We’ve heard a lot of talk from various sources this primary season about what this primary fight is about: race, demographics, generational shifts, identity politics, elitism, anti-intellectualism, arugula and beer (if you buy Newsweek’s disappointingly sophomoric take on things) and so forth. And there’s no doubt that each of these factors (well ... maybe not arugula and beer, but ....) has played a role in how things have played themselves out over the past few months.
But, as I see it, now that this primary season is almost finished, I think that most, if not all, of these factors are really secondary symptoms of the main difference we have been fighting about, rather than the fundamental difference. As I see it, the fundamental difference that lies at the core of the rather bitter (oops, did I use that word?) campaign this year is a sharp contrasting difference of perspective in terms of the appropriate political strategy for our party in national elections.
More after the jump.
In some circles there has, of course, been talk of the “50 state strategy” versus the “2004 strategy”, but this has generally not gained a lot of traction in the general discourse about what has been driving the differences in this campaign. In fact, I think that this is the core difference between what the Clinton campaign stands for and what the Obama campaign is trying to achieve, and it is tremendously important and critical for the future of our party and its positioning both for national electoral politics and for the business of governing the country once the elections are finished.
The Clinton campaign appears to have approached the primaries (and likely would take a similar approach to the general) with the idea that much of the country simply cannot be won by any democrat, and that therefore the battle must be fought only over a small handful of states with so-called “swing voters”. Although the “swing voter” demographic is a diverse one, often the word “swing voter” is used as a kind of code word for “working class white voters”, “elderly voters” and, to a much lesser extent, “Latino voters”. Essentially, this is a group which is considered to be potentially available to either the democrats or the republicans because there are lot of people within these groups who believe in many “socially conservative” perspectives when it comes not only to the classic “God, Guns and Gays” issues, but also when it comes to perceived republican strength on national security and defense issues. Many of these voters are nevertheless suspicious of the wealthy, the corporate interests, and the Wall Streeters who provide much of the backing for the GOP, and are therefore more open to the economic and domestic policy messages of the democratic party. These swing voters exist everywhere, but are especially concentrated (and therefore more politically important) in a handful of states (notably Ohio, Florida).
The approach that the Clinton campaign has taken, in other words, -- and the approach that is fueling the argument that it is currently making to the superdelegates -- assumes that the country is divided into “red” states and “blue” states, and that while the democrats can be assured of winning the blue states, they have no hope of winning the red states. Therefore, in a national campaign, the main thing that matters is how the democratic candidate appeals to swing voters living in swing states -- in this case, working class white voters, elderly voters and Latinos living in states like Ohio, Michigan, Florida, New Mexico, etc. Essentially, the Clinton campaign views the general election the same way that Karl Rove does -- namely that only a handful of states really matter, and the key is appealing to the swing voters in these states. It’s no mistake that there has been a lot of admiration back and forth between Camp Clinton and Karl Rove -- they agree fundamentally about the nature of the American electorate, and how it must be sliced and diced in order to win, although they are playing for different teams, so to speak.
The Obama campaign, by contrast, has based its campaign strategy on a fundamentally different view of the electorate -- namely, Obama has stressed that he does not see the nation as being permanently divided into red and blue states, with only a handful making a difference in national elections. Instead, he sees the electorate as being available in a much broader cross section of states, provided that the democratic party makes the effort to broaden its coalition beyond its traditional base to incorporate independent voters of all stripes (not just classic “swing voters”, but independents who do not fall into one of those categories, and are not concentrated in those states), as well as crossovers from a party whose brand is currently depressed in value. In other words, Camp Obama views many more states as being “in play”, provided that the message of the party is adapted to appeal to these people, and that a conscious, concentrated effort is made to expand the coalition beyond the existing base of the party. Hence Obama’s success in places like Colorado and Virginia, and even Texas.
It has often been stated that the policy differences between Clinton and Obama are slight, and this is more or less true -- there are certainly differences, but they are relatively narrow for the most part. But there is a crucial difference in political strategy between Clinton and Obama and because of that this primary has been critical for the future of the democratic party. Essentially, this struggle has been about whether the party is best served by following a Karl Rove strategy in reverse, or whether a new coalition should be built for the future. This is why we see Hillary Clinton cosying up to the working class white voters -- because she thinks that these swing voters are the whole story in November -- while Obama is reaching out to young people, educated voters everywhere, and independents. To give Clinton credit (I know, it’s hard after she has been so mean-spiritied), I do think that she honestly believes in Rovian politics -- that is, that she honestly believes that the white working class in Ohio and the elderly in Florida are the main groups that matter in a national election, and that Obama cannot win them, and so the party should not nominate him. I don’t agree with that perspective, but I’m willing to bet that Clinton honestly believes it, as well as many of her supporters.
I think, personally, that the jury is still out on whether Clinton’s or Obama’s approach is a more effective strategy for national elections. Rovian politics works, after all, from the perspective of securing votes in narrowly divided elections, and Obama’s 50 state approach has not yet been tested in the context of a national general election.
But Rovianism is also a formula for a 50%+1 type of politics that hinders policy-making after the election. It seems to result in almost hopelessly divided, close elections, which undermine any real mandate for change, and embolden the opposition party to block every initiative that is more than mild. A party which wins such a close, divided election, but which then tries to govern as if it had a mandate runs the risk of getting punished by the voters in the next cycle (as is what happened during the first Clinton term in 1994). A case can be made that an election which is won on the basis of a new coalition -- one that stretches over a broader array of demographics and states, and encompasses also quite a few disaffected members of the opposition -- can more effectively govern in the period after the election because of the breadth of support which propelled it to power to begin with.
But in any case, I think that the party is faced with a clear choice now. It may be the case that Clinton and Obama do not differ very much in specific policies. But they differ spectacularly in how they view national politics, and in what they see as the best approach for the democratic party in national elections. We can choose to be a party that panders to a small number of voters in a handful of states, election after election, hoping for a positive turn of events to propel those voters into our camp in any given cycle (and realizing that they are as much up for grabs for the GOP in any given cycle as they are for us) or we can try to broaden our coalition in new directions, redrawing the conventional electoral map to reduce our reliance on swing voters in a handful of states by putting more states in play in general, and broadening the demographic sweep of our appeal.
Make no mistake: this is a stark choice and a crucial one not only for 2008, but for the future of our country. For a progressive party that wants real, lasting change, relying on the mood pendulum of swing voters in a handful of states seems a dicey way (at best) to approach national politics. It may work for the republicans, because they are trying to hold off on the changes that our country needs, and are essentially satisfied with governments that get nothing much done in terms of domestic affairs and simply preserve the status quo while incrementally rolling back whatever they can manage to convince Congress to rollback in any given session -- in other words, they have a much more modest agenda, philosophically, than we do, at least when it comes to matters that involve the Congress and domestic policy. As the progressive party, we can never be satisfied with democratic governments that more or less preserve the status quo while making incremental changes here and there -- that is a governmental disaster for our country, but one which may be hard to avoid if we rely on swing voters as the basis for our electoral wins, and thereafter step into the policy handcuffs that such a non-mandate, hopelessly narrow “victory” gives us.