The Haunting of the Democrats
Apr 23rd, 2008 at 7:17 am by Susie
Andrew O’Hehir wonders where we go from here:
Even if the warring parties do not consciously feel that way, results speak louder than words: Excluding the Jimmy Carter “Watergate election” of 1976, Democrats have elected just one president since LBJ. And while Bill Clinton’s economy looks pretty good right about now, let’s remember that he lost both houses of Congress halfway through his first term, was virtually paralyzed by scandal in his second, and drifted toward social policies slightly to the right of Richard Nixon’s. Then there was his wife — what was her name again? — who botched the issue of national healthcare so badly that it’s been off the table ever since.
This intra-Democratic conflict is profound and epistemological. It speaks to deeply divergent ideas about the nature of politics, of America and indeed of human life. It dwarfs the so-called divisions in the Republican Party, which always seem miraculously healed by the time Election Day arrives. (You don’t hear Mitt Romney’s former supporters vowing to vote for Obama.) It isn’t a battle for the soul of the Democratic Party; it is the Democratic Party. It is not likely to be healed anytime soon, whether or not this year’s nominee can lure the semi-mythical gun-loving lumpenproletariat at whose feet Lind prostrates himself. It has robbed the United States of an effective opposition party for four decades, with no end in sight.
IAWTP
a mixed-race immigrant’s kid who had a poor and peripatetic childhood (and, as recent estimates reveal, possesses about 5 percent of her net worth)
Is O’Hehir flipping kidding?
Obama senior wasn’t an immigrant but a visiting student who contracted a bigamous marriage and dumped his wife and kid. Within a few years his mom married a man who supported the family in comfort. In Hawaii Obama lived with his bank VP grandmother. (I wish I’d had such a “poor” childhood.)
The wealth comparison is flawed, too. Clinton is 15 years older than Obama. That’s an important set of years to solidfy a financial position, even if she weren’t married to a popular ex-president who commands top speaking fees.
With basic inaccuracies like that, I have to wonder about the worth of the rest of his analysis.
Sorry - behind the times on acronyms. IATWP? I am toilet wiping paper? (And apparently a little cranky this morning.)
I think O’Hehir just wants to be the first to say, “Of course the Democrats lost. It’s what they do.” I think he glosses over President Carter much too quickly. That election should be the model that gets followed here, in that we have a scandal-ridden Republican administration. And also the media’s response to Carter’s persona should be displayed and ridiculed loudly.
IAWTP = I agree with this post. Probably equals, anyway.
Never understood the point of saying so, though, unless someone asks: Who’s with me?
Always figured the host would be thinking something like, “Great, some pseudonymous Dog in ghostland agrees. That’ll spark a passionate and spirited, well-informed debate.”
But chacun a son gout. Or ghoust, as the case may be.
“left vs. center, reformer vs. the Establishment, pragmatist vs. idealist”: Who’s supposed to be who here? If it’s Obama who’s “left,” “reformer,” is he also the “pragmatist” and Clinton the “idealist”?
“the differences between the candidates are mainly semiotic rather than substantive”: Clinton cares about, for example, health care; what does Obama care about? Two years ago, David Sirota (now calling loudly for Clinton to get off the stage) interviewed Obama and came away thinking his heart was probably in the right place but he offered endless excuses for why he couldn’t do anything.
“Do we want to lose because we drove away blacks or because we drove away white women?” Yeah, let’s let the Latinos go Republican.
“liberals and moderates, outsiders and insiders, let’s-win-an-election realists and let’s-save-our-party dreamers”: Again, who’s supposed to be who here? Who’s the liberal, the guy who doesn’t care about health care for all, puts Social Security back on the table, and doesn’t think anyone predicted 9/11? Who’s the outsider, the guy who came up through the Chicago machine and is backed by the Old Bull Dem establishment? Who are the realists and who the dreamers? (O’Hehir seems to have trouble with parallel construction.)
“a political party that lacks any clear constituency or ideological focus”: How about a constituency of people who work for a living and need a government that’s on their side? “ideological focus”: Does he mean the candidate who had to have his arm twisted to vote against John Roberts for Chief Justice, because Roberts was smart and Obama didn’t think ideology should play a part in picking Justices? The corporatist John Roberts, who was on a steering committee of the Federalist Society? Doesn’t “ideology” mean “politics”? We should pretend that everybody is above politics, the clash of interests?
Hey, if Obama is the antiwar candidate, what has he done besides making one speech?
“It’s fair to say that the Democratic leadership is always more eager to lose with a Mondale than with a McGovern — with a familiar, safe, mainstream candidate rather than a reform-minded outsider.” In this contest, HRC is more the reform-minded outsider; the insiders are lined up against her. Roseanne (http://www.roseanneworld.com/blog/ ) is on to something: “Obama could be the one chosen to tell the people that there is nothing left. He will be able to speak to people in fireside chats and calm them down. This is what the owners of this country want. They do not want Hillary or universal health care.”
Democrats have been a party of coalitions. Now there seems to be a takeover attempt by disaffected Republicans and Libertarians, and kids who want the old people to go away or die, supported by the Dem establishment. I am not looking forward to the first hip-hop president. The man could have told his supporters to show some respect for women.
“The other side wants to sweep the electoral map as clean as a Tibetan sand mandala, with the broom wielded by a magical figure pledged to purify the polluted realm of politics.” That doesn’t sound good.
“suspect that one side would rather lose a battle fought on the narrow ground they see as pragmatism and realism, rather than risk discovering that their starry-eyed opponents have a fairer and more generous vision of the country than they do. Conversely, the other side might actually prefer to go down in the flames of idealistic self-immolation, McGovern-style, rather than suffer through another Clintonian era of perennial compromise and constant dissatisfaction.” No, one side thinks that addressing the needs of working people is a good strategy. The other thinks kicking out half the Democratic party is a good strategy. “Perennial compromise”? Why compromise when you can postpartisanly give away the store?
A (small) part of me wants to see Obama versus McCain: two thin-skinned, underinformed candidates (McCain doesn’t even know what his positions are from day to day). Except I think McCain will be better at needling.
Argh! You made me read the whole thing!
The reason I love political blogs is they drag out people who can think and make their point. I can only think a little, but if given time can work my way out of a paper bag.
The “party” isn’t lacking a constituency; it’s just been pretending those people don’t exist while counting on their votes.
Hey, I guess Democrats ARE the opposite of Republicans!