What Obama owes to Reagan
Sunday, 16 March 2008
Christopher Caldwell
THERE was a curious moment in late last month's televised debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Mrs Clinton wanted to talk about healthcare and kept talking over the moderator when he tried to change the subject. Mr Obama professed to be mystified by the performance. "The same experts she cites," he responded, "basically say there's no real difference between our plans." That was true, and the overlap extends to almost all their policies.
This is the most furiously contested nomination fight in more than a generation. The two candidates between them have raised $85m (£43m) from supporters in the past month, and Mr Obama has more than a million donors. Americans, even non-Democrats, are riveted by the spectacle. And yet, except for the authorisation to go to war in Iraq (which Mrs Clinton voted for and Mr Obama assailed from his position in the Illinois senate), the positions and voting records of the two candidates are hard to distinguish.
Their campaign slogans are no help, either. Apart from what she has acquired through marriage, Mrs Clinton has no more "experience" than Mr Obama, and it is unclear that Mr Obama would "change" things more than Mrs Clinton. Their biggest difference is in their attitude towards the US electorate. Voters sense that that is everything. They are right. The non-ideological differences between Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton are vast, possibly greater than those between either of them and the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain. Their administrations would bear little resemblance to one another.
Mrs Clinton views voters as either committed friends or foes. There are good people on one side. On the other, depending on the rhetorical mood she is in, is "the vast rightwing conspiracy" or "the special interests".
She conveys to Americans who are not on her side that she relishes their enmity. This includes every last Republican and the majority of independents. She believes the way to win is to motivate one's loyal allies to bury the opposition. That is why she gets the word "passion" or "passionate" into almost every televised performance. She is running as a "fighter", a self-description she employed half a dozen times in late last month's debate. The main television advertisement with which she hoped to sway voters in Ohio opened with Ted Strickland, the state governor, saying: "We need a president, first of all, who's going to be a fighter."
It is not obvious that Mr Strickland is correct. Fighting is a necessary skill when one is among enemies, or people who can conveniently be deemed enemies. Had Mrs Clinton managed to seal her party's nomination after the first couple of primaries, her combative, polarising, Manichean style of campaigning might have been a useful weapon against the Republicans. But when the Democratic primaries turned out to be more than a rubber-stamp, this "fighter" strategy became a liability. If you are fighting people who believe as you do and back the same programmes, then you cannot be fighting for your beliefs - you are either deluded or fighting for personal advantage.
When Mrs Clinton tried late last month's televised debate to accuse the debate moderators of favouring Mr Obama ("Maybe we should ask Barack if he's comfortable and needs another pillow . . . I just find it curious that I keep getting the first question on all of these issues"), she sounded truculent.
Mr Obama views the electorate's affections and affiliations as changeable - at least at certain pivotal times. He believes independents and Republicans will rally to his cause, and many have done so. For this, Mrs Clinton seeks to portray him as a naïf and a sap. He believes that Mrs Clinton's approach is an obstacle to the policies they agree on. "She had the view that what's required is simply to fight," he said referring to the healthcare plan doomed by Mrs Clinton's secretiveness and mismanagement in 1993. "And Senator Clinton ended up fighting not just the insurance companies and the drug companies, but also members of her own party."
There is a precedent for what Mr Obama is trying to pull off: Ronald Reagan. Mrs Clinton accused him of "admiring" the late Republican president in January after he marvelled at Reagan's ability to put the country "on a fundamentally different path".
While Mr Obama passed off his remarks as a mere historical observation, Mrs Clinton had a point. To read Mr Obama's political autobiography, The Audacity of Hope, is to see an interest in Reagan that borders on fascination. "I understood his appeal," Mr Obama writes.
It is easy to see why. Reagan beat Jimmy Carter in 1980 by attracting disaffected Democrats in millions. They did not jump to Reagan because Mr Carter was a particularly leftwing Democrat. Nor did Reagan appeal by watering his positions down into centrist mush. He ran as an unapologetic conservative, just as Mr Obama has run as an unapologetic man of the left. But the revolutionary coalition that Reagan formed was less ideological than he was. Reagan won because he solicited the whole nation's support at a time when lesser politicians mistook their parties' battles for the country's.
If Mr Obama wins, it will be in the same way. His appeal is not to be found in the nuances of trade or health or tax policy. Mr Obama wants to be president of the US. Mrs Clinton wants to capture the government for her faction. Her election would bring four or eight years more of the partisan venom that has prevailed in the past decade, and almost certainly intensify it. Mr Obama thinks the fighting has worn people out and that Americans are ready to unite around a new set of goals. This is a more optimistic vision of the electorate. Mr Obama will win only if it is the more accurate one.
The writer is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard. Under syndication arrangement with FE
THERE was a curious moment in late last month's televised debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Mrs Clinton wanted to talk about healthcare and kept talking over the moderator when he tried to change the subject. Mr Obama professed to be mystified by the performance. "The same experts she cites," he responded, "basically say there's no real difference between our plans." That was true, and the overlap extends to almost all their policies.
This is the most furiously contested nomination fight in more than a generation. The two candidates between them have raised $85m (£43m) from supporters in the past month, and Mr Obama has more than a million donors. Americans, even non-Democrats, are riveted by the spectacle. And yet, except for the authorisation to go to war in Iraq (which Mrs Clinton voted for and Mr Obama assailed from his position in the Illinois senate), the positions and voting records of the two candidates are hard to distinguish.
Their campaign slogans are no help, either. Apart from what she has acquired through marriage, Mrs Clinton has no more "experience" than Mr Obama, and it is unclear that Mr Obama would "change" things more than Mrs Clinton. Their biggest difference is in their attitude towards the US electorate. Voters sense that that is everything. They are right. The non-ideological differences between Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton are vast, possibly greater than those between either of them and the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain. Their administrations would bear little resemblance to one another.
Mrs Clinton views voters as either committed friends or foes. There are good people on one side. On the other, depending on the rhetorical mood she is in, is "the vast rightwing conspiracy" or "the special interests".
She conveys to Americans who are not on her side that she relishes their enmity. This includes every last Republican and the majority of independents. She believes the way to win is to motivate one's loyal allies to bury the opposition. That is why she gets the word "passion" or "passionate" into almost every televised performance. She is running as a "fighter", a self-description she employed half a dozen times in late last month's debate. The main television advertisement with which she hoped to sway voters in Ohio opened with Ted Strickland, the state governor, saying: "We need a president, first of all, who's going to be a fighter."
It is not obvious that Mr Strickland is correct. Fighting is a necessary skill when one is among enemies, or people who can conveniently be deemed enemies. Had Mrs Clinton managed to seal her party's nomination after the first couple of primaries, her combative, polarising, Manichean style of campaigning might have been a useful weapon against the Republicans. But when the Democratic primaries turned out to be more than a rubber-stamp, this "fighter" strategy became a liability. If you are fighting people who believe as you do and back the same programmes, then you cannot be fighting for your beliefs - you are either deluded or fighting for personal advantage.
When Mrs Clinton tried late last month's televised debate to accuse the debate moderators of favouring Mr Obama ("Maybe we should ask Barack if he's comfortable and needs another pillow . . . I just find it curious that I keep getting the first question on all of these issues"), she sounded truculent.
Mr Obama views the electorate's affections and affiliations as changeable - at least at certain pivotal times. He believes independents and Republicans will rally to his cause, and many have done so. For this, Mrs Clinton seeks to portray him as a naïf and a sap. He believes that Mrs Clinton's approach is an obstacle to the policies they agree on. "She had the view that what's required is simply to fight," he said referring to the healthcare plan doomed by Mrs Clinton's secretiveness and mismanagement in 1993. "And Senator Clinton ended up fighting not just the insurance companies and the drug companies, but also members of her own party."
There is a precedent for what Mr Obama is trying to pull off: Ronald Reagan. Mrs Clinton accused him of "admiring" the late Republican president in January after he marvelled at Reagan's ability to put the country "on a fundamentally different path".
While Mr Obama passed off his remarks as a mere historical observation, Mrs Clinton had a point. To read Mr Obama's political autobiography, The Audacity of Hope, is to see an interest in Reagan that borders on fascination. "I understood his appeal," Mr Obama writes.
It is easy to see why. Reagan beat Jimmy Carter in 1980 by attracting disaffected Democrats in millions. They did not jump to Reagan because Mr Carter was a particularly leftwing Democrat. Nor did Reagan appeal by watering his positions down into centrist mush. He ran as an unapologetic conservative, just as Mr Obama has run as an unapologetic man of the left. But the revolutionary coalition that Reagan formed was less ideological than he was. Reagan won because he solicited the whole nation's support at a time when lesser politicians mistook their parties' battles for the country's.
If Mr Obama wins, it will be in the same way. His appeal is not to be found in the nuances of trade or health or tax policy. Mr Obama wants to be president of the US. Mrs Clinton wants to capture the government for her faction. Her election would bring four or eight years more of the partisan venom that has prevailed in the past decade, and almost certainly intensify it. Mr Obama thinks the fighting has worn people out and that Americans are ready to unite around a new set of goals. This is a more optimistic vision of the electorate. Mr Obama will win only if it is the more accurate one.
The writer is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard. Under syndication arrangement with FE