Thoughts on the Iowa Primary
I
It’s January 3. It’s only Iowa. It’s probably a little early to start talking about who the dream VP for an Obama ticket is.
II
Mike Huckabee is a scarily good speaker. I hope the rumor that the Democrats have tons of oppo research on him is true.
III
I’ve definitely settled on Edwards as my candidate of choice, and I would have loved for him to win, but I have to admit that Obama’s win is the most exciting possible outcome on the Democratic side.
IV
Obama gave a great speech; I loved the sound of it. I couldn’t help but think, though, that it was nearly content-free. “Hope, unity, change:” these are all good things, but they’re not substance. Maybe that’s what wins elections, but I have a lot of respect for John Edwards who used his speech to talk about what he stands for: the people versus the powerful.
Apart from the fact that it’s little more than “rainbows and unicorns,” Obama’s emphasis on unity worries me a little bit. The last Democratic president we had was also all about reaching out to the other side, and moderation, and unity, and where did it get us? Welfare reform and a Republican Congress. You just don’t hear Republican candidates spend so much time talking out their willingness to reach across the aisle. Why? Because they know the way to get what you want in a negotiation is to stake out as strong a position as possible. I think Edwards knows this.
It makes me think about the relationship between a candidate and their party’s base. Both Republicans and Democrats know that no matter who they run, and no matter what they say, their base is going to vote for them. That’s what makes them the base. So why do Republicans work so hard to appease their base, while Democrats take theirs so for granted? I think it’s because Republicans put up candidates who actually agree with their base, while Democrats don’t. Republicans actually are that conservative, but with a few notable exceptions Democrats just aren’t all that liberal. (This is probably also why Democrats move to the middle while Republicans move to the right.) This is depressing for a liberal Democrat such as myself.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Matt, I respectfully disagree with your point IV. I am pretty sure our disagreement stems from a fundamental difference of opinions as to the nature of the problems we face, but I will try to explain my position.
I do not think that Obama’s speech lacked content. I think Obama’s message is that there are times in the history of a society when we must look past petty differences and come together for the sake of something greater than all of us, and one such time is now. This is not the traditional “I support A, B, C, and will beat down D and take back X,Y,Z for us!,” but I think it is much deeper and more meaningful. The threats we face as a nation and as a world are too great for us to be worried about things like who favors an individual mandate in health care, or what a candidate’s definition of “fair trade” is. Global warming is a real threat, and finding a solution is literally a matter of life and death for millions of people. Fixing our broken health care system is another real problem. Instability abroad, nuclear weapons, terrorism, Globalization. The world is changing faster than it ever has before, and the partisan rancor that exists right now in our country is a major impediment to starting a movement toward solutions.
I think that right now is the wrong time to be concerned about getting that perfect health care system. It is the wrong time to want to exact revenge on the powerful few who seem to be gaining at the expense of the many. It is absolutely the wrong time to go about the business as usual in politics, which is to separate the populace into those who agree with you, and those who don’t, and work as hard as you can to make sure that the former slightly edges out the latter. This politics-as-usual model is the one that Edwards and Clinton operate in, and this is precisely the model that Obama rejects.
Obama rejects the idea that our problems are getting worse just because we are not electing the biggest and strongest fighters. He argues that the politics-as-usual model necessarily leads to gridlock, and ultimately more problems. When Barack Obama is sworn in as president in January 2009, he will not have been elected as a liberal, he will not have been elected as a African-American male, he will have been elected as the first politician in a long time with a real mandate to change this broken system, and ultimately work to solve the problems that we face.
Up top I alluded to an apparent fundamental difference of opinion between us as to the nature of the problems we face. I will try to explain what I mean. I am pretty confident that we can solve 90% of the biggest problems we face if we all can agree to leave aside our differences on the last 10%. Our country, more than ever I think, is fighting our biggest internal battles at the absolute margins, and this is destroying our ability to move forward on the issue we actually pretty much agree on. Someone like Edwards, whose theme seems to be that he is going to fight for “us” at the expense of “them,” is not the person for this time. I also think, possibly in disagreement with you, that the current distribution of power and money in this country is not simply something that can be solved with a fight for redistribution, “fair” trade, worker protections, etc. I think that unless we change the underlying political system (the business as usual), we are doomed to encounter different problems even as we think we are solving the issues of today.
Again, Obama will be a president for our time, a president who can bring people together around the 90%, and with a mandate to slice through the divisive 10%. We have spent too long fighting, and losing, we should not now waste time more time in battle, even if we end up winning.
Eli,
It’s never a good sign when a thoughtful comment is longer than the post that inspired it. Bad blogger! Bad! I was a little flip with “content-free,” but in my defense it was late, and this is a blog, so…
Here’s the thing. Everything you’re saying about Obama sounds great. Better than great. Super great! Obama’s message is inspiring, and the hope he represents is a breath of fresh air in American politics. There’s only one problem:
I’m not buyin’ it.
I don’t mean I think Obama is being dishonest, I just think there’s a huge difference between what makes a successful candidate and what makes a successful president. And almost every election has had a candidate that has appeared to be the candidate of unity, of optimism, and of hope, but we still haven’t had a massive revolution in government. (You can take your last paragraph, change “Obama” to “Clinton,” and imagine my 17-year-old self saying it in complete earnest a lifetime ago in 1992.)
Don’t get me wrong, I’d be very excited about President Obama for so many reasons, but I just don’t believe that he really represents a viable alternative model of politics. First of all, “politics-as-usual” does work, just not for the Democrats. The reason is that the Republicans play the game better than we do, and I firmly believe that the lesson isn’t to give up, it’s to fight harder. Politics-as-usual only leads to gridlock when the opposition party successfully stymies the majority; a majority that knows how to legislate can get quite a bit done.
(I have to disagree, also, that “that we can solve 90% of the biggest problems we face if we all can agree to leave aside our differences on the last 10%.” Abortion? Global warming? Universal health care? Terrorism? The war in Iraq? These aren’t marginal differences.)
I think you’re mischaracterizing my view of the struggle a little bit here: It’s not “those who agree” versus “those who don’t,” rather it’s “those who have” versus “those who need.” American civic and economic society has been strained to near the breaking point by the accumulation of wealth in the upper classes, the systematic disenfranchisement and neglect of the poor, and the privileging of corporate well-being over social justice. I honestly believe there is a non-crazy case to be made for a people vs. the powerful candidate, and I think to elide that very real struggle as “politics as usual” misses the point in a rather important way. Politics as usual doesn’t at all concern itself with the needs of the weakest members of society; it ought to.
Frankly, I’ll be pretty disappointed if the next president isn’t elected, as you say, as a liberal. The complete devaluation of real liberalism as a political force in this country wasn’t an accident, and it has left us worse off. (This is the other thing I was getting at in my post—liberalism doesn’t really have a major party anymore, which makes me sad.)
Anyway, John Edwards is getting my vote in the primary (well, OK, I’m writing in his name because his organization in RI apparently couldn’t get 1000 signatures to put him on the ballot) because I think he’s the candidate that speaks best to me. That said, if your candidate wins, I’ll be more than proud to check the box next to Barack Obama’s name in November.
(I also like the last paragraph of this Obama profile by Matt Taibbi:
)
I guess I could have saved a lot of time in that last comment by just saying: I agree with Atrios.
You’re right about Obama. His version of Change means something akin to Clinton triangulation. He has cited Gore and Kerry as being alienating during their campaigns. Not only does he go against his party, but he sets aside both that Gore won his election and either campaign would certainly win in ‘08. So it’s Clinton is old politics, Edwards is alienating and then there’s Me. My wtf moment in that speech is when he declares himself the nominee with a NH victory.
An Obama presidency would be sociologically significant, but not politically so. Only an Edwards presidency would be truly revolutionary in political terms, even more so than Reagan.
ps. Slumpbuster is hilarious.
i haven’t jumped on the edwards bandwagon yet, but your comments have made me think about him a bit more. somehow, he’s always bugged me for all those stupid reasons that a pre-media era would have never clued me in to. i need to do some more reading about edwards and we’ll see - what do you recommend i check out?
[...] written before about how I find Obama’s rhetoric stirring but underwhelming. He’s a great speaker, but [...]