"Beating the Bitch":
Notes on Campaign 2008

November 14, 2007

It's tough to convey my distaste for this crowd. A commenter on TPM's website wrote:

OMG - that room is definitely my version of hell. absolute hell to have to spend any time with those fake, belicose, disturbing people. Not the America I am proud of, that's for sure!

We here at Old Roads concur.. and would not be caught dead in such a crowd. I don't care what election or party we are talking about, I will only vote for someone that would cut short an ugly statement like that.

A central argument against Sen. Hillary Clinton is that she is a polarizing figure that would unite Republicans against her candidacy. Andrew Sullivan posts occasion letters from readers claiming that the nomination of Clinton is the one thing that could turn them away from the Democratic ticket. I am skeptical of this. Barack Obama looks at times like a candidate who could mediate and bring new people into the contest.. but I wonder whether these people will really hang with Obama once the vitriol from the right starts to pour in. The coarseness of "How are we gonad beat the bitch?" gives a glimpse into what is coming.

After Swift-Boating in 2004 and the racist campaign against Harold Ford, Jr. in the 2006 Senate race in Tennessee, I can't believe that Obama would get out of a presidential campaign with lower negatives than Clinton. The recent lying e-mail forwards concerning his Muslim schooling demonstrate how easily and swiftly the attacks will come. A good chunk of these people who profess openness to the Democratic ticket if there was anyone besides Clinton at the top of it will fall away once the attacks come full force.

A second point is that while listening to the Republican criticisms of her, I don't actually hear a lot of tangible points. There is talk of her introducing socialized medicine.. OK, she actually offers the health care plan that is least open to this criticism among the main Democratic candidates. So it is fine for Republicans to use that as an applause line at their rallies, but in an actual head-to-head debate they will get knocked over the head with a solid answer from Clinton. She is in fact more moderate than Obama or Edwards.. and Bill Clinton ran the country largely from the center. So the idea that Hillary Clinton is a radical will not be too hard to dispel. If this is all the Republicans have, then I think she is in good shape.

Then comes the crucial argument: but people already have their minds made up! You can't dispel those negative opinions so easily! I think we overestimate the strength of her negatives. She has won twice (and handily) in New York. In her last Senate run she got 67 percent of the vote and won over Republican counties. Presumably her negatives in New York would have mostly mirrored her negatives elsewhere. (OK, maybe those negatives are stronger in the South, but Obama will have some obvious prejudice to deal with in the South too.) So Clinton has a track record of winning elections and impressing people as she goes about doing that. I see no rational reason for that not to continue when it comes to the election in 2008.

The promise of Barack Obama nevertheless calls out: a new politics. It is this promise that prods Andrew Sullivan to annoyingly add "know hope" to the end of some posts. The idea is that Obama could be a re-shuffler and mark a new direction. He could break out of the baby-boomer politics that are present at times such as when Clinton gets attacked for seeking money to fund a visitor center at Woodstock. Obama could move us out of the Sixties.

I go back and forth on this idea and the plausibility of a new start for American politics. Right now I will write from a pro-Clinton standpoint: there are no new starts. Belief in new starts is a Romantic fallacy. There is a lot of poison out there.. and I believe it comes overwhelmingly from the Republican side. It fills talk radio. It fills Fox News. There is a lot of money on the table. There is certainly anger on the Democratic side, but not this "beat the bitch" type of ugliness. For Democrats there is anger and even rage at the war and the nearly constant reports of corruption. That is a far cry from the type of personal smear campaigns the Republicans know how to run. If I had to choose a Democratic nominee that I felt in my bones could stand up to what I know will come, and beat these people.. I would choose Hillary Clinton.