I am an Obama supporter, but I understand where you’re coming from, and I respect your candidate. If you are a woman, I think it’s easy to understand what she represents and how this candidacy was too long in coming. If you’re someone who admires Sen. Clinton’s intelligence, savvy, experience, and toughness, I won’t try to dissuade you. These are qualities that you’re sure about—you feel you know her. And while you understand Obama’s attractiveness, you are not so sure about him—you just don’t know him as well. You don’t know how much about Obama is style and how much substance. Let him prove himself first, and then, perhaps in the future you will give him your support. I get it; it’s a sensible approach. But I’d like to ask you to take a moment and hear me out:
First, if we commit to Senator Clinton now, we are essentially committing to her for the next eight years. That means we will have Hillary and Bill in the White House until 2016. There are clearly much worse possibilities, but think about it. Do we really want them there for the better part of the next decade? Is that the best possibility for us until 2016? If you were to tell me that Clinton would have only four years, I would be more open to voting for her, but eight more years of the Clintons? Does not the thought weigh heavily on your souls–at least a little bit?
Second, even if another eight years of the Clintons is not an oppressive thought for you, what does the country truly need now? This is not about Hillary Clinton as an individual or as a woman. It’s not about who deserves more to be president. It’s about what’s best for the country. We are coming to the close of one of the worst presidencies in U.S. history. But just as George Bush is not some historical abstraction, neither is Hillary Clinton. George Bush would not have been possible if not for Ronald Reagan and the movement conservatism he legitimated. Bush in all his horror is the logical culmination of what Reagan and his ideological supporters launched in the seventies. And more than anything we have to find a way to leave that behind. Is electing Clinton a promising strategy for doing that?
We have to think of Hillary Clinton not just as the first woman candidate or as a smart. competent legislator. She is very much a product of the last forty years. Her thinking and imagination have been profoundly shaped by this awful period in our history. Do we really believe that she is the best one to move us out of it? There are lots of competent, smart people out there. Sen. Clinton is among the best of them. But after these terrible past eight years do you really think that the country will be well served by returning to the eight years before them? Maybe there is some comfort in that. But do we really want, essentially, to relive the 90s and extend them to the mid teens?
If Hillary were running against John Kerry or Ted Kennedy or Joe Biden, or even Al Gore, I’d be a Hillary supporter, too. Because they, like her, are early Boomer pols profoundly stamped by the politics and culture wars of the past forty years. You could make the argument that Gore has moved on, but certainly in 2000 Gore/Lieberman was very much that kind of Boomer candidacy. But she’s now running against somebody who offers the country an unusual opportunity when the country most needs to turn the page and say No to the last forty years.
If Obama were not an option, Hillary would, indeed, be the best choice, but Obama offers us the possibility to move on and Clinton does not. Voting for Hillary does not give us the opportunity to say Yes to a renewed sense of future possibility. Obama does. Voting for Hillary means extending the last forty years for another decade. Obama offers the country the possibiliity to move on and leave all that behind.
Now I realize that there is no leaving it all behind, as if the past forty years was a suitcase one could leave at the station as one gets on the train. We will continue to carry the baggage, and it will continue to weigh us down. But voting for Hillary Clinton is like choosing to set up lodgings (For. Eight. More. Years.) in the run-down train station rather than getting on the train. It’s choosing to stay in place, where things are cluttered and stodgy, safe and familiar, rather than moving to a place where we can breathe fresher air. We so need a change of scenery. Don’t you feel that, too?
And so I would ask you, Is the safer choice really the better choice? Is choosing Sen. Clinton the better choice for America and for our kids? Which of these candidates better represents the America we hope for our kids? Are you satisfied with mere competence, especially when competence and more than competence is being offered as an alternative?
And also this: With Obama, what is the down side? Do you really fear that he will be an incompetent executive? Do you really think that the team of advisers he chooses will be less experienced and competent than those Clinton chooses? Is there really a substantive difference here that is worth fretting about? Is the 5% more competence that Clinton (perhaps) might offer really reason to turn down the potential that Obama offers? And what’s the worst that could happen with Obama? Is his potential downside really that much worse than the downside of eight more years of the Clintons?
Then ask yourself what is the upside for each candidate? With Clinton you know what you are going to get, and it’s OK–much better than what you’d get with any of the Republicans. But is OK good enough? Sometimes it is, but not now. With Obama, clearly, there is an upside potential, a more than OK, that Clinton can’t come close to realizing. Obama might not realize it, but it’s not even a remote possibility for Clinton. Do we really want to turn down that opportunity? Do we think the country can wait another eight years? Does the whole thing boil down to some playground sense of fairness that Obama should wait his turn? Do we all have such an impoverished sense of the historical import of the moment and the opportunity it presents?
And finally, think about the statement the United States will be making to the world with this election after these awful eight years. Voting for Hillary is a vote for another neo-Liberal who will feel the need to prove that she is not afraid to use American muscle to advance American interests. In other words, the same old, same old–but just not as reckless-crazy as the neocon Republicans.
With Obama, sure, there will be a lot of continuity with all of that. He can’t leave the baggage at the station, but he does want to move on to the next stop. And he will, if he has the leadership potential I think he has, do far more to repair the damage our country has done to the world and to its reputation in the world than Clinton can. The world needs us to be America again. We need to make a compelling statement to the world that we screwed up, we figured it out, and now we are getting it right. Electing Clinton simply does not make that statement.
So we have the opportunity now to move on. As Americans we need to do it, and the world needs us to do it. There’s a train at the station; it’s ready to leave. But it won’t if the country makes what it thinks now is the safer choice.
UPDATE: CBS’s Dick Meyer makes a similar point:
What voters want is complex; it includes wanting a candidate who is not George W. Bush, who has character, who speaks the English language well and who isn’t a Stepford Candidate. Beyond that, they’re all over the map.
What many voters – especially independent and independent-minded voters – do not want is more late-20th century MSP [Mainstream Politics].
That is a style of politics marked by two factors: the triumph of marketing and the strategy of intentional polarization. Marketing became more important than conquering the party machine, developing clout in a legislature or being a representative of real community. Securing the support of your party’s most motivated – but partisan – wing, and dividing the opposition’s coalitions, became more important than running for the middle, which is what old-time politicians did.
McCain and Obama are both, in different ways, trying to obtain real power without succumbing completely to MSP. Others have tried before them, but perhaps the times and their temperaments are more well-suited than their predecessors. Perhaps. . . .
Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney are classic late 20th century practitioners of MSP. Romney does not lead or represent citizens, he commits marketing on them. Clinton is a pure partisan, a creature of interest group politicians and a tactician.
Late 20th century MSP has crippled government. I doubt that the effectiveness and legitimacy of government will improve much until MSP withers further.
If the 2008 presidential campaign is between Obama and McCain, it will be a sign that the withering has begun for real – that’s a big "if". But it would say something nice about the country.
Leave a Reply