Have you asked yourself why we need a mandate? (long)

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Since the Chicago convention of 1968, the Democratic Party hasn’t done much right. That’s an understatement… the modern Democratic Party is a full-time fuck-up. As a friend once cryptically said, “The Democratic Party is a pie in the face Party.”

We make the dumbest possible choices, year after year. When we succeed, it’s an accident.

The Democratic Party has been the majority (or plurality) party my whole life. Sometimes the raw numbers combine with freakish circumstances to force us into the uncomfortable position of winning something.

The nation rallied behind Johnson when JFK was killed, and Johnson won the biggest landslide ever in 1964. With all that popular support, he did the right thing by destroying the Democratic Party as a national Party by courageously pushing through the Civil Rights and Great Society legislation. Meanwhile, RFK worked behind the scenes to undermine Johnson every way he could. In 1968, the Democratic Party put Johnson down like a horse with a broken leg over Vietnam. A moral choice? Absolutely. But the results speak for themselves… Johnson desperately wanted to end the war before the 1968 election, but nobody would negotiate with him because his own party had rendered him the ultimate lame duck. Hubert Humphrey was abandoned by many Democrats in favor or Richard Nixon, the “Peace Candidate.” Result, expansion of the war into new territory, and an increase in a strategic bombing campaign that was already genocidal before Nixon got his hands on it.

What other Party could have finessed Watergate into a generation of Republican rule? The Republican Party actually imploded, so we responded by nominating a nice but comically ineffective man who couldn’t govern despite, or because of, Democratic majorities in both houses throughout his Presidency.

Once again, A Kennedy (Ted, this time) rode to the rescue, putting the coup de grace to a wounded Democratic President. Don’t forget that though Carter was deeply unpopular, he was tied with Reagan in the last month of the 1980 election, but no President in my lifetime has been re-elected after a serious Primary challenge. (Johnson, Carter, GHW Bush.) Reagan wins in a landslide, with disastrous effects for Democratic constituents that have continued long past Reagan’s death.

When it was uncovered that Reagan sold weapons to an enemy of the United States to get the money to fund an illegal war in Latin America, a war that Congress had outlawed, Reagan wasn’t impeached. He became America’s greatest hero! (A status he retains to this day.)

Moderate border state Senator Al Gore probably could have beaten George HW Bush in 1988, but our party found a way to lose. Jesse Jackson prevented Gore from the southern sweep he needed to stop Dukakis, and an amazingly bad candidate went on to turn a gigantic lead over GHW Bush into a whopping defeat. (One could say Gore prevented Jackson from a southern seep, which is equally true, but Jesse Jackson would have fared much worse than Gore against Bush in 1988. I hope that's an uncontroversial electability analysis.)

The chief cause of Democratic Party success is that sometimes we are too disorganized to even get it together to lose. Bill Clinton was a major miscalculation. He, a natural political winner, was only allowed to take the nomination in 1992 because not a single Democrat in the country believed he could win the general election. (On the eve of his nomination, major Democratic Party players were saying we ought to just give the Democratic nomination to Ross Perot!)

When Clinton was elected in 1992, almost by default, the Democratic Congress worked overtime to cut him off at the knees. Who can forget the Democrats who spoke so passionately in the Senate against taxing the rich for a change? Some Democrats predicted Clinton’s economic package would plunge the US into a depression. Then, a bunch of preposterously corrupt, insulated assholes in Congress all but dared the people to vote them out in 1994, and got their wish. And it was Bill Clinton’s fault! There is nothing the modern Democratic Party hates more than Democratic President.

Then comes Monica. The Democratic Party did what they do best, and fell all over themselves telling their drinking buddies in the press hat Clinton needed to resign. Hand-wringing assholes like Joe Lieberman got up on their high horse to demonstrate their staunch objection to fellatio. Lieberman acted like a Republican then, so why is it any surprise how he turned out?

But Clinton wouldn’t accept the coup, fought it out, and won. Democrats gained seats in 1998. That should have been a plain signal of the zeitgeist, but Al Gore ignored the evidence and ran from Clinton (or from fellatio?), picked Lieberman as his running mate, and limped toward a defeat that was only averted by the last minute revelation of Bush’s DWI arrest. (The quintessence of the sort of dirty politics that all the “good” Democrats disavow.) And when the election was stolen, the bulk of the Democratic party seemed almost relieved! With pugnacious Bill Clinton out of the way, the party did what we always do, and surrendered as fast as possible. After all, the Democratic Senators had their jobs…

Then open fascism. What Reagan had always implied, Bush II delivered. And the Democrats offered only the most pitiful discontent as opposition. (Hillary Clinton is certainly among that rogues gallery of insufficient opposition.)

When the Republican Party imploded in 2006 we accidentally won again, with the familiar result… mass suicide. A party that hadn’t accomplished a damn thing saw 2006 as the signal to destroy the party, once unified, at least rhetorically, against Bush.

It is no surprise that the current Democratic hobby is rewriting history to cast the Clinton years as some sort of Democratically inspired Hell. This party cannot tolerate a Democratic President, and seemingly exists to destroy Democrats.

Which brings us to today. We are given the Presidency on a silver platter… we need to merely reach out and take it. So what do we do?

We coalesce around the only ostensibly Democratic candidate who is running against the Democratic Party! That is how wedded we are to losing… after a fascist take-over of the United States by a party that shut down the government, impeached a popular President over trivia, and stole a Presidential election, all before exploiting a tragedy to finalize their totalitarian vision for America, we can only be excited by a candidate whose platform is that America is tired of Democrats because we fight with Republicans too much.

The Obama candidacy is a natural, hitting every neurotic, defeatist note in the Democratic self-hate chorus. What’s wrong with America? Partisanship! Why don’t people who honestly think abortion is cold-blooded murder support abortion rights? Because we have been too rude! The 1990s were a hellish period. Hillary wants to “go after your wages” to achieve universal coverage. Bush was right that Social Security is in a crisis. Justice Roberts is a good man who Democrats opposed in “disappointing” ideological lock-step.

There is a profound, valid critique of the Democratic Party to be made as unprincipled and cowardly.

There is no valid critique of today’s Democratic Party as overly ideological or overly combative. None. This party doesn’t fight for shit, even with both houses of Congress, and there hasn’t been any Democratic ideological lock-step in evidence since the 1980s!

Obama offers a chance to vote for a candidate running against the Democratic party, and who may well be taken apart like tissue paper in the general election. As a bonus, his race is worth 5%-6% off the top in a general election. (Hillary’s sex is also worth 5%-6% off the top in the general election. This isn’t just anti-Obama. A party that couldn’t grope its way to voting for Joe Biden has no practical interest in winning. And when it got down the three, the most electable remaining candidate was dispatched without a backward glance. That is our party’s way. I am not an Edwards fan, but dismissing the southern white male out of hand is hardly a show of electoral seriousness.)

Divisive identity politics, self-loathing and finding a way to lose… it’s the Democratic trifecta.

And now we are down to two. We have a boring mainline Democrat who respects the traditional ideals of the party, and an exciting guy who may or may not support the traditional ideals of the party if he ever stopped trashing the party long enough to say what he may or may not believe.

This is not an electability argument, it is an electability statement. (My days of arguing reality-based politics on the internet are behind me.)

Hillary is as certain to be elected as any Democratic non-incumbent in my lifetime. She is likelier to be elected than Carter or Bill Clinton were. Hillary versus McCain is a 90% proposition. She is low risk.

Obama is electable, because trends favor Democrats in 2008. He is a 75% proposition. Barack offers the possibility of a bigger popular vote win than Hillary, but a vastly larger chance of collapse and defeat.

He talks about the need for a broad mandate, not a narrow victory.

Has anyone asked himself or herself why? Both houses of Congress will be Democratic. Democrats will have 54-56 seat in the Senate. Why do we need a Reagan style mandate? Sure, it would be nice, but why is Senator Obama fixated on the idea? (One might think someone who has never won a competative election against a Republican might focus on winning before getting to the landslide part.)

The purpose of a landslide mandate is, and has always been, to unite the middle against minority ideologues. Johnson used his almost 9/11 support post-JFK assssination and his epic blow-out in 1964 to marginalize Southern Democrats on racial issues. (A good thing.) Reagan used 1980 and 1984 to marginalize the American left. (A bad thing.)

Who does Senator Obama seek to marginalize? If one is not emotionally invested in Senator Obama, the answer is obvious. Senator Obama wants a mandate to marginalize ALL idealogues… the troublemakers and hysterics on both sides who he sees as responsible for “food-fight” politics. (An insulting phrase, since some of those fights are about who gets food!)

So ask not for whom the bell tolls, DU. The glorious unified future will be gained by building a mandate of the middle so that we don’t need to listen to crack-pots any more. Obama’s vision is to put Free Republic out of business… and to put Democratic Underground out of business too.

I have never heard Senator Obama pass up a chance to marginalize the loony left. He’s not one of “those” Democrats who think Iraq was about oil, who think Justice Roberts should have been DOA simply because Bush appointed him, who think gay-cure activists are equivalent to the Klan… the socialists, the pacifists, the aetheists, the civil-libertarians who go too far flouting social convention…

You are the problem as much as James Dobson. You are making trouble, sowing division, antagonizing the good decent people who just happen to think gays are willful sinners, antagonizing people who want universal health coverage but don’t think anyone should pay for it…

You need to straighten up. America is tired of your contentious, combative, partisan ways. And if Senator Obama gets a Reaganesque mandate from the middle, it will be a mandate that allows him to drop you from the equation.

Do the math…

With a Democratic President, Senate and Congress, why do we need to reach across the aisle to achieve real change? Because “we” need to pick up enough moderate Republican votes for centrist policies to off-set any hard-left opposition.

So by all means… chose the slightly less electable candidate who is running to marginalize YOU. It’s lose-lose, which has been the preferred Democratic position in presidential politics for as long as I can remember.

And, comically, the majority of Democrats will tell you without hesitation that we always do the dumbest possible thing, trying to find a way to lose. Democrats are like Cubs fans… we are almost proud of it. We know we always do the dumb thing, but each time we get to make a choice, “it’s different this time!” During the primaries, our insane behavior always looks, to us, like the smartest thing anyone ever did.

Me, I’ll stick with the more electable but non-landslide candidate who will stabilize a government on the brink of dissolution and will still want my support after the election.

[TwilightGardener]

1. Well, that's three minutes I'll never get back. I should learn thread-click discipline.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. ...

[rasputin1952]

3. I may be the eternal optimist, but judging by what I'm seeing...

the GOP will be washed out of congress in this next election. I don't even think they know what's coming, and while I don't want to see 10,000 Bills shoved through congress in 100 days, I think that the most devastating legislation that the GOP/bush people shoved through should be rescinded within a week...ie the "Patriot Act" and straight forward take torture off the table, and get the CIA out of domestic affairs.

I don't think there will be many R's left in either house...they have destroyed themselves and bush was the catalyst.

[incapsulated]

4. Great post and reinforces my total confusion over this

Especially on the "left" like here at DU.

I can only attribute it to the hatred of THE HILLARY because I've never seen such a profound about face from people who were, a mere few months ago, ready to tar and feather the democrats in congress for folding and bending over to the republicans over and over again. We wanted change, yes, we wanted a SPINE (remember?), someone who would take on the criminals that we had felt we had been enabling, rather than stopping.

And now this. Euporia over a candidate who says it's all our fault for bitching too much, that we need even more cooperation with our enemies, that the party sucks not because they are weak and spineless but because they aren't nice enough.

I will never, ever understand it. Or accept it.

Is Hillary that candidate? No, not in the way we had been wishing for. Is she a fighter? Hell yes, she is, she had to be to survive the past 16 years and to even get elected to the Senate. She was the one who called out the "vast right-wing conspiracy" remember? I'm sure the term makes Obama want to puke, not being nice and all.

[crispini]

5. Well.

I agree that Democrats do the dumb thing quite often.

However. I think that the "let's unite" theme in the Obama campaign is meant to appeal to the non-voter. I think that Obama is trying to do what Dean tried to do in 2004 -- get out citizens involved who are not involved. I think that the fact that there are so many of our citizens who are not voting is a triumph of the fatalistic, "It doesn't matter anyway" mentality which, IMO, is part and parcel of the whole "apathetic voter, consumer instead of citizen" problem.

And, as far as your critique that Obama's not interested in the left's issues-- Hillary isn't either.

I still haven't decided who's more "electable," and honestly, I'm tired of that meme.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

6. A thoughful reply

Since I can't read these people's minds, I don't know what Hillary and Barack are in their secret hearts.

But in politics, I know that people tend to best serve who got them there.

The Democratic Party deserves critiquing. Obama's campaign would have made a ton of sense in 1992 or 2000. In fact, Obama's campaign did make sense in 1992 when it was Bill Clinton's campaign. And the DLC made sense after 1988, when there was no clear path the ever winning the presidency.

But in today's America, after Bush, "let's be more like Republicans" is just capitulation. They are a disaster, not the traditional boogy-man. I see this unity stuff is a life-line for a dying Republican party, if it's serious. And if it's just a crafty deception, as some assure me, it's not likely to stay under wraps until election day.

(IMO)

[crispini]

7. Well, I thought your post deserved at least some response!

Very well thought out!

I just don't see how you get from a call for "unity" to a critique of the Democratic party. Maybe I have not been paying close attention to Obama's speeches. I will take another look at them.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

8. My beef is that the unity is framed as "post-partisan"

It's one of those "mistakes were made on both sides, lets move on" deals.

But I think the nation would pay a great moral price for following Bush with, "mistakes were made on both sides, lets move on."

The Republicans must bear some responsibility, and the little good work Dems have done deserves more respect.

But I'm one who considered the fights of the 1990s to be fights against a nascent fascist movement, not just hollow partisan quibbling.

[crispini]

9. So do you think...

that Hillary will be more willing than Obama to follow up with investigations of the Republican corruption and slime that has occurred when she takes office?

I think she, like many Democrats, are not going to be particularly interested in holding them accountable. Look at the fight we've had in congress over the last year about investigations and impeachment. Very little traction to "hold them responsible."

I'm reminded of Ford pardoning Nixon because he thought it was better for the country. I believe he later regretted it. But what can you do?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

11. The worst thing about Hillary is, in my eyes, a strength

Republicans really do hate her, hate her family, and have done everything they can to injure people she loves... not to merely defeat them politically, but to hurt them for the sake of hurting.

We have two candidates running as centrists, with the same policies. And it is hard to know who they really are, because they have both been shaping their persona for years for electoral reasons.

Even if only for selfish, personal reasons, I have better reason to believe that Hillary desires the destruction of the Republican party.

So until it's clear that Obama has a Better chance of being elected, I'll stick with her. I don't believe in "good" Republicans. People thought Bob Dole was a centrist, but he campaigned for Oliver North for the Senate! People say McCain is a moderate. I say, McCain voted to remove Bill Clinton from office, which is beyond the pale. (I love hearing Joe Scarborough complain about how Hillary is polarizing... hey, buddy, you voted to impeach her husband!)

[crispini]

12. Now THAT's an interesting take on it.

Hm.

Hm.

Okay, I like that.

But, now, you don't think that the whole "I'll walk over broken glass to vote against Hillary" would then cause these voters to line up, hold their noses, and vote for McCain? Whereas with someone else, they might just stay home?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

14. Republican hatred of her is why she is less likely to win a landslide

But a lot of the real Hillary haters are going to hate Barack by November. Keep in mind, Barack Obama is currently trying to defeat Hillary Clinton. That makes him a temporary hero to Hillary haters.

Once Hillary is defeated, does anyone expect those people to remain sympathetic to Barack?

I don't mean this in a mean way, but I really do wonder how many elections some of DU's electability prognosticators have watched closely. There is a process, and the mushy-headed voters in the middle develop an impression of a fictional TV character, which is what presidential candidates really are.

Currently, many millions of people have seen ads about an unknown guy who is presented as solving all human problems. They love him! Shortly, they would see ads of a cartoon Barack spinning around trying to figure out what button to push in a nuclear war, and they will believe that too. The same people who decide elections also believe the TV!

I'm serious... there will be voters who are undecided because they sincerely think, "Obama is kind of like Jesus and would unite the country, but I don't think he'd be able to find all the buttons in a war, so I'm undecided."

It is up in the air. In November, Obama might be Abraham Lincoln or some crazy muslim teenager who's not even an American citizen. I have no idea how the definition battle will play out. That's why I say Obama has a built in chance of collapse... nobody knows how his image will be formed. And his broad appeal is based on being vague, which makes him doubly succeptible. (And if they think they know, they're confused. It's really unknowable. Not many people predicted John Kerry's Silver Star would be fodder for negative ads.)

Hillary does start out with a limited pool of admirers, but everyone has had 16 years to come out as Hillary haters, and we've even seen sporadic signs of Clinton-hate fatigue.

[crispini]

16. I totally agree, never underestimate the idiocy of the general election voter.

I also agree that Obama is also a fresh face, and after he is the nominee (if that's the case), there will be plenty of time for the Republicans to sharpen their knives and get out the spin machine.

Regardless of who is the nominee, I do hope that some of their knives will be blunted by some segments' dislike of McCain. I read an interesting analogy the other day-- the column asked, how would Democrats feel if Lieberman were the nominee? Republicans feel the same about McCain. I think that is a very interesting insight.

I'd be interested in your opinion of this column by Lakoff, which I just read:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/what-counts-as-an-issue_b_84177.html

I have a VERY high opinion of Lakoff -- I think he "gets it" -- and it's in the general area that we are discussing. The real question here is, how well will each of them comport themselves in the General? Hm...

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

18. I read that article. I found it interesting.

I don't really have an opinion of it, except to say that labels like incremental change and overarching vision are all relative. Universal Health insurance is like the space program, only more expensive. It's a BIG thing.

So I think they are both looking at really big changes. The difference is Barack wants to describe them as visionary, and Hillary wants to describe them as practical, because those are their campaign personas.

One can say the healthcare debacle burned Hillary on big change. One can also say it taught her about the nature of big change. If she is more cautious, maybe she has excellent reasons for it, based on useful experience.

Beats me!

[robbedvoter]

10. "electability" - media made word - meaning "STFU and vote who we tell you to"

And I agree - not an easy choice. You really need to look at details that are really meaningful to you.

[chimpymustgo]

13. Thoughtful, Kurt. Definitely worth reading and thinking about.

Worth a heart from me!

:hi:

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

15. Thank you. I'm feelin' the love.

[chimpymustgo]

17. Keep those provocative posts coming!

:hi: