Do political reporters get embarrassed when they mischaracterize the political landscape this badly? Because today's
Fix Q&A makes me think Chris Cillizza has been living under a rock. Read on...
I have a similar operating assumption that the battle for the presidential nomination in both parties comes down to a battle of head versus heart. In the 2004 Democratic primaries, the heart of the Democratic Party was clearly with former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean but the head won out in the end as Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry was the nominee. Four years earlier the head vote for George W. Bush beat back the heart vote (although not the hearts of many conservatives) of Arizona Sen. John McCain.
Applied to 2008, the head vote for Democrats is presumably the most viable candidate other than New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton -- a list that should include Kerry, Sen. Evan Bayh (Ind.), former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner. Clinton is clearly the heart candidate even though she has run into rough patches with the Democratic base over her stance on the Iraq war among other issues. While recent history would seem to bode well for a Warner or Bayh, one needs only look back to 1992 -- the last time a Clinton was seeking an open Democratic presidential nomination. The head vote was clearly against Bill Clinton, who had battled through repeated charges of marital infidelity in the months leading up to the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. But, Clinton better than any Democrat of recent vintage could speak to voters' hearts and won enough over to not only win the nomination but also the presidency.
Ummmmmm... what?
I bear no ill will toward Senator Clinton or anything, but how can she be described as the candidate of the Democrats' heart? Do we revel in hearing that Senator Clinton is the front-runner? Is there anyone sold that she is a sure bet to beat any Republican comer? Alternatively, is there anyone sold on her ability to inspire a progressive shift in the American people? Shouldn't our "candidate of the heart" be at least one of these two things?
Can we honestly say that in our hearts we wouldn't all rather have Gore, Feingold, Clark, or Warner? Aren't these the people who make us proud to be Democrats? They each work in different ways, with Feingold the most direct critic of the President, Gore the most eloquent critic, Clark the best equipped to take on the Republicans' "best" issue, and Warner demonstrably able to beat them on their own territory.
Is Senator Clinton any of these things? Let's take it another direction. Does she have the rhetorical flair of her husband? The one that inspires us to be our better selves?
Frontrunner she may be, but candidate of the heart she is not. She may yet become that candidate. I hope she does. But how can someone whose job it is to know politics misread the situation that badly?