Shrinking Democrats
Apr 25th, 2008 at 10:55 am by Susie
Joe Klein (yes, wanker emeritus Joe Klein!) raises a point I’ve thought of myself - which is that a candidate shouldn’t “talk” about the high road during a campaign, he should display the high road after he wins the election. You can’t win if you tie your own hands like that.
But I digress:
In the last days of the Pennsylvania campaign, Obama made a halfhearted attempt to go negative. He ran ads distorting Clinton’s health-care plan, claiming that it would force everyone to get health insurance (true), even if they couldn’t afford it (false). He devoted more and more of his stump speech to slagging Clinton. “She’s got the kitchen sink flying, the china flying — the buffet is coming at me,” he said during a whistle-stop tour of southeastern Pennsylvania. His delivery of the kitchen-sink line was droll, but the rest of the tour was surprisingly soporific. He seemed fed up with campaigning — as any reasonably sane human being would be at this point — and embittered by the turn the race had taken.
I’m not sure that Bill and Hillary Clinton are reasonably sane human beings, at least not when they are running for office: they become robo-pols, tireless and seemingly indestructible. Senator Clinton was on fire in the days before the Pennsylvania primary, as energized as I’ve ever seen her. She barely mentioned Obama at all but fiercely plowed her latest field — the populist granddaughter of a Pennsylvania factory worker, the daughter of a Penn State football player. As she said in her victory speech, “You know, tonight, all across Pennsylvania and America, teachers are grading papers, and doctors and nurses are caring for the sick, and you deserve a leader who listens to you. Waitresses are pouring coffee, and police officers are standing guard, and small businesses are working to meet that payroll. And you deserve a champion who stands with you.”
There was a warmth and a feistiness to Clinton in Pennsylvania — the very qualities that Obama was lacking. She had embraced the shameless rituals of politics, including some classic low-information signals, downing shots of Crown Royal and promising lower gas prices, attacking her opponent over trivia and threatening to “obliterate” Iran. It was enough to earn the ire of the New York Times editorial page, which harrumphed, “By staying on the attack and not engaging Mr. Obama on the substance of issues … she undercuts the rationale for her candidacy that led this page and others to support her: that she is more qualified, right now, to be President.”
Well, tsk-tsk and ahem! But part of the problem with editorial writers — and, truth to tell, columnists like me — is a narrow definition of the qualifications necessary to be President. It helps to be a warrior, for one thing. It helps to be able to take a punch and deliver one — even, sometimes, a sucker punch. A certain familiarity with life as it is lived by normal Americans is useful; a distance from the élite precincts of academia, where unrepentant terrorists can sip wine in good company, is essential. Hillary Clinton has learned these lessons the hard way; Barack Obama thinks they are “the wrong lessons.” The nomination is, obviously, his to lose. But the presidency will not be won if he doesn’t learn that the only way to reach the high-minded conversation he wants, and the country badly needs, is to figure out how to maneuver his way through the gutter.
“A certain familiarity with life as it is lived by normal Americans is useful”
I’m sorry - I forget which candidate has spent her whole career in a legislative bubble, and which one has significant experience with his feet on the ground out in Chicago? Piss off, Joe Klein. I’m sorry that the wagon you’ve hitched to the Clinton myth is currently on fire.
I guess it depends on what you mean by “is to figure out how to maneuver his way through the gutter. ” I think campaign ads that lie are disgusting. I do not believe that a candidate needs to use them. A candidate DOES need to know how to effectively deal with the kinds of low life ads that were used against John Kerry and use them to his/her advantage. Kerry never dealt with the odious Lying Swift Boat Veterans. (Actually, had he referred to them as exactly that every single time he spoke, it would have served him far, FAR better than the totally ineffective approach he used) I do not think one can generally use reason against such ads.
Lying is a funny thing. First you tell only a little lie. Then it becomes a tool. Look at the state of our nation right now and understand that the fish rots from the head. Almost everyone in power abuses it and almost everyone in authority seems to lie. Wonder where that comes from? I don’t The fish rots from the head.
JGug
Klein’s comments contain a kernel of truth - Obama will need more ferocity, more ruthless savagery, if he is to really change the way Washington does business. He will need to exhibit strong leadership if his administration is to purge the incompetent, obstructionist ideologues with which Bush appointees have packed the Federal bureaucracy for 8 years. This will not happen if he and his administrators are conflict adverse or willing to overlook past crimes. Think of what it will take to root out the Regency grads at the Department of Justice, as just one example. NPR is going to need someone to undo Tomlinson’s work. Contracts will need to be broken, people will need to be fired, access will need to be systematically denied to the corrupting influences of K street, and a lot of comfortable people will need to be made uncomfortable. Charlie Gibson’s performance at last week’s debate will be nothing compared to what those currently practicing stenography inside the beltway will do when this starts. I would be comforted to see Obama demonstrate some of Clinton’s political skills for this kind of fight.
Maybe Obama is pulling his punches so as to minimally offend Clinton’s base during the current struggle. He wants to win gracefully. He wants the women who identify so closely with Hillary not to transfer their pain at her loss to anger at him. If so, he would do well to showcase an attack on McCain. As the presumptive nominee, whose cash reserves are adequate to expand the scope of the conflict, he needs to get his game face on. Against McCain and the Republicans, there must be no such diffidence. McCain’s record and current platform outlines are a target rich environment. If Obama can’t make mincemeat with those opportunities, then we have a problem.
I think that Joke Line and Time in general and many other of the main stream media have been turning on Obama as they finally got fed up with Obama claiming the high road when they know how they’ve been dealing under the table.
I think the first one was Obama’s campaign sending the photo of Wright at Clinton’s prayer breakfast. The biggie was saying on ABC that his campaign doesn’t bring up the subject of Tuzla and then his campaign without provocation brings up Tuzla in a most despicable way.
The negative talk, the negative ads, flipping Hillary off has just turned off the media big time and he’s now reaping the seeds that he has sewn.
Joe Klein (or his editor) is an absolute moron.
http://www.time.com/time/columnist/klein/article/0,9565,1025086,00.html
vs.
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1734643,00.html
The top link is from three years ago. This sloppiness speaks for itself.