Keeping the eye on the prize in the Hillary-Gore-Warner-Feinberg Wars: it's Team Democrats vs. Team Republicans
ChiTom had a thoughtful post on Hillary a few days ago, “Give Hillary a Chance,” and I thought anonymous’s comment was good, too. http://scatablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/give-hillary-chance.html Sure, I, too, find some of her triangulation initiatives annoying – like the silly flag-burning amendment that looks like pandering and may hurt perceptions of her character more than gain sympathetic centrists. But my overall take is this:
Everything about Hillary’s life spells liberal with a conservative streak. She has shown a consistent pattern of advocating liberal solutions to domestic matters. In foreign affairs, “liberal” has come to mean basic support for the internationalist leadership begun by FDR and continued in a straight line, basically, and ultimately successfully, through Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George the Father and Clinton. She is strongly in the internationalist fold.
On the other hand, she grew up with a Republican father, and was heavily involved in her Methodist church youth group. She spent many years in a conservative Southern state. What it all tells me is that she will try to find ways to connect with people who do not at the time share her ultimate policy beliefs – for example, her attempt at consoling language on the abortion issue -- and in that process really will be focusing on reaching the huge middle ground who are conflicted to some extent on almost every issue: people who do not like abortion, who consider it always a tragedy or may even consider it a sign of decline in our society, but nevertheless either feel it is the lesser of two evils in certain circumstances or in any case do not believe government should be intruding into that deeply personal decision; or who think Iraq was a tragic and criminal mistake, yet feel an obligation to find a way to leave in a manner that will not make things worse.
But in the end I have no doubt she will nevertheless pursue those basically liberal beliefs ardently. I also believe it probable that just as she won over New York, the campaign will wear away the worst polarized feelings, which are entirely a fabrication by the Right-Wing message machine that has been re-packaged by the Major Media and, unfortunately but as is so often the case, internalized by liberals desperate to find the perfect candidate who will restore Camelot. When you see Hillary in action in a relaxed setting, she is very, very good, very shrewd in what she says and how she says it. To those so pre-disposed, that shrewdness spells phony, inauthentic, triangulating. But when you see it in action, in my mind, it may well be triangulating, but it is also the mark of a successful leader. There is good triangulation as well as bad. Splitting the difference between something very bad and something good, coming out with a wishy-washy conclusion in hopes of appealing to the middle, is not good. Triangulation in governance, on the other hand, means searching creatively for a formulation of policy that preserves the most important purpose without watering it down, while finding a way for the opponent to accept it, too.
What is being lost in all this focus on the individual candidate is that when we elect a President, we elect a whole team of maybe hundreds of important policy makers. We are voting for Team Democrats, and they will do very different things from Team Republicans (which today should be called, accurately, Team Right-Wing Republicans). No matter how much Hillary reduces the personal baggage, she is likely to face a formidable candidate who is actively disliked by almost nobody. The more we buy into the electability game, the more we play into McCain’s hands. He may be the world’s greatest guy, with likability coming out of the roof, but he is still a Republican who will appoint a bunch of Republicans with a philosophy that has taken us dreadfully in the wrong direction.
This country desperately needs Team Democrats again – the team of aFDR, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton. I think we have several potential candidates who would make good Presidents leading Team Democrats to start healing the wounds inflicted by the Republican Party. I would never jeopardize that hopeful possibility becuse I just did not feel in quite the same groove with the Presidential candidate. Remember that one critical thing we have learned so painfully over the last few years: they may not do everything we want, or do it the way we want it, but Team Democrats will do very different things from Team Republicans.
Everything about Hillary’s life spells liberal with a conservative streak. She has shown a consistent pattern of advocating liberal solutions to domestic matters. In foreign affairs, “liberal” has come to mean basic support for the internationalist leadership begun by FDR and continued in a straight line, basically, and ultimately successfully, through Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George the Father and Clinton. She is strongly in the internationalist fold.
On the other hand, she grew up with a Republican father, and was heavily involved in her Methodist church youth group. She spent many years in a conservative Southern state. What it all tells me is that she will try to find ways to connect with people who do not at the time share her ultimate policy beliefs – for example, her attempt at consoling language on the abortion issue -- and in that process really will be focusing on reaching the huge middle ground who are conflicted to some extent on almost every issue: people who do not like abortion, who consider it always a tragedy or may even consider it a sign of decline in our society, but nevertheless either feel it is the lesser of two evils in certain circumstances or in any case do not believe government should be intruding into that deeply personal decision; or who think Iraq was a tragic and criminal mistake, yet feel an obligation to find a way to leave in a manner that will not make things worse.
But in the end I have no doubt she will nevertheless pursue those basically liberal beliefs ardently. I also believe it probable that just as she won over New York, the campaign will wear away the worst polarized feelings, which are entirely a fabrication by the Right-Wing message machine that has been re-packaged by the Major Media and, unfortunately but as is so often the case, internalized by liberals desperate to find the perfect candidate who will restore Camelot. When you see Hillary in action in a relaxed setting, she is very, very good, very shrewd in what she says and how she says it. To those so pre-disposed, that shrewdness spells phony, inauthentic, triangulating. But when you see it in action, in my mind, it may well be triangulating, but it is also the mark of a successful leader. There is good triangulation as well as bad. Splitting the difference between something very bad and something good, coming out with a wishy-washy conclusion in hopes of appealing to the middle, is not good. Triangulation in governance, on the other hand, means searching creatively for a formulation of policy that preserves the most important purpose without watering it down, while finding a way for the opponent to accept it, too.
What is being lost in all this focus on the individual candidate is that when we elect a President, we elect a whole team of maybe hundreds of important policy makers. We are voting for Team Democrats, and they will do very different things from Team Republicans (which today should be called, accurately, Team Right-Wing Republicans). No matter how much Hillary reduces the personal baggage, she is likely to face a formidable candidate who is actively disliked by almost nobody. The more we buy into the electability game, the more we play into McCain’s hands. He may be the world’s greatest guy, with likability coming out of the roof, but he is still a Republican who will appoint a bunch of Republicans with a philosophy that has taken us dreadfully in the wrong direction.
This country desperately needs Team Democrats again – the team of aFDR, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton. I think we have several potential candidates who would make good Presidents leading Team Democrats to start healing the wounds inflicted by the Republican Party. I would never jeopardize that hopeful possibility becuse I just did not feel in quite the same groove with the Presidential candidate. Remember that one critical thing we have learned so painfully over the last few years: they may not do everything we want, or do it the way we want it, but Team Democrats will do very different things from Team Republicans.
posted by KISSWeb | 3:31 PM
1 Comments:
Excellent post. It's quite tiring and depressing to read other blogs by Democrats who have bought the Republican line about Hillary Clinton being "polarizing" hook line and sinker. Bush is not "polarizing" simply because everybody is united in their disgust. She polls higher than everybody else even McCain - more voters say they would "definitely vote for" Hillary than anyone else. McCain is deeply unpopular with a large segment of the Republican party. I think Hillary can galvanise women to vote and since they make up the majority of the population and vote in greater numbers she has greater potential than other possible democrat candidates for President.
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