David Niose writes:
No matter what you think about Hillary Clinton as the
presidential primaries wind down, there is one undeniable fact that lingers in
the background.
Despite having had enormous advantages from the start of the
campaign—no serious competition from within the party, solid support from
national party leaders, a massive war chest and a nationwide grassroots network
built over the course of decades in national politics—Clinton has struggled to
put away a 74-year-old Jewish socialist who has had almost no establishment
support.
Say whatever you want about
Clinton’s lengthy résumé—and her credentials are indeed impressive—her
performance this primary season is hardly indicative of a strong candidate.
Indeed, Clinton concedes that she’s not a natural politician,
lacking the charm of her husband or the charisma of Barack Obama.
But what
should be troubling to those who hope to see a Democrat in the White House next
year is that Clinton seems to suggest that this weakness isn’t problematic,
that her résumé and policy-wonk reputation will be enough to carry her on
Election Day.
Maybe. But don’t be too sure.
Look no further than the 2000
election, when another policy-wonk Democrat with little charm or charisma—Al Gore—failed
to ride his impressive credentials to the White House.
Gore, a two-term vice
president with prior lengthy service in both the Senate and House, lost to an
anti-intellectual GOP opponent with no Washington experience.
Sound familiar?
Many Democrats are having
difficulty accepting the fact that Clinton, despite her résumé, is a weak
politician. In this state of denial, their defense of Clinton becomes
aggressive, as they lash out at Bernie Sanders for staying in the race,
implying that Clinton has earned the right to glide to the finish line
unopposed.
A prime example of this Clinton-entitlement mentality can
be found in a recent Boston Globe column by Michael A. Cohen, entitled “Bernie Sanders declares war on
reality.”
Cohen
insists that Sanders is “illogical, self-serving, hypocritical” and
“intellectually dishonest” in trying win the nomination by swaying superdelegates
away from Clinton.
“Instead of coming to grips with the overwhelming evidence
that Democratic primary voters prefer Hillary Clinton to be the party’s 2016
presidential nominee,” Cohen writes, “Sanders continues to create his own
political reality.”
Unfortunately, Cohen ignores the
fact that the “overwhelming evidence” isn’t strong enough to allow Clinton to
claim the nomination with pledged delegates alone.
Had the evidence been so
overwhelming, courting superdelegates would be irrelevant.
Because Clinton has
been far from dominating in the primaries and caucuses, the true “political
reality” is that she will need superdelegate support to secure the nomination.
Fortunately for Clinton, she appears to have the support of an overwhelming
majority of superdelegates, but those allegiances can change up until the time
of the convention vote, so Sanders is alive as long as the race comes down to a
fight over them.
Sanders has correctly criticized the superdelegate system
as undemocratic, but there is nothing hypocritical or illogical in his
continuing the fight within that system.
To denounce the rules of a race does
not preclude a candidate from competing within those flawed rules.
With party
insiders having disproportionate power as superdelegates, the system tips the
scales strongly in Clinton’s favor, as Cohen surely knows, yet he still cries
foul at Sanders pressing on within that system.
Such specious arguments not only
distract from the uncomfortable reality that Clinton is an extremely vulnerable
candidate, they also fail to recognize that the Sanders campaign represents an
agenda that is fundamentally different from Clinton’s.
This is not a debate
between two candidates with slight differences in substance or style, but of
two vastly disparate philosophical views.
Even if Sanders loses the nomination contest, which at
this point appears likely, he represents an egalitarian, democratic vision that
is highly skeptical of corporate power and the neoliberalism that Clinton
represents.
This agenda has resonated, fueling a surprisingly strong campaign
that has energized many, especially younger voters, and those supporters expect
that their message will be carried all the way to the convention.
For Sanders,
stopping the fight at this point would be senseless.
Clinton herself has the tact to
refrain from urging Sanders to exit.
She instead is doing the smart thing by
basically ignoring him and focusing on Donald Trump and the general election.
Still, there can be no doubt that she would love to be in Trump’s position,
having no opponents remaining with any mathematical chance of seizing the
nomination.
The fact that she’s not in such a
position, and that her race for the Democratic nomination continues to be
pestered by an old lefty who has served three decades in politics without even
registering as a Democrat, should be a grave concern for her and her
supporters.
Although her credentials are strong, her candidacy isn’t—and
blaming that on Sanders would be nothing but a form of denial.
Trump has had more votes in the primaries than any candidate in Republican party history. Even 40% of Sanders voters say they'll vote Trump if Clinton is the nominee.
ReplyDeleteThe brilliant Pat Buchanan writes of the paleocon Presidential nominee.
""As for the issues dividing Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan, Trump appears to have won the argument, if the debate is decided by voter preferences rather than Beltway preferences.
Trump’s denunciation of NAFTA and other “free-trade” deals Ryan supports is echoed by Sanders, who opposed those deals when they were up for a vote. Hillary Clinton no longer rhapsodizes over husband Bill’s NAFTA, and signals she will not support Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership in a lame-duck session.
Ryan professes to be a man of principle. Why does he not then stand by his principles, as Goldwater did, and bring up TPP for a vote?
Is Paul Ryan’s “immigration reform” package as popular inside his party as Trump’s tough line? It would seem not.
The longer the primaries went on, the closer the other GOP candidates moved toward Trump. And if Ryan believes in it on principle, why not bring it up?
Ryan voted for the Iraq War that Trump calls a disaster. The people seem now to agree with Trump that the war was misconceived.""
http://buchanan.org/blog/trump-ryan-speaks-gop-125232
But he is still Donald Trump. That is the problem.
DeleteBuchanan no longer speaks for anyone but himself. It is difficult to see how he could ever live down his endorsement of Trump. A movement moves. And it leaves some people behind.