In the wake of this week’s New York primary, Hillary Clinton’s path to securing the Democratic nomination for president seems increasingly clear. What is less certain is how the candidates, their campaigns, and their supporters will handle that looming outcome between now and the close of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on July 28. The stakes couldn’t be higher. After all, the strategies and the tone that Sen. Bernie Sanders and Secretary Clinton adopt from here on out will help determine not just whether Democrats capture victories in the White House and Senate races they should win, but whether the groundwork for more progressive policies in Washington and the states will be laid for years to come.
Which is why I have a simple message for my friends in the Sanders and Clinton camps: #ImWithHer and I #FeelTheBern, but a plague on both your houses if either does anything to hurt Democrats’ chances come November.
That plea isn’t merely rooted in the belief that we have a unique opportunity to both build on the very real—and very hard-fought—progressive gains of the Obama presidency and to roll back a morally and ideologically bankrupt Republican Party (see Trump, Donald and Cruz, Ted). My electoral angst also comes from personal experience and lingering regret. During and after the 1984 primaries fiercely contested by Gary Hart and Walter Mondale for Democratic voters much more divided than those today, I was an uncompromising purist and a sore loser who sat on the sidelines when the outcome didn’t go my way.
That history goes a long way in explaining my unease with the tenor of the race between the “idealistic” Sanders and the “pragmatic” Clinton.
Sanders called the former First Lady, twice-elected senator from New York and former Secretary of State “unqualified.” Clinton branded Sanders’ supporters—who happen to have built a ground-breaking, powerful and well-funded grassroots campaign—“naïve.” Bernie’s backers tossed one-dollar bills at Hillary’s motorcade and derided those like her who oppose Sanders’ “Medicare for All” plan as “corporate Democratic whores.” Clinton supporters brushed off Sanders’ strong performances in caucus (and often very white) states; Bernie himself pooh-poohed Hillary’s wins in the South powered by the Democratic Party’s single most loyal constituency, African Americans. And while Sanders’ man Jeff Weaver proclaimed after New York that his campaign would win by flipping the very “super-delegates” whose existence the campaign previously decried, an anonymous senior Clinton aide told Politico:
“We kicked his ass tonight. I hope this convinces Bernie to tone it down. If not, f**k him.”
More and more, the 2016 Democratic race sounds less and less like a battle between “evolution” and “revolution.” Instead, the Bernie bashers and the Hillary haters seem determined to prove that perfect is the enemy of good.
Democrats have been here before. Not in 2008, when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton slugged it out to become the “first” in the White House. Obama and Clinton, after all, were not that far apart either ideologically or on public policy. No, before there was Hillary vs. Bernie, there was Walter vs. Gary. And the similarities and the differences between 2016 and 1984 still offer some useful lessons.
At first blush, the broad contours of the two races—the overwhelming establishment choice nearly undone by the dark horse insurgent in a campaign that was fought until the final primaries—are eerily similar. Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter’s vice president, was the consensus selection of both Democratic Party leaders and “Big” Labor. (Already in sharp decline, union members were still 20 percent of the workforce in 1984, compared to about 12 percent today. Only 7 percent of private sector jobs are still unionized.) Gary Hart, a two-term senator from Colorado elected in the 1974 post-Watergate Democratic wave, registered in low-single digits nationally throughout 1983 and into 1984.
Until, that is, the Iowa caucus. Heading into that seven-man race, the Democratic nomination was believed to be a contest between Mondale and Ohio senator and astronaut hero John Glenn. But when Glenn faltered with a dismal fifth-place finish, Hart declared that his surprising if distant second (Mondale won by 51 to 16 percent) made it a two-man race. As the New York Times reported later that year:
''You can get awful famous in this country in seven days,'' he says. ''I mean it's phenomenal. It doesn't take much. And name recognition - your polls go up.''
Mr. Hart goes on to say that if a candidate does better than he is expected to do in the early primaries, ''then people get excited - the press and money come in.''
In fact, Mr. Hart was being prescient. Everything came to pass exactly as he had said, including the rise to fame in seven days.
Or even one. The day before the February 20, 1984 caucus in Iowa, one van was enough to handle the press in New Hampshire. The day after, many of us in the field in the Granite State (I worked in the Salem office) were shocked to see two busloads of reporters. In just eight days, Hart went from a 32 to 14 deficit to a stunning 41 to 29 percent victory in New Hampshire. He shocked Mondale a week later in Maine. And on the first Super Tuesday on March 13, 1984—designed along with the superdelegate system to help assure victory for the party establishment’s choice—Hart won six of nine states, including Massachusetts and Florida.
But not Georgia. There, in the wake of his famous “Where’s the Beef” jab that deflated Hart during their Atlanta debate, Mondale won by 3,000 votes—enough to keep his campaign going. Soon, Hart was stumbling in Illinois (where he needlessly attacked the old Daley machine), in New York (where he flip-flopped on moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem) and in Pennsylvania. On the ropes by April, Hart fought back in May and June. He won seven of the final 11 contests, including crucial wins on Ohio and California. But to keep Mondale from securing a first-ballot victory at the convention in San Francisco, Hart had to win in New Jersey primary held the same day as in California. As I recalled back in 2008, that didn’t happen. After initially closing in on Mondale, my candidate lost my home state in large part due to his unfortunate “samples from a toxic waste dump” gaffe which decisively turned Garden Staters against him.
More than three decades later, Bernie Sanders by all means should continue his candidacy, his movement and his program until the last vote from the last primary is counted. But unless Sanders can win some big contests over the next six weeks to deny Hillary Clinton a first-ballot victory, he and his supporters are in for a rude awakening if they believe they will flip the Democratic officials who make up the so-called “superdelegates” to the convention.
Just ask Gary Hart. Which is exactly what Phil Hirschkorn did for Salon in his February 2015 look back at the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco:
Overall, Mondale won 7 million votes, or 38 percent. Hart won 6.5 million votes, or 36 percent. Jackson won 3.3 million votes, or 18 percent. Democratic rules had shifted from “winner take all” primaries to “winner take more” primaries whereby winners earned an extra delegate in each district where he was the top voter getter. This helped Mondale. So did the 550 super delegates; four out of five were for him.
As Vice President Mondale told Hirschkorn, “There were a lot of uncommitted delegates who I thought would be with me at the convention, and I just had to call them and urge them to speed it up for me.” But Hart had no such luck flipping the “supers” then from what’s arguably a stronger position than Sanders occupies now:
“My wife and I called every super delegate. I don’t think we got one super delegate, and that was the difference.”
Some told Hart and his wife, Lee, it was politically impossible to switch sides. He said, “One woman from a Southern state said to my wife, ‘Look, I love your husband. I wish I could vote for him. But my husband works for the state highway [department], and I’ve been told if I don’t vote for Mondale, he’s going to lose his job.’ There was a lot of strong-arming going on.”
But in 1984, there was a lot else going on that doesn’t resemble today’s landscape for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
For starters, Clinton and Sanders are hoping to succeed a popular and accomplished Democratic president. You may be disappointed in the limitations of the Affordable Care Act, over President Obama’s drone strikes, or his refusals to either seriously rein in President Bush’s domestic surveillance program or punish his torture team at all. And be sure, the magnitude of the losses in the House and in the states show the work Democrats have to do to counter Republican money, gerrymandering, and voter suppression. Nevertheless, 20 million more Americans with health care coverage, unemployment almost halved to 5 percent, 80 consecutive months of private sector job creation after the greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression, higher upper-income tax rates, higher minimum wages and overtime pay, the end of Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell, and marriage equality now the law of the land represent a historic legacy Democrats can and should build on. Accomplished in the face of unprecedented Republican obstructionism, Obama’s long list of achievements is all the more impressive.
But in 1984, the Democratic Party was in a comparative shambles. The New Deal and Great Society coalitions were crumbling the face of Nixon’s Southern Strategy and the consolidation of the Reagan Democrats. In the aftermath of the McGovern blowout and Carter’s struggles, Democrats had been pigeonholed as weak on defense and ineffective on the economy. Some in the U.S. and Europe pushed for a nuclear freeze, and the Reagan military buildup and Cold War confrontation with the USSR continued apace. Meanwhile, Japan, not China, represented the threat of globalization and the decline of American manufacturing power. And while the explosion of federal spending and the Fed’s lowering of interest rates had reversed the steep recession of 1981 and 1982, the economic recovery well underway by 1984 greatly boosted Reagan’s re-election prospects.
In that context, 1984 was the first election that would shape the future of the post-Great Society Democratic Party. And that future, Gary Hart and many of the so-called “Atari Democrats” argued, would be found in the high-tech “new economy.” This new post-industrial workforce of scientists, engineers, programmers and other knowledge workers would live and be employed in suburbs of Silicon Valley, within Route 128 outside Boston, in Research Triangle, North Carolina, and around Seattle, Austin, and other cities. The transition from American manufacturing dominance, like the global competition eroding it, was inevitable. Both freer trade and the government’s strategic investment in “industrial policy” were needed to ensure American success in the economy to come.
Walter Mondale, in contrast, didn’t just proudly personify the Democratic Party of FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society. In 1984, Hubert Humphrey’s protégé was the Democratic establishment. That establishment included union power. And unlike today’s split between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, unions were completely united behind Mondale. With his support for measures like “domestic content” legislation requiring that 95 percent of parts in cars sold in the USA must be made in the USA, Mondale championed protectionist policies to defend American industry. In one form or another, the fierce debate over trade continues to animate Democratic presidential politics to this day.
Bernie Sanders and Gary Hart don’t share the same insurgent template for two other reasons. While Bernie’s call for a “political revolution” has strong appeal to younger, college-age voters, Hart literally tried to embody the future. His call for “new ideas” and a “new generation of leadership” for a tired Democratic Party didn’t just reflect his age (47), but the future-oriented new economy message he carried. Unlike both Mondale and Reagan, Hart’s campaign was the hip, cool, path to the future. (It should be noted that Hart was no lefty on national security issues; military reform was the other centerpiece of his program.) While Hart like Sanders struggled to make headway with African-American voters, Walter Mondale didn’t enjoy quite the overwhelming support Hillary Clinton has garnered, even though both largely swept the South. Jesse Jackson’s breakthrough candidacy won five contests in 1984 and produced large vote totals in New York, New Jersey, and other primaries.
The 1984 Democratic nominating race was long. It was bitter. And it was personal. After nearly getting knocked out on Super Tuesday, Walter Mondale turned the race into a contest of character. Who was Gary Hart, anyway? Why had he shortened his name from Hartpence and radically changed his signature? Where was he when Walter Mondale and Hubert Humphrey stood together for unions and civil rights? It was Walter Mondale, and not Hillary Clinton, who first asked about the 3 AM phone call. Hart portrayed Mondale as the candidate of labor and “Democratic bosses.” Their race was, Hart was fond of saying, “a contest between the party's future and its past.”
I bought it all—hook, line, and sinker. As a 22-year old field organizer in seven states including New Hampshire, I knew Hart’s speeches, well, by heart. “When it comes to defense spending,” he would say, “More isn’t better, less isn’t better, only better is better.” I soon found myself using the word “fundamental” or “fundamentally” in every other sentence. I could discuss the merits and demerits of any weapons system and why the United States had to have an answer to Japan’s mighty Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI). My candidate wasn’t “a tool of special interests” and didn’t do “deals in smoke-filled rooms” or “pander” for political advantage. (As the Jerusalem embassy flap showed, that pledge proved problematic.)
When Gary Hart lost my home state New Jersey primary—and with it, any chance of stopping Mondale from capturing a majority of the pledged delegates—I was devastated. When Hart took to the stage in San Francisco to ask the Democratic Convention to proclaim Walter Mondale the party’s nominee by acclamation, I was disconsolate. Throughout the summer and fall of 1984, I did nothing to help Mondale or the Democratic Party compete at any level. I told anyone who would listen—and many who wouldn’t—that Hart would do better in the debates and better on Election Day than Walter Mondale. “If it weren’t for the fact that he’s running against Ronald Reagan,” I complained to my annoyed Democratic friends, “Walter Mondale deserves to lose.”
Slowly, though, I started to emerge from my political self-pity. Then as now, I thought Mondale was both courageous and correct when he warned us about President Reagan’s fiscal recklessness during his acceptance speech in San Francisco:
“The budget will be squeezed. Taxes will go up…It must be done. Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won’t tell you. I just did.”
Then just four days before Election Day, Walter Mondale along with Ted Kennedy and Tip O’Neill drew tens of thousands to the Boston Common for a massive rally. With the next Tuesday’s outcome not in doubt, Mondale seemed liberated to speak with a freedom and finality I hadn’t seen before. He spoke from the heart as a true liberal committed as ever to fighting the good fight. As the New York Times reported Mondale’s valedictory:
In obvious good humor, Mr. Mondale said, ''When Reagan was inaugurated let history record that the first thing he did when he went into the White House was to take down Harry Truman's portrait and replace it with that great Boston strikebreaker, Calvin Coolidge.''
''Now I make a pledge to you,'' said Mr. Mondale, smiling as the crowd cheered, ''that the first thing I'm going to do is to take down Calvin Coolidge's picture and put Harry's back where it belongs.''
In his remarks, Mr. Mondale said, ''One of the most appalling qualities of this Administration is that you never hear the word justice, you never hear the word caring or compassion.''
''When you're in trouble, you're taught you're on your own,'' he said. ''If you're unemployed, it's too bad. If you're old, it's tough luck. If you're sick, good luck. If you're black or Hispanic, you're out of luck. And if you're handicapped, you shouldn't be.''
Walter Mondale lost in a landslide to Ronald Reagan, but he won me over. (In all likelihood, Gary Hart would have lost badly, too.) But he wasn’t done serving either his party or his country. Ambassador to Japan from 1993 to 1996, it was Mondale who stepped up to defend Paul Wellstone’s seat in 2002 after the tragic plane crash that claimed the lives of the Minnesota senator and his wife. Facing a terrible burden he need not have shouldered, Walter Mondale was all class and grace.
Which brings me back to Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. The 2016 Democratic race will go on and it should. Everyone deserves a chance to vote and have their voices heard. Sen. Sanders can make his pitch for why he can still win the nomination and, failing to do so, should press the case for his platform and the future of a movement his campaign believes is bigger than him. Whoever becomes the nominee of the Democratic Party (which, if hasn’t been clear by now, I believe will and should be Hillary Clinton), the Democratic Party must articulate a “New American Bargain” that offers a positive vision for the future and not just payback for the past and present. The venom and the vitriol, the quest for purity, and the misplaced pride has to stop. The stakes are too great to risk losing what we’ve gained over the past seven-plus years. And no matter what our differences, we have a much better chance together to break the stranglehold of money in politics and public policy. Whoever accepts the nomination in Philadelphia will have my enthusiastic support.
To put it another way: Don’t follow my horrible example from 32 years ago. Let’s not party like it’s 1984.