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Hillary '08?
I've said a lot of bad things about Joe Klein's take on Social Security, but I'm inclined to agree with his take on a Hillary Clinton presidential bid:
Bill Clinton was a good President. Hillary Clinton is a good Senator. But enough already. (And that goes for you too, Jeb.)Enough is enough. On a purely tactical level, I think Senator Clinton is disastrous. As Peter Beinart writes, she's always been a centrist sort. But as Tim Graham makes clear, she'll never get any credit for it from anyone. As with Howard Dean this business of being a lot more moderate than your public image and reputation would suggest is an absolutely terrible situation to be in. We should be looking for the reverse.
May 9, 2005 | Permalink
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» Been there...do that again? from Upper Left
Matt Yglesias joins Joe Klein in the "enough is enough" column... [Read More]
Tracked on May 10, 2005 1:09:18 AM
Comments
I will support the Democratic nominee for President. Even if its the Lieberman/Miller ticket. When push comes to shove I'll vote for the lesser of two nightmares.
Posted by: LowLife | May 9, 2005 11:47:46 AM
We should be looking for the reverse.
Warner?
Posted by: Drew | May 9, 2005 11:50:37 AM
Biden. Although I can see how some will quibble with some of his more centrist votes. So what.
Posted by: Adrock | May 9, 2005 11:54:24 AM
I know we had Reagan for eight years, but isn't Biden a little old to run? At least Mark Warner is from a swing state with a decent amount of electoral college votes.
Posted by: Drew | May 9, 2005 11:56:43 AM
No Biden. Can't we learn that 'likeability' is a huge, if not the greatest, factor in these things???
Posted by: Al Gore | May 9, 2005 12:03:45 PM
I would argue that "sincerity" or "authenticity" is a greater factor than "likeability".
IMO, there was a siginifcant chunk of Bush voters who didn't really like him, and didn't like what he was doing, but voted for him because they believed that he believed in what he was doing and saying.
Posted by: J Wilson | May 9, 2005 12:07:35 PM
Maybe I'm just getting cynical in my old age, but I have almost never known a person (X) who admires another person (Y) for "standing up for what [Y] believes in." After a few questions, it almost always becomes obvious X admires Y for "standing up for what [X] believes in."
Posted by: C.J.Colucci | May 9, 2005 12:14:20 PM
Joe Lieberman is more liberal than people, especially liberals, think. He'd make a wonderful nominee in 08!
Posted by: Drew | May 9, 2005 12:22:39 PM
Yeah, Clinton '08 would be a disaster.
That said, i would sleep a lot better, or at all, if someone impressive would emerge from the Dems. I would run, of course, but I...am busy?
Posted by: Peter Parker | May 9, 2005 12:24:13 PM
Besides Hillary, limbaugh, & hannity, does anyone really want her to run for pres in '08?
Posted by: SalParadise | May 9, 2005 12:33:48 PM
Warner. Schweitzer (though it might be a bit too early for him). Are there any other Blue governors of Red states who might be able to work political alchemy on a national scale?
Because, barring a divinely-mandated dream candidacy from the GOP fringe, there will otherwise most definitely be a Republican in the White House in 2008.
Middle America will never forgive Senator Clinton for making use of her maiden name and other shocking trifles that add up in the public mind to a raving, radical feminist; that image has been like a millstone around her neck since the 1990s, and I don't see her overcoming it any time soon. 'Likeability' right out the window.
Would anyone claim she was ever possessed of anything resembling 'sincerity' or 'authenticity,' even before her tactical shift to the center? Hillary, like Bill, is a pure politician who determines her principles by holding a finger to the wind. That worked for him, but she lacks his oily, ingratiating charm.
Hillary '08 might be a close-run thing, but it would only be a victory against a lesser GOP opponent. Even tarnished as he is now in the eyes of many, McCain could waltz into the White House at his leisure. Ditto for Giuliani if the right wing could stomach his nomination. And I'd rather have better odds for a Dem presidential victory than keeping my fingers crossed for Frist, Jeb, Brownback or Newt.
The Dems need a candidate with a modicum of charisma, a jus' folks air of the populist sort that Harvard intellectuals despise, and residency in a state that is non-coastal and/or south of the Mason-Dixon.
Posted by: Another Matthew | May 9, 2005 12:35:28 PM
I'm sure Joe's pithy little parenthetical will be enough to dissaude the Carlyle Group from running Jeb in 2008, or his son George P. in 2028.
Posted by: norbizness | May 9, 2005 12:44:32 PM
Oh please. Hillary's negatives are higher than Ted Kennedy's! She's the standard fundraising draw for the angry white right. Watch out, or feminazi Hillary fem-libs will brainwash your kids into becoming lesbians!
She's useful as a foil, so that any other nominee will seem "moderate," but there is no way on George Bush's Scorched Earth that she'll be nominated for President or even Vice-President, and don't tell me she doesn't know it.
Posted by: bleh | May 9, 2005 12:50:57 PM
Hillary Clinton is evitable. And then one day she will be inevitable. Finally, she will be evitable once again.
Posted by: jerry | May 9, 2005 1:04:09 PM
tim graham is such a toolbox.
Posted by: matty | May 9, 2005 1:08:07 PM
bayh?
Posted by: right | May 9, 2005 1:11:27 PM
Dick Durbin!!!
Posted by: Quiddity | May 9, 2005 1:14:33 PM
I'd been coming around to the Flypaper strategy on the Clintons - i.e. that she attracts so much crazy right-wing bile that Republicans lose their footing. Look at their 1998 debacle. Look at 2000, and how much money they (and their donors) blew on the hopeless Lazio race. Any of that cash would have been better spent in one of the 5 Senate races the GOP lost.
Then again if the GOP and its Uruk-Hai are sliming Hillary nonstop, our national dialogue is going to consist of nothing but that. I'm not sure if it would be worth it.
Posted by: Dave Weigel | May 9, 2005 1:15:08 PM
Are there any other Blue governors of Red states who might be able to work political alchemy on a national scale?
PA isn't quite red but Ed Rendell is the man. If I had to draw up the perfect democratic candidate it would be Ed Rendell with a Congressional Medal of Honor.
Age might be an issue though.
Posted by: WillieStyle | May 9, 2005 1:17:15 PM
What if it were, you know, someone not so intimate with the Washington establishment? A freak populist candidate that took on not only the republicans but "all the corruption in washington d.c." and "all the dishonesty in the media." I'd say such a figure has about the same odds of winning as Hillary. As a populist, a little class war, anti-corruption rhetoric easily casts one into the center, without even getting in to policy.
Posted by: M | May 9, 2005 1:29:17 PM
Wow. You guys are still on "electability." Seems you didn't learn a goddamn thing from '04. Fabulous.
Who gives a shit what Rush Limbaugh thinks? He's voting for Pat Robertson anyway. Hillary wants what's best for America and knows how to get it.
She's also capable of letting people know it, attacks from you wonk-wannabes aside.
Posted by: Jami | May 9, 2005 1:31:44 PM
You concede that the facts and the image nowhere near jibe. But then you say the image can't be changed, so to hell with the facts.
What kind word would Tim Graham and his ilk have to say about ANY prospective nominee (except perhaps one they thought would be easy to defeat)? They're all liberal scum in their book.
Fact is, Hillary is smart, tough, and centrist. Fact is, public opinion about, the image of, any nomnee not already well known will be as much shaped by the Republican slime machine as by the facts.
Your position is: the manipulators of opinion on the right and among lazy journalists win already, I bow down before them.
Posted by: Resistant | May 9, 2005 1:36:32 PM
I think Americans want someone who isn't afraid to make decisions and fight for social justice. The problem is that the Democrats just play whatever game the Republicans give them. The last thing Americans want is another centrist. They want someone who is radical, both in appearance and in fact.
Any suggestion to the contrary is just playing into the hands of the Republicans...
Posted by: RIPope | May 9, 2005 1:50:41 PM
Wes Clark
Posted by: Mark | May 9, 2005 1:51:10 PM
M:
Populist demagoguery was, is and always will be the royal road to electrifying the masses on a suprapolitical level. Why? Because the have-nots always resent the haves; or the non-elites always resent the elites, if you prefer. But as with every other shred of rhetoric in the contemporary political landscape, the GOP holds the high ground.
The elites aren't the megacorporate masters wallowing in their own greed and degeneracy, but the effete, latté-sipping liberals from the Europeanized coast who sneer at Christianity and bedrock American values.
But there's no way your average Democratic politician will be able to recover the rhetorical advantage, despite the fact that the Democratic message should play at least as well as the Republican to the populist vision. There is a reason why Democrats get spooked by GOP accusations of 'class warfare': they're stuck between the Scylla of hypocrisy and the Charybdis of being smeared as communist, still perhaps the most damaging charge that can be leveled against a politician in the eyes of the apolitical mass short of being compared to a Nazi--most Americans haven't heard of Godwin's Law.
Left-wing populism would be extremely effective if it could be properly packaged and sold, but the likelihood of that seems minimal. The Dems have no interest in trying it, and it would be a rare individual indeed who could push such a message within the boundaries of staunch Americanism. I suspect it would require attacks on most or all of the groups widely perceived as pampered elites. Yes, the rich; but also foreigners, immigrants, ethnic minorities and the like. 'Worker solidarity' regardless of color or creed is dead letter in the US.
If some Democratic pol wanted populist points in the eyes of the American public, what would I suggest? Make a lot of noise about amending the criminal code to allow child rape to be punished with death. Such a ludicrous suggestion would likely come to nothing, but he or she would be a celebrity overnight. Beating up the opposition over an emotionally-charged nonissue is something the GOP does incredibly well. Democrats, who seem completely ignorant of the power of the irrational in politics, should give it a try.
Posted by: Another Matthew | May 9, 2005 2:12:08 PM
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