This New Republic story just went up last night, and already the internet is buzzing:
On one side is a majority of Democratic voters, who are angrier, more disaffected, and altogether more populist than they’ve been in years. They are more attuned to income inequality than before the Obama presidency and more supportive of Social Security and Medicare.1 They’ve grown fonder of regulation and more skeptical of big business.2 A recent Pew poll showed that voters under 30—who skew overwhelmingly Democratic—view socialism more favorably than capitalism. Above all, Democrats areincreasingly hostile to Wall Street and believe the government should rein it in.
On the other side is a group of Democratic elites associated with the Clinton era who, though they may have moved somewhat leftward in response to the recession—happily supporting economic stimulus and generous unemployment benefits—still fundamentally believe the economy functions best with a large, powerful, highly complex financial sector. Many members of this group have either made or raised enormous amounts of cash on Wall Street. They were deeply influential in limiting the reach of Dodd-Frank, the financial reform measure Obama signed in July of 2010.
But as central as this debate is to the identity of the party, Democrats won’t openly litigate it until they’re forced to ponder life after Obama. Partly out of deference to the president, partly out of a preoccupation with governing, and partly because there is no immediate political need, parties rarely conduct their internal soul-searching when they control the White House. It’s only when the president finally contemplates retirement that the feuding breaks out with real violence. Think of the Republican Party after George W. Bush. Or, you know, Yugoslavia.
Judging from recent events, the populists are likely to win. In September, New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, running on a platform of taming inequality, routed his Democratic mayoral rival, Christine Quinn, known for her ties to Michael Bloomberg’s finance-friendly administration. The following week, Larry Summers, Obama’s first choice to succeed Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve chairman, withdrew his name from consideration after months in which Senate Democrats signaled their annoyance with his previous support for deregulation. Not 48 hours later, Bill Daley, the former Obama chief of staff and JP Morgan executive, ended his primary campaign for governor of Illinois after internal polls showed him trailing his populist opponent.
All of this is deeply problematic for Hillary Clinton. As a student of public opinion, she clearly understands the direction her party is headed. As the head of an enterprise known as Clinton Inc. that requires vast sums of capital to function, she also realizes there are limits to how much she can alienate the lords of finance. For that matter, it’s not even clear Clinton would want to. “Many of her best friends, her intellectual brain trust [on economics], all come out of that world,” says a longtime Democratic operative who worked on Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign and then for Hillary in the White House. “She doesn’t have a problem on the fighting-for-working-class-folks side”—protecting Medicare and Social Security—“but it will be hard, really wrenching for her to be that populist on [finance] issues.”
Which brings us to the probable face of the insurgency. In addition to being strongly identified with the party’s populist wing, any candidate who challenged Clinton would need several key assets. The candidate would almost certainly have to be a woman, given Democrats’ desire to make history again. She would have to amass huge piles of money with relatively little effort. Above all, she would have to awaken in Democratic voters an almost evangelical passion. As it happens, there is precisely such a person. Her name is Elizabeth Warren.
Go read the rest.
What, no opinion Susie?!?
My opinion is that if Hillary Clinton doesn’t stop talking about a Grand Bargain, fuck her.
Well, well, well. The cracks in the Democartic Party are begining to show. Without having the Left (angry, disaffected, populists) on their side no Democratic nominee can win the presidential election in 2016. So what disqualifies Hillary for the Left? Among other things, “She doesn’t have a problem on the fighting-for-working-class-folks side, but it will be hard, really wrenching for her to be that populist on [finance] issues.” That’s a major problem for Hillary when “voters under 30 view socialism more favorably than capitalism.” Nobody on the Left, and it would seem nobody under 30 either, will vote for a 1 percenter in 2016. Hillary is a creation of the 1%. Warren is not. Let the games begin.
See Hillary run (away). Run, Liz, run!!!???
OTOH, before leaping with both of all of our feets, time to take a look at Liz on foreign policy. We might expect her to be against death robots in the sky, torture, rendition, kill lists, maybe even land mines, etc. just because she is decent human being. However, her more strategic inclinations on American exceptionalism, the “war” on terrorism, and the spread of the American military empire seem not highly developed. Or at least they are not articulated. And though she nests at Haavaad on merit, her roots are Okie.
This would be a huge weakness vis a vis Hillary: Liz lacks both experience and an analysis on which to base a position. I doubt it can be overcome within the institutional Dem party, given their penchant for deferring to their Republican Daddies on foreign and military policy. Also, the reality is that any effort to enact a populist domestic social policy would have to rein in the incredibly bloated military spending which supports increasingly desperate attempts project American influence worldwide. Dems have virtually nothing to say about this, except to try to look tough by voting the War Department another couple of billion.
I love Liz, but think she’s smart enough to realize that it would be a mistake to give up her populist base in Mass. She’s already been blindsided once on the CFPA chair by the corporatist Dem fools that run the Village.
Things have to heat up much more at the grass roots before any true left populist can be elected to national office. Let Bernie run now to test the waters and keep the question open, while Liz stays close to her base and keeps her powder dry.
Still, no doubt Hillary has a problem.
I always liked Hill better than Bill, and supported her over Obama (but she was still the 3rd worst choice of the lot, after Obama and Edwards). I had no illusions, but I always hoped there was that inner Eleanor Roosevelt. Bitch is dead to me now. I don’t care if she ever thinks better of and renounces this grand bargain shit, this one is absolutely unforgivable. Actually, I hope the whole lot of them choke on their greed between now and ’16 and die, and so will be dead to everyone else too.
Warren has made it clear she has no intention of running for President in 2016. Seeing as she has made no efforts to get an organization in place on the ground or solicit donations I think we should accept her statements.
It may not be Hillary Clinton, but it ain’t gonna be Warren.