Since all three of the top Democratic candidates have very similar policies (just look at the Republican race..), what separates them? Why do people have such strong feelings- and it is clear they do- for one or another candidate?
What distinguishes these candidates is that they all run on very different themes. The difficulty comes in how you define a 'theme'. Arguably, all of the candidates have multiple themes, and different themes appeal to different people. How do these themes relate to one another, and which should we single out?
The real themes that each candidate is defined by are those which they have distinguished themselves on, and those that underpin, on the broadest level, the core of their appeal to the most people.
In the Democratic Party in the 1990s, primary themes were suppressed because it held the incumbency under Bill Clinton. In 2004, new themes emerged with the candidacy of Howard Dean. Dean set himself up as the ‘Democratic wing’ of his party, and as the most prominent Iraq war opponent a candidate who could restore the party’s confidence by forcing it to stand up for its traditional principles against the moderates and compromises who supposedly controlled the party, under the banner of the ‘DLC’. Dean lost the primary, but won the battle for control of his party.
In 2008, some see the same themes playing themselves out again. But the themes of 2008 are not the themes of 2004—they are fundamentally new, although certain parts of the new themes carry over from the past.
Senator Obama’s core strength is his appeal to a new kind of politics that offers more reason for the average person to stay engaged. This new kind of politics combines a positive attitude of hope, with reaching out to the other side and finding common ground on what unites us as Americans, and bringing a new generation of young people into the process to help overcome the battles and debates of the past. Finally, this would represent a great change and rescue us from a crisis in American government and politics, capitalizing on people’s disgust and tiredness of the increasing vitriol, cynicism, corruption, and partisanship of the political system by the 2000s. His appeal is, in short, based on changing the way politics is done. It is a procedural appeal, and in theory it should have equal resonance with Democrats, Republicans, and independents- though perhaps more with independents. He is the candidate of procedural revolution: "I’ll end the fights of the past and bring Americans together"
Senator Edwards’ core strength is both substantive and procedural. His strong stand against poverty and progressive economic message is slightly more substantive than the others. But it is his aggressive stance against corporations, special interests, and 'Washington', which points back to his 'people versus the powerful' narrative, that really distinguishes him the most. Edwards said he chose to announce New Orleans to begin his Presidential campaign because
it demonstrates the power people have to build America when they take responsibility instead of leaving it to Washington.
It is significant that he started his campaign in the symbol of the most beaten-down in-need of help places of America. Again:
"I spent most of my adult life representing kids and families against very powerful opponents, usually big insurance companies," he liked to say. "And my job was to give them a fair shake, to give them a fair chance."
His theme and strength is that of an advocate and fighter for the people against powerful interests. John Edwards is the candidate of populism: "I’ll fight with the average man and woman against the powerful and entrenched." It's easy to see how this kind of campaign would appeal to the blogosphere, since we have also been recently party outsiders and needed to aggressively push our way in through scorched earth politics.
Senator Clinton’s core strength is her reputation among Democrats. They have known her not only through her husband but in her own right since 1992 when she made campaign headlines and developed a reputation as a strong liberal and Democrat. Many people seeking to undermine her primary candidacy have accused her of having no real views or being 'beholden to corporate interests', but the public' view of her as a strong liberal has already been fixed, and is not really being challenged by her continuing behavior, her progressive stances, or her passionate speaking particularly on the failures of the Bush administration.
In 1995, George Lakoff wrote in Moral Politics, his groundbreaking attempt as a linguist to find the core difference between liberals and conservatives, in which he identified the implicit nation-as-family metaphor as central to political rhetoric.
In his book the liberal and conservative perspectives were defined as diametrically opposed. This is very significant. It is not that conservatives care more about X and liberals care more about Y, rather both archetypes use the same metaphor yet come to precisely the opposite conclusions.
Conservative and liberal categories for moral action create for each moral system a notion of a model citizen-- an ideal prototype-- a citizen who best exemplifies forms of moral action
...
Correspondingly, conservatives have a demonology. Conservative moral categories produce a categorization of citizens-from-hell: anti-ideal prototypes. These nightmare citizens are those who, by their very nature, violate one or more of the conservative moral categories; and the more categories they violate, the more demonic they are.
The demon-of-all-demons for conservatives is, not surprisingly, Hillary Clinton! She's an uppity woman (Category 5, opposing the moral order), a former anti-war activist who is pro-choice (Category 4 [Those who oppose the ways the military and criminal justice systems have operated]), a protector of the "public good" (Category 3 [Protectors of the "public good"]), someone who gained her influence not on her own but through her husband (Category 2[Those who lack of self-discipline has led to lack of self-reliance]), and a supporter of multiculturalism (Category 1 [those who are against conservative values]). It would be hard for conservatives to invent a better demon-of-all-demons.
This is obviously a snapshot in time, and most contemporary readers will note her lack of opposition to the Iraq war, her strong discipline to get things done and become education on the issues as Senator, and her efforts to break out of the mold of "conservative demon" by reaching out to conservative regions of New York and to conservative members of Congress, such as Newt Gingrich (identified as the 'liberal demon' in Lakoff's book), Orrin Hatch, John McCain and Lindsey Graham.
Further, Lakoff's own metaphor is a historical snapshot in time, and there is a debate as to whether the 'nation-as-family' metaphor still applies today, and how it has changed.
Nonetheless, although her image has softened, it has not broken; and among traditional Democrats, her reputation is her greatest asset. Many Democratic voters feel, besides that she would make a qualified chief executive, that they know her and can trust her to stand up for Democratic principles. But she's also demonstrated an ability to reach out to the other side and is running her campaign on matters of experience and accomplishment. Hillary's achilles heel was that her campaign assumed too much into the strength of her reputation and underestimated the hunger for anything that seemed new.
These candidates can be evaluated on both substance and procedure. Procedurally, Obama is clearly the strongest candidate. However, although he is liberal in his positions, his theme offers very little substantively. Something new, something good, can be brought by Obama, and I would certainly support his candidacy. But no political party or political transformation in America has been sustained by procedure alone-- even in the days when electoral reform was an issue, in Andrew Jackson's day, or during the era of the Progressive reformers, they were driven by substantive issues.
Edwards offers both procedure and substance in his central theme, and this makes him very strong. But he too is running a mostly procedural campaign. His policy planks are not that much more progressive than his opponents; unlike Dennis Kucinich, has he not promised to withdraw from NAFTA on his first day or establish a Department of Peace. It is his approach, his style of no-holds-barred confrontation, not seen in either Sens. Clinton or Obama, that makes him special.
While Obama and Edwards wore their strengths and themes on their sleeves, Clinton has for too much of the campaign hidden hers. Instead of running on her strength as a consistent liberal and passionate advocate for Democratic causes, she has run for much of the campaign on procedural issues of experience, competence, and relative moderate positions. This is likely because she felt that voters would already be familiar with the other side of her, and she also felt that the liberal caricature of her was too rigid, painted her as more extreme than she was, and that she needed to emphasize what she could offer to all Americans, not just Democrats. In short, Clinton was feeling some of Obama was talking about, and had been for years.
But the result is that Hillary has the best of both worlds. On political proceduralism (how you approach those you disagree with), she is in between Edwards's confrontational style and Obama's call for a new kind of politics. Unlike Obama, her core strength has a lot to do with the substance of her beliefs. But like Obama, and unlike Edwards, she recognizes the need to reach out to and work with Americans who you don't agree with in order to get things done- and she has already proven that she can do both.
And yes- it is important what the candidate is willing to do- as people's perceptions of them, and of Presidents, are responsive to the actions of the individuals judged. Perceptions of Bush has a divider and polarizer did not emerge as a matter of his initial dislikability; initially, he was very likable. It was because he governed in a very partisan and divisive way that perceptions of him changed.
The other kind of proceduralism is democratic proceduralism-- issues that deal with the influence of lobbyists and special interests, of the average person vs. Washington, of getting people involved in politics. Obama and Edwards have outweighed Hillary on democratic procedural issues, and this is the area where she is arguably weakest thematically. Looking at the huge crowds that have turned out for her, her bringing in many though admittedly not as many as Obama, first time caucus-goers in Iowa, her resilient poll numbers, and substantial grassroots support, one could argue that she is not exactly weak in this area. But thematically, it's an area she could improve on.
Substantively, Hillary is thematically much stronger than Obama. Some will point to Obama's opposition to the Iraq war, the most salient issue of our time. And they are right that that is significant. But what I am looking at is, again, the broadest, most overreaching themes of each candidate, and within that set of themes, those that uniquely distinguish the candidate. That is what this diary has been about. Hillary has not distinguished herself, on, in her broadest overreaching themes, foreign policy hawkishness. When you think of foreign policy hawkishness you think of John McCain, or maybe Joe Lieberman, but not Hillary Clinton. Her proposals of what to do with Iraq are very similiar to Senator Obama. And neither Obama nor Edwards have distinguished themselves, as Howard Dean did in 2003, as being uniquely, as opposed to Democratic boiler-plate, anti-war.
Hillary is the candidate of thematic substance-- that is partially why, in exit polls she has done the best among Democrats and their traditional, working-class constituencies- even better than John Edwards. It is thematic substance with a heavy dose of procedural arguments-- arguments about experience and competence, that she would have a good advisor in her husband, and of hewing an ever-so slightly more middle-of-the-road position on most issues than Obama and Edwards. But she has gotten to where she is now because most Democratic voters feel that she stands for traditional Democratic principles.
Needless to say, I have a disagreement with those who argue that 'the heart and soul' of the party was being fought out in 2004 and that 2008 is a mere extension of that; but this disagreement is not to belittle those views. It is tremendously important whether the Democratic party can engage and sustain an effective activist base, and be grounded in that base. It was the conservative activist base of the 1980s and 1990s that sustained the GOP and contributed tremendously to its success. Corporate interests and the DLC philosophy (which even Dick Gephardt bought into by 1996- his quote was, IIRC, "We're all New Democrats now.") subverted the party's brand name and its attachment to its traditional constituencies. The people who run a party are very important. They are the meat, the guts, perhaps even a part of the heart of the party.
But the soul of a party is not a story of people or groups or even particular issues. People and groups are generally not diametrically opposed to one another; and issues are diametrically opposed only on the narrow grounds on that one issue- it's not a metaphorical or philosophical distinction. The soul of a party is metaphorical/philosophical, and it's that which distinguishes itself, in a diametrical way (and clashing on the same grounds) from the other. One of the reasons why people stay with a party, particularly long-standing Republicans and Democrats, even after many years and faces is, in the Democratic case, the party’s record of standing up for the disadvantaged, its egalitarianism of various forms and kinds. It is a ‘party of the people’. The real heart and soul of the party—though it has gone through many changes in degree and lean through the decades—have remained consistent for decades, if not longer.