In every Democratic presidential primary there is always a candidate for the ‘tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show’ crowd. More specifically, there is always a candidate that appeals to well-educated, white liberals, but does not appeal to working class folks. And it isn’t necessarily about specific policies. In 1992, the white liberal elites gravitated towards Paul Tsongas, even though Tsongas was running on a very moderate platform. In 2004, they gravitated toward Howard Dean, even though Dean was an NRA-approved centrist. Even Bill Bradley, in 2000, had a fairly centrist record as a senator. These candidates appeal to white liberals because of their cerebral approach to politics. They tend to do well in New Hampshire, but struggle elsewhere.
With the exception of Dean, these candidates share a common feature. They don’t like to do negative campaigning. The white liberal elite champion that actually won the nomination, Michael Dukakis, famously fired his campaign manager for a negative leak on Joe Biden, and fired Donna Brazille for a negative leak on Poppy Bush. Negative campaigning does not appeal to intellectuals. Taking a complex issue and narrowing it down to a nasty sound byte or a 30-second ad…appealing to the reptilian brain…is unseemly to people that take issues seriously. The typical white liberal champion is above the fray. The rough and tumble of electoral politics is beneath them. And the end result is always the same. Someone eats their lunch.
So, when Joe Klein sings Barack Obama’s praises for his intellectual style, I have to ask: doesn’t Joe Klein know better?
…I’m still stuck on the frenzy to judge Obama’s worth by his willingness to attack Clinton. I spent part of the day of the debate watching a parade of talking heads expatiate endlessly on how dire was the need for Obama to go macho. It was “journalism” at its most useless. The ability to eviscerate your opponents is far less important in a President than the ability to defend yourself. In the nine primary campaigns I’ve covered, the willingness to attack was a) a sign of desperation and b) a leading indicator of failure, especially if it became the defining characteristic of a candidacy.
I have total sympathy for Klein’s sentiment, but he is simply wrong about history. In 2000, Bill Bradley raised more money than Gore and was ahead in the polls in New Hampshire. But he was so concerned about damaging Gore’s chances in the general election that he forgot that his goal was to prevent Gore from getting to the general election. Bradley kept his powder dry and never explained why Gore was so vulnerable to defeat. Gore, who had no compunction about negative campaigning, ate his lunch. Gore lived by a simple philosophy:
In 1991, in a presidential campaign, he said during a rare unguarded moment that you have to be willing to “rip the heart and lungs out of anybody else in the race.”
If Bradley had a problem in 2000, Barack Obama faces an even greater hurdle today. First, Obama’s appeal is not his experience or the specifics of his policies. His appeal is that he is ‘a different kind of politician’, who is ‘above the fray’ and can ‘work across the aisle’ to ‘get things done’. By staking out that turf, he makes it difficult to go negative without mussing up his carefully crafted image. But, the only way to beat Hillary Clinton is to talk about her shortcomings. It’s not like the Republicans won’t bring them up in the general. It is better that we address them now. Klein says that going negative is always a sign of desperation and a leading indicator of failure. But, history shows that candidates that try to take the high road against institutional frontrunners, fail to make their case…and lose. Dukakis ran against a man that should have been in prison for his role in Iran-Contra, and he refused to go on the offensive. Tsongas won New Hampshire, Maryland, Arizona, Washington, and Utah, but ran out of money and dropped out of the race. Bradley lost New Hampshire by a mere 4,000 votes and never got to use his money advantage.
I firmly believe that Dukakis, Tsongas, and Bradley all had the potential to win, if only they had made their cases forcefully. A failure to explain why their opponents were unacceptable prevented them from making the sharp distinctions they needed to make. Why discontinue the Reagan revolution? Why gamble on Bill Clinton? Why will Al Gore be so vulnerable?
If Barack Obama wants rank and file Democrats to reject Hillary Clinton, he has to say things about her that explain why she is wrong on policy, why she is dishonest, why she is trying to have all sides of every issue, why she is vulnerable in the general. If he doesn’t do it, he will lose.
John Edwards understands this. Joe Klein doesn’t.
It has been argued that Obama’s style is too cerebral, too élitist. That may be true. He assumes a maturity in his audiences, and in the press, that simply may not exist. But given the stakes in 2008, perhaps it’s time for all of us to grow up and meet the challenge of a difficult moment for our country.
I welcome Klein’s appeal for more maturity from the press. It’s not that I disagree with his sentiment…at all. But Obama doesn’t have the luxury of taking the high road. We’ve been here before many times. Back in the 1950’s a woman, upon hearing an Adlai Stevenson speech, told him, “Mr. Stevenson, you’ve just won the vote of every thinking American.” Stevenson responded, “Ah, yes, but I need a majority.”
That was snark. Obama doesn’t need to be mean or trick unthinking Americans into voting for him. He needs to make Democrats understand why Hillary Clinton is unacceptable. And he can’t do that without going negative. If he doesn’t wise up, he’ll go down in history with the other champions of the white liberal elite…as a loser.
