We've all seen them: the anguished protestations by primary partisans, vowing not to support that horrible, repub-lite other candidate. That other candidate can't win in November, you see, and if we briefly entertain the implausible notion that maybe they can, well, it won't be a victory worth having, because that other candidate is unworthy at best, a danger to the Republic at worst. Under these circumstances, a victory by your candidate is a requirement for the continuation of the great experiment that is America, whereas a victory for that other person, orc-like in their depravity along with the benighted individuals who support them, is simply a step into the abyss.
That's really a load of horse-shit.
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If you consider both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the similarities between the two are far more apparent than any differences. They are both Senators from traditional Democratic states. Both are Ivy-League-educated lawyers and thereby members of America's ruling elite. Hillary's degree is from Yale, Obama's from Harvard. Both come from solid middle-class backgrounds with a strong Midwestern flavor. Both have spouses who are lawyers; both are parents. Both are still married to their first spouse. Both are mainline Protestants; Hillary Methodist, Obama a member of the United Church of Christ. Both are considered well-off, if not wealthy, by contemporary standards. Both of them, via their particular biographies, are not by descent a part of the country's traditional, British-oriented elite; Obama's grandfather was a servant to the British in Kenya, while Hillary's roots are in ever-restless Ireland. Both are urbanites; Obama lives in Chicago, Hillary in Washington and a thirty-minute commute from Grand Central Station. Both are homeowners, as opposed to renters. Neither has served in the military. Neither speaks a foreign language fluently. Both are younger than the conventional retirement threshold of sixty-five.
The similarities between the two become more glaring when you compare the two last republican candidates. John McCain is upper class, a Westerner, a legislator, a graduate of a military academy, a veteran, a mainline Protestant, a senior citizen, divorced. Mike Huckabee is working class, a Southerner, an executive, a graduate of a civilian college with a degree in theology, a non-veteran, a fundamentalist Evangelical, not a senior, still married to his first wife.
In terms of what we advertising people call psychographics, McCain and Huckabee are meaningfully distinct. Clinton and Obama, with the obvious exceptions of race, gender, and age cohort, are practically the same person.
The similarities extend to their platforms. Both favor universal healthcare, but have differing approaches on getting there (his more politically feasible, hers better on policy). Both are broadly pro-union. Both are pro-choice. Both are in the liberal wing of the party. Their liberal voting scores are virtually indistinguishable. Both have hawkish streaks, Obama advocating bombing Pakistan under some circumstances, Hillary voting for Kyl-Lieberman. Neither supports full civil equality for gays and lesbians. Both have voiced cautious support for gun control and enthusiastic support for stem-cell research. Both have advocated for an end to the United States presence in Iraq. Both advocate for a stronger Federal regulatory framework. Both support infrastructure spending as an economic measure to end the newest Bush recession. Both view global warming as an economic and a strategic challenge. Both support an end to the Bush tax cuts for members of their own economic class. Neither will displace the traditional pillars of United States foreign policy with its system of interlocking alliances and global institutions. Both are cautious free-traders with some misgivings about the terms of trade. Both are committed to the United Nations, the Atlantic Alliance, SEATO, the Anzus Pact, and so on. Both will put liberal judges on the Federal bench. Both are committed to fixing the Department of Justice.
Both, in short, adhere to the governing philosophy of the Democratic Party.
Considering just the underlying philosophy both candidates have given voice to, there's no reason to expect the policies of an Obama administration to be meaningfully different from those of a Clinton administration. There will be differences at the margins, to be sure, but not the vast differences between a Democratic and a republican administration. It's not even clear, really, that Democrats and the larger electorate want there to be deep distinctions; the candidate who offered a far more strongly articulated platform of Progressive populism than either Clinton or Obama, John Edwards, ultimately did not receive popular support for his agenda. Sad, I think, but there you have it.
It is precisely because the underlying policy agendas of the two remaining Democratic candidates are so similar that the campaign has focused on the persons and personalities of the two candidates. It's difficult to see other means of differentiation, frankly.
This is unfortunate, for a number of reasons. By virtue of their respective identities, both Clinton and Obama have been transformed into standard-bearers, with the corollary that their success will provide a validation of sorts to either of two complementary struggles for emancipation: women and blacks, respectively. We are being asked by some partisans to measure what simply can't be measured, the respective weight of oppression. People have begun to see these candidates as validations of their own identities; this is reflected in voting patterns that give Obama overwhelming support among blacks and make Hillary's strongest demographic her own, white women.
It's also unfortunate because the identification of a given candidate with the emancipation of a race or gender lends itself to, in turn, denigration of the emancipation of the respective other. And we've seen plenty of that, neatly pitting two core constituencies of the Democratic Party against one another. Are feelings being bruised? Absolutely. Permanently? Hopefully not.
Speaking of bruised feelings: Geraldine Ferraro is an awful person. So, by the way, is Donnie McClurkin. Supporters of one campaign who think they haven't deeply offended adherents of the other shouldn't kid themselves: they have. Obama has something of a higher moral ground here, because his campaign hasn't, I think, exploited animus against women in the way some Clintonites have exploited animus against blacks (and Muslims); but the idea that either side has clean hands is ludicrous.
To be sure, there are some differences between the two candidates, most notably in how they are running their campaigns. Obama is running exactly the campaign you'd expect a grassroots community organizer to run. Hillary is running the campaign you'd expect from someone whose formative political years took place in the West Wing. There are no surprises here. If Obama prevails - as I suspect and hope he will - we will see no more top-down Presidential campaigns; if Hillary wins, we probably won't, either, not after the close shave this primary season has delivered to her. So this, too, going forward will likely be a wash.
Even the electoral outcome is pretty much a wash. Both Hillary and Obama can win in November; some evidence suggest that their winning coalitions will differ somewhat both geographically and demographically, but the overall result is much the same. It doesn't matter for our immediate goals if we win with Ohio and Arkansas or Virginia and Colorado. In terms of long-term strategy and, more immediately, with an eye to coat-tails, Obama is arguably the better bet. That said, Hillary's is not a losing hand.
Democrats can win with either candidate. Both would be solid Progressive Presidents. Both would provide closure for the Bush era and turn the country around. And because both are so similar, people should recognize the hyperventilating about voting for John McCain or Ralph Nader, may he burn in hell forever, as the primary-blind tripe that it is.
So yeah, I'm voting for the Democrat.