Losing It

This is the year. You should be able to feel it in the air.  Not since President Carter squandered the mandate given to the Democratic party after the unmasking of what Richard Nixon intended, and what so many Republicans enabled, has the country been so ready to announce that they had seen the light, realized what Republican leadership had brought us, and decided to change direction.  

Unfortunately, and, perhaps, disastrously, our party — caught up in the us against them politics that Karl Rove, Lee Atwater and Richard Viguerie popularized — has divided over the candidacies of two United States Senators, both excellent prospects to be president if they were not running against the other, and their campaigns now serve as the most serious threat to the election of either.

In 1932, a nation all but destroyed by an economy unchecked by government, made a similar decision.  Although the year began with more than one Democrat seeking a nomination which held the nearly certain promise of a presidency, that Franklin D. Roosevelt would be that nominee seem all but certain even in January.  The landslide which seemed inevitable under the circumstances actually happened changing the politics of this country in ways which still adhere today.

As the pages of Daily Kos attest every day, we do not have that good fortune today.  We are in the midst of a two person campaign, in which one candidate suggests that while the Republican nominee is fit to be president, he opponent might not be, and the other has to fire a key strategist who refers to the other candidate as a monster, even while her candidate suggests that their opponent is ethically suspect, "will say anything to get elected" and continually exhibits poor judgment.

This, to state what should be the obvious, is not a recipe for success in November.  References in Kos to Senator Clinton as a "warmonger" or suggestions that Senator Obama may be a secret Muslim or that friendship with a pastor who apparently agrees with some of the most disgusting of Louis Farrakhan’s stupid comments is indicative of the candidate’s own views, are not only foolish and unfair, they represent a clear path to a cleavage in the party that will making electing either one of them impossible.

I began the year supporting Senator Edwards.  I wish he was going to be the nominee, though, among non-candidates, Senators Kerry and Feingold and among the sort of candidates, Senators Dodd and Biden also appealed to me strongly.  Most of my party did not agree, and instead favored the candidacies of Senators Obama and Clinton.  Both are fine with me and for reasons I posted when I decided between them, I favor Senator Obama among the two of them.

There are, however, things about Senator Clinton which favor her candidacy more than my own preference:  she does have more government experience, dating back to her work with the Children’s Defense Fund and the House Judiciary Committee.  She is not just a former "First Lady" seeking to follow in her husband’s footsteps.  A degree of arrogance common to my generation (and hers) may have retarded her efforts in championing health care insurance issues when she served in the White House, but she knows as much about the subject as anyone in public life, and her current proposals show that.

As for her vote for a resolution which provided the most dishonest, foolish and, uhhh, intellectually challenged president since, well, since Hoover, as I have written before, the bad guy as to Iraq was and is George W. Bush, and those who supported him, not Senator Clinton.  The failure to understand the country's trauma after 9/11, combined with an educational system that has not given most of us the tools or interest in distinguishing between Sh'ite or Sunni, Al Qaeda or Hussein, makes many people holier than thou and difficult to take seriously.

But it was a bad vote, and worse, a craven one based on foolish calculations about political consequences, instead of whether this president should be trusted with that authority but, and I am aware that so many of you disagree with this, the decision as to how to vote on this resolution was not an easy one.  As disgraceful as this president is, it is very difficult to second guess the person holding that office when he says that he needs this authority for the security of the nation.  In the end, I would have voted against the resolution, as I have written before, but I was not a United States Senator then, and neither was Senator Obama.

This filthy campaign has made both candidates vulnerable and has identified and sharpened the reservations that many have about both of them.  Neither has achieved a consensus within the party and, as a brief back and forth I had in Kos suggested, it is consensus and not a narrow victory that is required if the Democratic party is going to nominate a candidate who will be successful in November.  A nominee who significant portions of the party strongly oppose will not win a general election.  Vice President Humphrey in 1968 and President Carter in 1980 come immediately to mind.

Pressure for such a solution, whether it be the nomination of someone else (obviously Vice President Gore comes to mind) or some other way out of this disaster in the making can come either from the movement which now has a voice on the internet, or from the famous "party leaders" or "superdelegates" who are supposed to "seal the deal" when things threaten to get out of hand.  I hope those leaders are finding a way to lead, and trying to resolve this real live crisis, because I see no sign of the polarized electorate in the party will to say to the candidate they support, as they will have to if the solution is to be found, that for the good of the party and the nation, they need to subordinate their desire for the office to something far more important: the election of a Democrat.

•  Good diary....

  ...  you need a tip jar..

  Virtual tip from me...

  by Jen K in FLA on Sat Mar 08, 2008 at 09:14:54 AM PDT

  •  The Tip Jar

    bowing to popular demand

    by Barth on Sat Mar 08, 2008 at 09:23:06 AM PDT

•  recc'd

  stuff that needs to be said.

  by charleston sugar on Sat Mar 08, 2008 at 09:23:18 AM PDT

•  Good dispassionate analysis...

  ... that unfortunately does not bode well for our party in November.  Recc'd and tipped.

  by abe57 on Sat Mar 08, 2008 at 09:29:42 AM PDT

•  good summary of the state of things.

  i differ with you on one significant point: "it is very difficult to second guess the person holding that office when he says that he needs this authority for the security of the nation".

  this may be very difficult for certain sorts of minds, but those minds are precisely the sort i don't want in the white house. not because they're weak, or evil, or hopelessly dim, or incompetent, but simply because they exhibit a crucial disinclination towards questioning information and advice that comes their way.

  the motives of the executive should always be considered suspect by the legislature. extraordinary policies should require extraordinary forthrightness on the part of those proposing to execute the policies. clinton (and her colleagues) made no such demands. we can speculate as to the tragic flaw in each such senator that led to this failure: craven political calculation? unwarranted sense that "we all want what's best for America"?  dimwittedness? gullibility? it doesn't really matter -- any of these is an effective disqualification from higher office (actually, it ought to have been an effective disqualification from current office, but that would be too much to ask for. and no, i'm not singling out clinton in casting my judgment.)

  by UntimelyRippd on Sat Mar 08, 2008 at 11:16:15 AM PDT

  •  "Very difficult"

    When President Roosevelt announced Lend Lease, the isolationists in Congress claimed that he was trying to slide the United States into what was then a European war.  That might have been so, but he and the members of the government knew, better than anyone else, what was at stake:  specifically, what the loss of England would mean to the security of the United States.

    The isolationists had, as you say, every reason to suspect that president's motives, but those suspicions were not enough to justify a vote against what the President said was needed.

    I am not comparing George Bush to Franklin Roosevelt.  Just writing that makes me queasy.  But my point was not that one should not question a president's motives, it is simply that it is and should be difficult to reject what he says---not impossible.

    That is why selecting a president is so important.  One can question the president, but in many respects, he or should needs to be trusted and relied upon.

    by Barth on Sat Mar 08, 2008 at 11:45:57 AM PDT