As is my custom, yesterday I bypassed the first several stages of the Kübler-Ross model of political grief. I did pause at depression, but I quickly went straight to acceptance. There will be no Biden campaign, and that is that. It couldn't be helped and it couldn't be changed and now it cannot get any worse. Acceptance lies awkwardly at the heart of the latter; for in acceptance, as Eastern philosophy has taught for millennia, there lies as well a certain liberation.
OK, so Obama's stellar presidency is passing and Joe Biden, who offered a lingering four years of unabashed legacy, is preemptively out. Biden has what few in his racket possess — the kind of character for which "family is not a word trotted out for political consumption," as E.J. Dionne lauds this morning, "but a commitment that goes to the core of who he is"; and what he lacks, or at least mostly lacks, as the NYT's Lawrence Downes noted yesterday, is "the cold, focus-group triangulation on policy that Mrs. Clinton and her husband have practically trademarked." Bernie Sanders also lacks the cynicism of focus-grouped triangulation, but against it he has no chance. The nomination is Hillary's.
How can that be liberating to a political commentator who abhors the inevitability of a Clinton redux? Because in the Democrats' blight, I have no dog. Not any longer. In 2008 I snarled in defense of candidate Obama, who didn't much need it in 2012. Nor will Hillary in 2016, given the Republican opposition, as it were. Her ultimate, indisputable, argument-dispensing fallback in the general campaign? "Any way you cut it, I'm better than the alternative." And in the preceding Democratic primaries, by mid-March her most prominent opposition — Sen. Sanders — will be a lost cause, which means he already is. Yet, for reasons I'll get to momentarily, I am not disheartened.
Why will I not snarl in Bernie's defense? Because his political program consists of speeding from A to Z, with no intelligible stops along the way. Free college educations, equitable taxes on the rich, aggressive climate-change legislation and so on — all are objectives unaccompanied by any sketched political path. They are admirable goals, but, inside four years or eight, they are also impossibilities. His own party (so to speak) wouldn't work to achieve them — let alone backward congressional Republicans — for the American electorate is essentially a conservative electorate. The eminently progressive FDR, LBJ and Barack Obama all understood this, and thus the progressive changes they sought were essentially conservative. Their goals lay in crawling from A to maybe C, then, perhaps, G. The omega of necessary incrementalism lies far away, if ever.
While incrementalism may be an unpleasant concept to the understandably eager, it is nonetheless more than a concept: it's a political reality. And Sen. Sanders' political program fails to address it. He appeals to our utopian instincts, and while that is all quite inspiring, it is also altogether unworkable.
Which leaves us with Hillary Clinton. As president, she will I imagine attempt to historically sandwich Obama as a Democratic caretaker; as a man who merely kept the Oval Office warm for a dazzling Clintonian return. I doubt history will see things that way. Building on FDR and LBJ's progressive-conservative eminence, Obama indeed got us to G. And somewhere out there — after years of Hillary's God only knows what — will be another Obama, one hopes, to get us to L-M-N-O-P. With an actual political program.
If a caretaker there be, it will be Hillary. I further doubt we'll see much more than four or eight years of amplified political warfare. We have yet to see the worst of it. Meanwhile, I can be agreeably disinterested in this blight of a Democratic primary season, for my dog is out. As for the general? It, too, is pretty much a done deal. Against a Donald Trump or Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton is in, and she sure as hell doesn't need my, uh, help. Things are what they are, I accept them as just that — and for me, all of it comes down to an odd sense of liberation.
The Democrats are going to need a down and dirty knife fighter in the White House for the next eight years if they have any hope of combating the GOP in the House, and possibly, the Senate. PM, since you've periodically called for Obama to be more combative, I'm surprised you're mourning the loss of a candidate who has shown that he's not got the stomach for it.
Posted by: shsavage | October 22, 2015 at 08:57 AM
I was waiting for you to find your silver lining. I think I may have seen it before you did. Over the years I have been reading your delightful blog I have had occasion to both agree and disagree with your fairly pitiless and pragmatic analysis of the current presidential incumbent. And he is clearly a man we both admire. Under a Clinton administration you are likely to be a busy man. I say that because I too delight in understatement.
My question to all is this, is cold focus-group triangulation a bug or a feature? If you believe in incrementalism in progress, as I believe we both do, then movements that are in any way progressive must be rooted in a very deep knowledge of factional interest and how these factional interests may be moved off their narrow interests towards a larger good. You have to understand and deal with the sources of inertia within your own party to move forward. As evidence I offer the existence of ACA. On top of this must be an over-arching vision of where you want to go.
I concur in your views about Clinton methodology. You have described it accurately many times. And now we will find out if it works better in an era of hyper-partisan dysfunction.
Posted by: Peter G | October 22, 2015 at 09:12 AM
Politics is the art of the possible. Hillary dislike is pointless. She is not Bill. She has been a sincere advocate for women and children for years, which implies a certain outlook on economics. Political dynamics have changed since the 1990's. Back then Bill was the president who brought Southern-style politics to the national level which, however unfortunate, was inevitable. The South wasn't going to stay on its back forever. Businesses moving there to escape unions, among other things, made sure of that. There were more reasons than just oil for New England patrician and political heir GHW Bush to move to Texas.
There are reasons to hope the worst is over and Hillary will be able to govern from a more left position than Bill. The Southern and corporatist strategies in full swing during his administration have led to a Republican near death experience. We don't have the Reform Party, a racist fundamentalist Catholic candidate like Pat Buchanan or theocratic racist one like Pat Robertson. The closest thing now is Space Cadet Carson. No one cares about Santorum or Huckleberry. Trump's racism is cynical and probably insincere. Significant political change usually happens in small increments. Give Hillary a chance.
Posted by: Bob | October 22, 2015 at 10:47 AM
I think Hillary is going to be the caretaker, too, but basically that's all I expect from her. The next President will cement the Obama legacy. She'll keep pushing on the same issues.
I don't know why PM begins with the assumption that she will try to sandwich Obama as a caretaker while waiting for the dazzling Clinton return. I hope - and I have to believe - Clinton will try to do the best she can for the country. She knows her accomplishments (or lack of them) will set her legacy. Surely she does not believe that she gets to define Obama's legacy. Surely that will not be her objective as president.
That's if she does get elected.
Posted by: Tom Benjamin | October 22, 2015 at 01:00 PM
PM's jaundiced view of HRC seems to have to do with her husband's political style and a belief she's some kind of warmonger. He'll have lots of time to explain in more detail. It should be interesting.
Posted by: Bob | October 22, 2015 at 01:16 PM
I'm inclined to agree. Hillary is many things, but is certainly no dummy. She knows from experience with Bill's presidency and certainly Obama's that she won't be able to usher in sweeping, transformative changes so long as one or both houses of Congress is controlled by the braindead dipshit party. Maybe if the House GOP continues to punch itself in the face repeatedly until next fall, the GOP's death grip on the majority might weaken, enough that her reelection coattails will finish the job and let Dems do some re-redistricting to undo some of the 2010 damage. But she must know that none of that is a slam dunk.
I think she made the choice to run again knowing that her presidency might be limited, domestically at least, to protecting and building upon the Obama record and appointing good federal judges - and hopefully at least a couple to SCOTUS. And I think she knows that while that may not be a glamorous path, it is essential to the future of the country that she do it.
Posted by: Turgidson | October 22, 2015 at 04:22 PM