagon”, but since when has making sense ever been a central plank of any winning political platform?
Comment by H-Bob —
August 8, 2007 @ 4:19 pm
Just watch Hillary speak, putting aside all the filters, commentary, notions, narratives, back-stories, etc., through which people define her. She is an intelligent, likable, and thoughtful person. She is not charismatic and outgoing like Bill, but she isn’t the cold, calculating shrew portrayed in the media.
On the other hand, the Obama supporters (not Obama himself) seem to be the “flavor of the month” crowd who want a ‘purer-than-pure non-politician” type, and, when Obama makes the ordinary compromises required of every politician, will scream betrayal, be totally disillusioned and abandon Obama.
Comment by Steve —
August 9, 2007 @ 2:10 pm
What really matters is the 35-40% of the country that is too lazy to follow the news but they vote any way. How easily will they be manipulated by photo shopped pictures of wild eyed Hillary, grim 30 second commercials with terrorists running around and Vince Foster murder “forward this to everyone you know or you dont love Christ” e-mails? I fear they will be easily manipulated enough to put the drag queen with ties to organized crime or the changling mannequin Romney in the White House.
Dont fool yourself into thinking the public will come around. Dont forget 2000.
Nice site….
Comment by Kevin Carson —
August 15, 2007 @ 12:32 am
You really like her? Wow.
Every time I see her on TV with that smug little “Democrats care” permasmirk on her face, and that little frown line between her eyes like she really thinks she’s smarter than everybody else, I hate her. And when I hear all the soccer mom rhetoric about “our working families,” and then think of her voting record on issues like the bankruptcy “reform” and her ties to Bob Rubin, I utterly loathe her.
You yourself once said it best: liberalism is a managerialist ideology. It’s an ideology of the corporate center, of schoolmarms and social workers who like to manage everybody else for their own good, and usually wind up managing them for the good of David Rockefeller and Bill Gates. And Hillary is the living embodiment of everything I hate about that ideology.