I received a call yesterday evening from an Obama fundraiser, a man who immediately identified himself. So I told him I supported Hillary but that Obama was my second choice. He complimented Hillary and suggested that I’d perhaps support Obama for vice president and I agreed that that would be a wonderful ticket, a Hollywood ending. He then went on to say that I probably donate quite a bit to Hillary but that I might also consider donating a smaller sum to Obama, to be fair. It was a cool sales pitch and I might just have bought some, except I didn’t want to, so I declined, and he sounded sad and kind of disappointed, but the call ended on a friendly note.
Afterward I thought about the exchange and what I might have done if I felt did feel bad for not supporting Obama, given the fellow on the phone was so nice, and how it would have made me feel perhaps ‘good’ to give Obama a little money. And then I thought, well, that’s part of the hope, that you can buy a piece of it, there is something for everybody.
Now I truly am a Hillary supporter, for many good reasons. Mr. Obama thinks this is a unique time in history when we can have an inspirational president from the more progressive side, and draw in Republicans and independents who are tired of bickering and don’t want to feel awful about themselves. Those of us who never thought war was defensible probably have no idea what it must be like for those who really wanted to topple Saddam and bring democracy to Iraq and were thus all for the war, and only later learned they’d been boondoggled by a guy they’d trusted and voted for. There is likely enough collective guilt to go around for thirty years before this country would ever again willingly enter into a war of choice. So, why wouldn’t I want to give a little something to the guy who’d also been against the war?
Mr. Obama is running as a counter to the bad feelings we’re been mired in so long, as our government makes one awful decision after another, so much so that Bush is leaving us with a recession, he’s even wrecked the economy, wiping our faces in his failures, and showing he hasn’t even had one success for all he’s cost us. Mr. Obama compares himself to Ronald Reagan, as the president who knew when the people were ready to feel good again.
Regan was elected after Carter had been president four years. Carter was the ‘don’t feel good’ president, because although he was competent enough and he certainly always meant well, he worried out in public, and he did not give Americans the impression that there was an infallible president and that we didn’t all have to worry with him. Reagan came on sunny, and his good mood was enough to get him his party nomination, and to bring some Democrats and independents to his party. He was known as the Teflon president because nothing he actually did turned his cheerful supporters against him. He was the first to put hawks in charge of the chickens, he began the selling off if not looting of our national treasures, like his stepchild George Bush he was for privatizing everything. He broke the air traffic control union, for example, which began the demise of powerful unions. He’d decided that presidents could break strikes, so he fired the experienced controllers and hired new people at lower pay with fewer benefits. He was foolish in public. He mixed up his proper nouns, he regularly got confused, and told stories from films he’d either acted in or seen, as if they’d been true and had happened to him. He would watch cowboy movies in the white house; he had no interest in meeting the great thinkers, and so he skipped tapping into the wealth of intelligence he was in a position to meet and greet, to invite to dinner. And, toward the end, when we know now he was growing demented, no one could mention it; we could not be so cruel to such a good-natured fellow who was clearly in over his head.
Senator Obama sees the country now as it was then, following not Carter, but Bush, and seeing an opportunity for a president who makes people feel good, and who doesn’t ask them to worry too much, who is far from perfect but who doesn’t seem to stress about it, and Obama wants to be this feel good president, this Reagan president. It’s an idea, quite likely even a political theory, and he’s going about it by not offending and offering something to everyone.
The question, however, is what ‘narrative’ are we wanting? Do we want to feel good about our country and let sleeping dogs lie, or do we want something new. To counter Obama’s theory Hillary is a formidable obstacle, because she represents another compelling narrative and one that will likely trump his theory that ‘if you say it pleasant they can’t get mad.’
Hillary’s narrative focuses on Bush, not as just a feel-bad president but as a criminal fool. She was in the White House eight years with a fly on the wall view and she has been watching with dismay all the destructive acts Bush has taken to break and sell off our country. She wants to get in there with a broom and clean it out, replace hacks with professionals, in agencies and in the military, many of whom vocally support her candidacy, and get things running smoothly and efficiently, professionally and expertly. She wants to get government information on line, and pass laws that will legally prevent another Bush from grabbing so much power that he can take our country to war purely through lies and manipulation. She wants congressional hearings to reach conclusions about criminality and profiteering under the Bush administration and she wants prosecutions where there is sufficient evidence. She’ll make me feel good, not by being sunny and saying things pleasantly, but by running a tight ship and holding the people who’ve carried out Bush’s dream accountable.
I find myself asking, how is it that Obama seemingly successfully has put himself forward as the new Reagan? What gives him this authorization? He claims that he can bring people together but clearly there is no evidence he can do this, because it’s by definition the job of a president, and he’s never been president. To me it’s seems more like a reelection slogan than a pre-election one. So, how is he running his campaign?
I think he’s working his constituency in three ways.
(1) The first is that he’s taken advantage of anti-Hillary citizens, Republicans, independents and even some Democrats who are glad to blame her for being in office during the Bush administration and for not having accomplished everything during her husband’s administration. Much of this has been exposed as sexism, and many are rethinking the level of ‘hate’ they felt for her, and looking at her as an individual. The more people actually see Hillary the more they like her. She’s always been herself, a hard-working responsible and very prepared girl who earned high grades in school and volunteered to help those in need when she was still a kid. She’s always been a do-gooder, and if she’d been cast in a different story she’d probably have been a legal advocate for the poor, or have done something that aided poor children and women and then written books about it. She did not have the ambition to be president when she was young, not that it would have seemed remotely plausible at that time, it was an ambition, if you can call it that, which developed when her husband was president and she probably wished she could just do it herself. The anti-Hillary part of Obama’s appeal is losing appeal, and he now looks rather ‘small’ to bring up her ‘electability,’ which was his theme in the beginning. Still, many of his supporters seem to defend positions they would not ordinarily defend because they see him as the anti-Hillary.
(2) The second is avoiding making real enemies. He proposes an insurance plan that lets unemployed or self-employed adults skip buying it and buy it down the road if they find they need it. If he didn’t let anyone opt out, he’d have a large group of libertarians who would be really angry and wouldn’t let up. The other side won’t be angry if he doesn’t do it the cheapest and most effective way, they might not even notice. So, he chooses the road that offends the least. He appeals to the Republicans by proposing to raise the social security cap rather than simply raise taxes and then replace all the money that has been raided from the social security account and with a fair interest rate.
Hillary would make enemies; she will do things like add two more members to the Supreme Court to break the conservative block. She asked Obama to co-sponsor a bill to keep Bush from making legally binding agreements with the Iraqi government. A lot of hacks will get their walking orders from Hillary and a lot of crooks will be sweating. She’ll start competing with venture capitalists by investing in environmental technology based on best science and not profiteering.
(3) The third is to present himself and his story. This is dependent on Americans wanting to disavow racism and embrace diversity. Of course the only reason he’s gotten so far is that Americans already aren’t very racist anymore, particularly our younger citizens, and many people have come to value diversity. Obama would look different in the White House, with his pretty wife and cute daughters, and who wouldn’t like to watch them grow up, and watch the yearly Christmas video.
Hillary has a different story, hers is the story of a girl wonk, not considered pretty, who got straight A’s. She somehow married the popular boy, and with all their public problems she’s still married to him. She always did her best to help Bill get ahead, while doing her own work and rearing their daughter. When he’d topped out (like what’s left after being president?) she embarked on her own solo career, and she sought elected office. She then did the job just like she does any job, as thoroughly and as intelligently as she could. I haven’t always agreed with her, but I’ve always trusted that she was making the best decision she could. Mr. Obama’s use of his anti-war speech is compelling but I equally respect her decision. This is because the war authorization vote stopped Bush from legally using the first war vote to attack anywhere he pleased, and because it worked in the way it was sold – to pressure Saddam to allow in inspectors and/or to pressure Saddam to go into exile. Had Bush accepted Saddam’s offer of exile, or had he allowed the inspectors to complete the job and then continued the successful containment of Saddam, everyone would have celebrated that vote as a big diplomatic win. It’s only the fact of having a criminal president that made her vote look like it was a vote of complicity. Once he’s out of office maybe we can all acknowledge that the Bush years have been the scariest of our lifetimes, not because of threats from Islam, but because of Bush and his many many strange and dangerous acts.
This vote is choice between two narratives, ‘the be pleasant and feel good about who’s in charge, don’t make anyone hate you, and let our citizens enjoy the diversity we all value and enjoy right in the White House’ narrative, vs. ‘the super-competent multi-tasker who’ll immediately professionalize government with the best people, whom she’ll reward if they’re doing well and get rid of if they’re doing badly, whether or not that makes her enemies’ narrative. Both are progressive, to a degree, and both are compelling. Of the two I prefer hers.