As you know, in 2008, I made a commitment to the candidacy of Barack Obama after he won the Iowa Caucuses. If John Edwards had won the Iowa Caucuses, I would have thrown my limited weight behind him, albeit with significantly less enthusiasm. It was a hard stance to take because, due to the Pie Fight, my audience was made up largely of women of a certain age who had a natural affinity for the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. Most of them left the site, and I thank most of them for doing it silently and respectfully. While they were here, they were great members who taught more about women’s point of view and experience than I have learned from any other source. I never intended to alienate them, and am still conflicted about how my political judgment impacted them. The bottom line was that my opposition to Hillary was about Bill, and the people that Bill surrounded himself with. I am talking about people like Terry McAuliffe, James Carville, Mark Penn, and Paul Begala. I desperately wanted to avoid seeing those people re-empowered.
If Hillary Clinton had chosen new and different people to lead her campaign, I might have been more open-minded, but she didn’t. I was very impressed with her performance and behavior as Secretary of State, and my opinion of her has softened considerably, but I still have all the old reservations that will impact how I feel about a potential run for the Democratic nomination in 2016. I really have to compartmentalize those feelings in order to do a fair analysis of the potential upside of a Clinton candidacy.
Yes, I still feel hostile to the idea of the Clintons taking over the party and putting all their people in charge. I still feel like her people are hostile to progressives. I still feel like we can do better. But I also know that progressive outcomes are better correlated with raw power than ideological purity. Obama is freer to let his progressive flag fly now that he doesn’t have to face reelection, but he doesn’t have the numbers in Congress to do anything.
The big question we have to ask ourselves as we assess the 2016 candidates, is how big can than they win? Can they win big enough to retake the House and win back 60 votes in the Senate?
The truth is that Evan Bayh would produce more progress with the House and 60 votes in the Senate than Obama can produce in the current situation. Ideology is important, but nothing matters a whole lot if you don’t have the power to act.
There are signs that a Clinton candidacy could be strong enough to force the Republicans to play defense in Texas. A recent Public Policy Polling survey found Clinton beating Rick Perry, Marco Rubio, and Chris Christie in the Lone Star State. My explanation for this is that hostility to Obama’s skin color is masking the true weakness of the modern Republican Party. In a very real way, racism is propping the GOP up and giving them a false sense of confidence that they are still a force to be reckoned with in national elections.
That’s part of it. If I am right, then any white Democratic nominee is going to start out in a commanding position in 2016. But Clinton brings something else. Her husband was able to carry states like Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Missouri, and Montana, that have been hostile to President Obama. Those states are critical to keeping the GOP a viable alternative to the Democrats. They can’t be playing defense in those states.
The question I have is, have those states moved irrevocably into the conservative camp during the W. and Obama years, or can Hillary Clinton bring those people back into the Democratic fold? And, is this something that only she can do, and not other likely candidates like Govs. Cuomo of New York, O’Malley of Maryland, Vice President Biden, or Senator Mark Warner. You know, add your own dream candidate, since none of the ones I mentioned are likely to quicken the heartbeat of progressives.
Most analysts think Texas will be purple by 2024 and blueish by 2028. But the chairman of the state’s GOP is already concerned.
While the knee-jerk reaction among many Republicans would be to dismiss the idea that the state could be competitive in 2016 — just four years after Mitt Romney carried it by 16 points over President Obama — Texas GOP Chairman Steve Munisteri is in no mood to sneer.
In an interview with RCP, Munisteri said that he has long taken seriously the possibility that Texas could become a battleground as early as 2016, particularly if Clinton becomes the Democratic standard-bearer.
“If she’s the nominee, I would say that this is a ‘lean Republican’ state but not a ‘solid Republican’ state,” he said. “I don’t know anyone nationally who’s scoffing at this. The national party leadership is aware and tells me they’re taking it seriously.”
Munisteri said that he has had recent discussions with Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus about the need to prepare for a significant change in the political dynamic here, noting that the need will likely become even more pressing in the next decade. That’s when Texas is expected to see its minority population rise more sharply — as it adds as many as four additional electoral votes to make it an even shinier target for Democrats than it already is.
So, the conundrum for a progressive is this. Is this real? Is Hillary Clinton uniquely suited to the job of destroying the modern Republican Party? Can she (and she alone) accelerate this process by as much as two presidential election cycles (or eight years)?
I will keep analyzing this idea. I know that we can win a victory in 2016, possibly with a candidate who is far to the left of Obama on a host of important issues. But that might not bring the biggest and fastest progress.
I have an open mind. What do you think?
