SYNDICATED COLUMN: My Critique of Hillary Clinton’s Campaign

In the Democratic primaries, the race comes down to a contest between the idealistic appeal of Bernie Sanders and the incrementalist defend-what-we-already-have technocracy of Hillary Clinton.
In the Democratic primaries, the race comes down to a contest between the idealistic appeal of Bernie Sanders and the incrementalist defend-what-we-already-have technocracy of Hillary Clinton.

Last week, I handicapped the Bernie Sanders campaign. He since pulled off an upset in the Iowa Caucus, where he overcame a 40-point lead by Hillary Clinton (the day before, polls said he’d lose by two or three points) to a virtual tie so even that coin tosses and bureaucratic incompetence may have made a difference.

It’s a two-person race, with Hillary still in the lead nationally. But Bernie has momentum and enthusiasm. Can the Independent Senator from Vermont catch up? Democratic primaries are a referendum on the status quo, so Sanders’ chances depend at least as much on Secretary Clinton’s weaknesses as on his strengths.

Here’s what Hillary has going for her — and not.

The Good

            As in her (losing) 2008 run against Barack Obama, Hillary’s strategists are selling competence and experience. “A progressive who gets things done,” she is calling herself.

Scratch a little, however, and there’s precious little evidence of substantial things she actually got done. Googling phrases like “Hillary Clinton’s biggest accomplishments” yields lists that include “most-traveled Secretary of State” and “gave a speech in Geneva standing up for gay rights.”

Hillary’s “achievements” are activities, not accomplishments.

Fortunately for her, most voters don’t question the Been Everywhere, Done Everything meme. She does have one hell of a resume: First Lady, Senator, Secretary of State. Though, for the life of me, I don’t understand why Bernie’s Mayor, Congressman and Senator resume (longer in total, more reelections) doesn’t count.

When you talk to people who are seriously considering casting their votes for Clinton, many say they like that she’s a woman president straight out of central casting — tough and strong, with the slightly dystopian Corporate Leader wardrobe to boot. Here’s to you, Jodie Foster in “Elysium.”

Clinton knows everyone in DC. She knows world leaders. She won’t need months to settle into the White House.

The Bad

The trouble for Hillary is, this is an antiestablishment year. Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders are benefitting from an electorate whose simmering disappointment over the replacement of Hope and Change in 2008 with the Too Big To Fail bank bailouts of 2009 is finally being articulated into rage at the ballotbox. As Obama’s cabinet member, that’s on her.

Clinton can’t run away from her Beltway insiderdom. To her credit, she isn’t trying. To the contrary, she’s hugging Obama, incrementalism, head-over-heart rhetoric as hard as she can. She’s just the wrong candidate for this year. Which means that, if she wins the nomination, she’ll go into the general election campaign as bruised by Bernie Sanders as Jimmy Carter was in 1980 after facing off against Ted Kennedy. Many Bernie Sanders Democrats will sit on their hands in November if she’s the nominee.

Hillary isn’t stupid. She knows her formidable organizational advantages — cash, a SuperPAC, party backing, endorsements by establishment organizations including trade unions and corporate media, which have enforced a blackout of Bernie coverage — no longer guarantee her once “inevitable” campaign. So she’s coopting Bernie’s positions on healthcare and other issues of interest to progressives.

Problem is, voters usually pick pure steak over mystery meat.

The Ugly

Obama’s famous 2008 slight that Hillary was “likeable enough” turns out not to be so true. On the campaign trail and on TV, Hillary is charmless. Which is why, the more Americans get to know her, the more of her supporters migrate to other candidates. She can’t up her personality game.

With the liberal/progressive base of Hillary’s party agitated at 1960s levels, she can’t explain away her conservative record. She’s never met a free trade deal or a war she didn’t like; millions of jobs and people are dead as a result.

She says she’s been fighting for progressive causes for years, but when? Where? Even on the micro-bore social “wedge” issues that her husband relied upon as president, she’s in trouble. Gays won’t forget her support of the Defense of Marriage Act. Straights think she’s a reed in the political wind.

But Hillary’s biggest flaw as a candidate isn’t policy. It’s her failure to internalize two truisms of politics.

Number one: Candidates win by projecting an optimistic vision of the future. When she criticizes Bernie Sanders for advocating changes that would be hard to get through Congress and expensive to pay for — free college tuition, Medicare for everybody — she projects a radical pessimism that makes many ask, why not? Why can’t the country that invades everyone, that sent a man to the moon, provide the same social benefits as most other nations?

And number two: Elections aren’t about the candidate. They’re about the people. This goes back to when tribes elected chiefs. Vote for me, and buffalo will rain from the sky! We’ll be fat! Water everywhere! That’s a winning campaign — not, hey, as the first elder from the Whatever Clan to become chief, I’d make tribal history and wouldn’t that be cool.

Obama didn’t win in 2008 by running as Future First Black President. He projected a sunny, winning disposition and a sense of the future we could buy into. Hope! Change! Yes We Can! Hillary’s campaign is all about her, not us.

That’s political suicide.

(Ted Rall is the author of “Bernie,” a biography written with the cooperation of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. “Bernie” is now on sale online and at all good bookstores.)

 

10 Comments.

  • > Many Bernie Sanders Democrats will sit on their hands in November if she’s the nominee.

    This one would probably write in Bernie in that case. Yeah, it’s the old ‘send a message’ cliche, but if enough people do it, the message *would* be heard.

    • The message would be President Trump. Or Cruz.

      A lot of Sanders voters would otherwise be apathetic; Hillary doesn’t have a claim on them. But anyone who’s state is closely contested really ought to hold their nose and vote for the lesser evil if it comes to that this time around.

      • I recognize that argument – I’ve made it many times myself. But I’m getting tired of voting for evil, y’know?

      • alex_the_tired
        February 7, 2016 12:03 PM

        Usually, the “vote for lesser evil” prevails because there simply is no viable “non-evil” candidate. Sanders is viable. He showed that in Iowa. And New Hampshire? He came up from a probability of 4% for winning all the way up to now, a 99%+ probability of winning New Hampshire. Hillary Clinton lost N.H. twice: first she lost it by not hanging on to her massive-double-digit lead. And she’ll lose it again on Tuesday when the votes go in.

        And all the MSMs are busily explaining how Bernie Sanders still can’t win. How he’ll have to “win big” in N.H. for it to mean anything. And when he does win by the 30% or 15% margin that the MSMs said would be needed? Don’t worry. There will be articles about how N.H. meant nothing. If he loses S.C. by under 10%? Which would be an enormous victory considering that this was Hillary’s firewall? It’ll still be a “sign” that the Sanders campaign can’t win.

        I hope the Sanders’ people are keeping track of all the people who kept naysaying all the way along in the press corps. I am a big fan of getting even. And not giving the White House Press Badges would be a good start.

  • Very true that Sanders has an impressive resume as well.

    I have to marvel that one such as Hill could go so far in a career measured by people, whether “common” constituents or insiders, and have been “coached” as much as she has, and still not have figured out how to be likeable. Shouldn’t being at least passably charming be required to get as far as she has, and again, if not, then how could she not have found a personality by now?

  • Has Clinton ever claimed that she owns the Democratic primary or is that “inevitable” tag just a strawman that Sanders supporters like to bash?

  • Men who wish to rise through the ranks have to be aggressive enough but not so aggressive that they fail to be likable. Fortunately, there is an achievable middle ground, at least for those men who are tall, white, and well connected. Unfortunately, for women the standards are different. Some would say there is no middle ground at all; a woman who is aggressive enough to be a leader will necessarily be too aggressive to be likable. Whether that middle ground is negligibly thin or non-existent doesn’t really matter. Panning a female candidate for failing to be likable is giving in to these stereotypes and, more importantly, short sighted. Sure, beat her up on substantive issues, but lay off the “likability” sexism.

    • But Trump’s the most “aggressive” candidate in years and also somehow the most likable. Strange.

      And nearly everyone here believes Elizabeth Warren is both effective and likable.

      At any rate, we all talk about how likable men candidates are too. That would be gender equality if I’m not mistaken.

      Then again, I’m sure I’m “mansplaining.” Damn my privilege!

      • Yes, it is much easier for leaders who are men to pass the likability test. Some women can too, but it is much rarer. It is mostly due to the stereotypes that we enforce, not a lack of ability on the part of the women.

  • Exactly: what are her accomplishments? The Libyan War?

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