The elephant in the room
Regardless of who you believe started it, this week's battle between the Obama and Clinton camps over race, and their quick declaration of a truce, suggests that neither candidate is going to benefit much from making it an issue, or from accusing the other one of making it an issue.
Yet the controversy also served as a reminder that, even if Obama wants to downplay the significance of his ethnicity, it is never far from voters' minds. And for all the talk of Obama being a "post-racial" candidate, I think he would be the first to admit that his ethnic background, and the way he deals with it in his campaign, are huge parts of his mystique.
On Friday, Obama learned that there's a similar danger zone when it comes to talking about Hillary Clinton. And no, I'm not talking about gender, although making references to Clinton being a woman would probably backfire the same way the Clinton campaign's comments about race have.
Instead, the off-limits topic Obama broached was the state of the Democratic Party during the last fifteen years, with is closely tied to Bill Clinton's legacy as President. In an interview with a Nevada newspaper, Obama espoused a view that is common among Democratic strategists: the argument that one reason the GOP has been successful over the last two decades has been that it has been the "party of ideas."
That term doesn't connote approval of any specific ideas - it just means that one party is seen as having more big ideas at a given point in time. In the Republican Party's case, many of its successful policy ideas have simply been cutting back on some form of federal taxation or spending (e.g. - ending "the Death Tax"). And if one reads the controversial quote, Obama actually criticized some of those ideas:
"I think [John] Kennedy, twenty years earlier, moved the country in a fundamentally different direction. So I think a lot of it just has to do with the times. I think we’re in one of those times right now. Where people feel like things as they are going aren’t working. We’re bogged down in the same arguments that we’ve been having, and they’re not useful. And, you know, the Republican approach, I think, has played itself out. I think it’s fair to say the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last ten, fifteen years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom. Now, you’ve heard it all before. You look at the economic policies when they’re being debated among the Presidential candidates and it’s all tax cuts. Well, you know, we’ve done that, we tried it."
In that same context, Obama also mentioned Ronald Reagan as a major "change agent," which, along with the "party of ideas" quote, has given his rivals the perfect opening to attack his calls for a bipartisan approach as being too GOP-friendly.
Clinton said:
"My leading opponent the other day said that he thought the Republicans had better ideas than Democrats the last 10 to 15 years. That's not the way I remember the last 10 to 15 years. I don't think it's a better idea to privatize Social Security. I don't think it's a better idea to try to eliminate the minimum wage. I don't think it's a better idea to undercut health benefits and to give drug companies the right to make billions of dollars by providing prescription drugs to Medicare recipients. I don't think it's a better idea to shut down the government, to drive us into debt. I think we know what needs to be done in America and I think we're ready to do it. I'm ready to lead on day one." [MSNBC]
The Reagan quote is probably even more helpful for the Edwards campaign on the eve of a Nevada primary, where unions will wield a heavy influence:
"When you think about what Ronald Reagan did to the American people, to the middle class to the working people," said Edwards.
"He was openly – openly – intolerant of unions and the right to organize. He openly fought against the union and the organized labor movement in this country. He openly did extraordinary damage to the middle class and working people, created a tax structure that favored the very wealthiest Americans and caused the middle class and working people to struggle every single day. The destruction of the environment, you know, eliminating regulation of companies that were polluting and doing extraordinary damage to the environment."
"I can promise you this: this president will never use Ronald Reagan as an example for change." [CBS News]
The lessons for the Obama campaign are 1) that he should leave the Reagan comparisons to commentators like Andrew Sullivan, and 2) that the 80's and 90's are a delicate topic for Democrats.
On one hand, most people would agree that Bill Clinton's major policies were often compromises with the Republican majority in Congress (like welfare reform, which I think was necessary, and NAFTA, which I'm not so sure about). Many Democrats have even complained that their party needed new ideas to stay competitive, and ceded that the Republicans were winning in the "new ideas" department. However, this isn't a policy seminar at the Brookings Institute. On the campaign trail, Obama can't call Reagan a "change agent" and take a swipe at the Clinton years in the same speech without offending some Democratic primary voters.
To most Democrats, the Clinton years were the good old days compared to the Bush years, and this election is more about getting things back to normal than trying to blaze a "fundamentally different path." Talk of the latter comes across as somewhat unrealistic, and if Reagan's going to be any sort of a model, undesirable.
"Hillary blasts Obama over 'ideas' remark" [MSNBC]
"Edwards jabs Obama and Clinton" [CBS News]
Yet the controversy also served as a reminder that, even if Obama wants to downplay the significance of his ethnicity, it is never far from voters' minds. And for all the talk of Obama being a "post-racial" candidate, I think he would be the first to admit that his ethnic background, and the way he deals with it in his campaign, are huge parts of his mystique.
On Friday, Obama learned that there's a similar danger zone when it comes to talking about Hillary Clinton. And no, I'm not talking about gender, although making references to Clinton being a woman would probably backfire the same way the Clinton campaign's comments about race have.
Instead, the off-limits topic Obama broached was the state of the Democratic Party during the last fifteen years, with is closely tied to Bill Clinton's legacy as President. In an interview with a Nevada newspaper, Obama espoused a view that is common among Democratic strategists: the argument that one reason the GOP has been successful over the last two decades has been that it has been the "party of ideas."
That term doesn't connote approval of any specific ideas - it just means that one party is seen as having more big ideas at a given point in time. In the Republican Party's case, many of its successful policy ideas have simply been cutting back on some form of federal taxation or spending (e.g. - ending "the Death Tax"). And if one reads the controversial quote, Obama actually criticized some of those ideas:
"I think [John] Kennedy, twenty years earlier, moved the country in a fundamentally different direction. So I think a lot of it just has to do with the times. I think we’re in one of those times right now. Where people feel like things as they are going aren’t working. We’re bogged down in the same arguments that we’ve been having, and they’re not useful. And, you know, the Republican approach, I think, has played itself out. I think it’s fair to say the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last ten, fifteen years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom. Now, you’ve heard it all before. You look at the economic policies when they’re being debated among the Presidential candidates and it’s all tax cuts. Well, you know, we’ve done that, we tried it."
In that same context, Obama also mentioned Ronald Reagan as a major "change agent," which, along with the "party of ideas" quote, has given his rivals the perfect opening to attack his calls for a bipartisan approach as being too GOP-friendly.
Clinton said:
"My leading opponent the other day said that he thought the Republicans had better ideas than Democrats the last 10 to 15 years. That's not the way I remember the last 10 to 15 years. I don't think it's a better idea to privatize Social Security. I don't think it's a better idea to try to eliminate the minimum wage. I don't think it's a better idea to undercut health benefits and to give drug companies the right to make billions of dollars by providing prescription drugs to Medicare recipients. I don't think it's a better idea to shut down the government, to drive us into debt. I think we know what needs to be done in America and I think we're ready to do it. I'm ready to lead on day one." [MSNBC]
The Reagan quote is probably even more helpful for the Edwards campaign on the eve of a Nevada primary, where unions will wield a heavy influence:
"When you think about what Ronald Reagan did to the American people, to the middle class to the working people," said Edwards.
"He was openly – openly – intolerant of unions and the right to organize. He openly fought against the union and the organized labor movement in this country. He openly did extraordinary damage to the middle class and working people, created a tax structure that favored the very wealthiest Americans and caused the middle class and working people to struggle every single day. The destruction of the environment, you know, eliminating regulation of companies that were polluting and doing extraordinary damage to the environment."
"I can promise you this: this president will never use Ronald Reagan as an example for change." [CBS News]
The lessons for the Obama campaign are 1) that he should leave the Reagan comparisons to commentators like Andrew Sullivan, and 2) that the 80's and 90's are a delicate topic for Democrats.
On one hand, most people would agree that Bill Clinton's major policies were often compromises with the Republican majority in Congress (like welfare reform, which I think was necessary, and NAFTA, which I'm not so sure about). Many Democrats have even complained that their party needed new ideas to stay competitive, and ceded that the Republicans were winning in the "new ideas" department. However, this isn't a policy seminar at the Brookings Institute. On the campaign trail, Obama can't call Reagan a "change agent" and take a swipe at the Clinton years in the same speech without offending some Democratic primary voters.
To most Democrats, the Clinton years were the good old days compared to the Bush years, and this election is more about getting things back to normal than trying to blaze a "fundamentally different path." Talk of the latter comes across as somewhat unrealistic, and if Reagan's going to be any sort of a model, undesirable.
"Hillary blasts Obama over 'ideas' remark" [MSNBC]
"Edwards jabs Obama and Clinton" [CBS News]
posted at 10:12:00 PM | permalink
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