Turning Tide
I’m delighted with the outcome of the Iowa caucuses. High turnout is a promising indicator for the 2008 general election, but the balance of that high turnout is even more promising—Republican participation is up 30% over 2000, but Democratic participation is something like three times what it was in 2000. Iowa is considered something of a swing state, maybe a touch red; the massive blue interest may be a sign of a massive turnover not only in the presidency, but in Congress as well. We desperately need that kind of sea change: not only must the villains currently running the Republican party and the country be taught a harsh lesson in the limits of authority, but we need a Congress both willing and able to reverse the shameful political trends of the past eight years, right over the top of Republican resistance.
While a huge turnover in national politics is the vital issue, news services aren’t paying that possibility much attention; instead, they’re all focused on Obama’s upset of Clinton. I suppose I can see why; it’s a more immediate issue, and therefore more likely to sell papers. So, after a firm reminder of what really counts here, let me join the pack and talk about Barack and Hillary.
Here, too, I see much cause for celebration. Edwards is my favorite, and he’s getting short shrift. But failing an Edwards nomination, I’d rather see Obama run than Clinton. Not only do I remain suspicious of Clinton’s ability, or even desire, to reverse the profound damage the Bush presidency and unfettered corporate greed have done to our country, but Clinton engenders too much distaste in the swing voters. She alone is the one major Democratic candidate who couldn’t plaster any and all of the major Republican candidates in a general election; she alone of the Democrats could lose the election, and she certainly can’t sweep a Democratic Congress in on her coat-tails.
As weak as she is as a general candidate, she has been a strong candidate among Democrats, on a strange sort of self-fulfilling prophecy: she took an early lead as the party’s anointed, and has largely campaigned on a tacit presumption that her nomination is inevitable. Voters love a winner, so as long as she was winning, she was likely to keep winning. More to the point, lobbyists love a winner—losers can’t pay them back—so as long as Clinton was winning, her war chest swelled. It didn’t hurt that news media love a winner, and the attention lavished on the front-runner lends an air of validation to his (or her) primacy. Clinton remained the front-runner largely because she was the front-runner, and not for legitimate reasons like her voting record, campaign promises, or chances of winning the general.
More valuable than the support of Iowa itself, Obama’s victory in Iowa has shattered the notion that Clinton is inevitable. Had we seen the three-way tie pundits predicted before the caucus, Clinton could easily have recovered as the action moved to the larger, national forum, where she still holds a lead. Her sharp loss in Iowa, however, coming behind even poor, overlooked Edwards means she can no longer campaign above the issues. She’s going to have to provide reasons more substantial than “the party embraces me, along with some hefty corporate donors” for the party to embrace her, along with some hefty corporate donors.
This can go two ways.
If Clinton has something under the hood, we’re about to see her bring it out. So far she’s been coasting on the natural advantage of being out in front, and until Iowa, it’s worked pretty well. In other states, it may continue to work well. She’s had no need to put forth substantial arguments; why, then, pull them out and expose herself? If she brings out material she’s been saving for just such a reverse (or, more likely, for the general election), she could launch herself right back into the front. She’ll need to hurry. Best to get it out before the momentum shifts and the front-runner’s halo begins working for someone else.
If, on the other hand, Clinton has nothing under the hood, and she really does sway with the breeze of every new poll, she’s going to fade very quickly from the spotlight. People are angry, and need a direction for that anger. They’re angry at the president and the whole rotten structure that supports him, but they’re angry, too, at Democrats who didn’t stand up to Bush and company. If Clinton can’t galvanize that anger behind more than a sense that she’s a poster-girl for the Democratic party we all know, she’s sunk.
She sounded whipped in her post-Iowa speech, belatedly telling her supporters that she, too, is a candidate for change—a hollow claim, but somebody else’s winning slogan of the day, which reinforced the sense that she was out of step and trying to catch up. But I wouldn’t count on her continuing to sound as she did in last night’s speech: Clinton is a smart campaigner, and last night was one day in a year-long process. She’s allowed a bad day after that kind of shock. Tomorrow we’ll see her come out fighting.
If that means sniping at her Democratic colleagues, she’ll hurt herself more than anyone. If that means taking a positive stance of some kind, and especially if it means laying out a program to repair the damage our country has suffered in the past decade, it can only be for the good, whether or not she is eventually elected.