If former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley is going to present any kind of challenge to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, he is going to have to get started soon. And he’s going to need to make a very compelling argument for why rank and file Democrats should turn their backs on Clinton for a second time. Perhaps this is O’Malley’s opening salvo:
Martin O’Malley, the former Maryland governor who is likely to seek the Democratic nomination for president in 2016, took a veiled shot at a potential rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a speech in South Carolina on Saturday, criticizing the politics of “triangulation” that have historically been associated with the Clintons.
“The most fundamental power of our party and our country is the power of our moral principles,” Mr. O’Malley said, according to a transcript of his remarks provided by an aide.
In words that echoed those of Senator Barack Obama when he battled Mrs. Clinton in 2007 for the Democratic nomination, Mr. O’Malley added: “Triangulation is not a strategy that will move America forward. History celebrates profiles in courage, not profiles in convenience.”
The problem, as I see it, is that most people have no idea what “triangulation” refers to, and, among those who do, there isn’t a strong consensus on exactly what it means or how it is relevant to our politics today.
As a strategic matter, O’Malley may want to highlight the things about Bill Clinton’s presidency that displeased a lot of Democrats at the time. He may want to point out things that look like missteps in retrospect. By doing so, he can put Hillary in a tough spot, as she wants to take advantage of her husband’s good standing with the party faithful while, at the same time, assure the nation that she’s her own person and not just an extension of Bill. Any time she has to create distance from the 42nd president, she’ll be uncomfortable.
On a substantive level, this can’t be an effort at re-litigating decisions that were made twenty or more years ago. O’Malley can’t score many points by talking about the failure to pass HillaryCare or Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and DOMA. But he can contrast his views on trade and Wall Street regulation with Bill Clinton’s record and invite Hillary to do the same.
To get traction, he’ll have to find some areas where Hillary won’t break from Bill. But even if he can’t mount a credible challenge in terms of winning states and delegates, he can help define where the party stands.
Personally, I associate triangulation with a very specific period in history. It was the the strategy Dick Morris successfully urged on the president after the Republicans took over control of Congress in the 1994 elections. He would pass legislation on the Republicans’ wish list and then take credit for it, robbing them of campaign themes in the 1996 election.
This doesn’t seem pertinent to the 2016 election.
But ‘triangulation’ as a term can stand in for a lot of different ideas, both good and bad. On the good side, it can mean an effort to work with Congress to address problems even when Congress is controlled by the opposite party. On the bad side, it can mean conceding the ideological battlefield to your opponents and putting their legislative priorities above your own.
I’m sure it can mean a lot more than this, too. But talking about triangulation isn’t going to resonate by itself. And, at some point, O’Malley has to run against Hillary, not Bill. She has an extensive record of her own. And it may be, once again, her foreign policy record and positions that are her greatest weaknesses with Iowa caucusgoers.
[Cross-posted at Progress Pond]
I think his comments were directed at a very specific and sophisticated audience at that event. But you’re right, triangulation is insider baseball. I love his quote contrasting profiles in courage with profiles in convenience. That can apply to a number of issues. I like that he’s staking out moral and values as his territory. That’s something Clinton will struggle with.
Don’t give Dick Morris too much credit.
Jefferson “triangulated” – so did Lincoln and FDR. Progressives should reject the hard right’s definition.
A catchy phrase. I hope he keeps using it.
He embarrasses himself and reveals his lack of seriousness.
Re: “he can’t help define where the party stands.”
Did you mean to say he “can” instead?
” But he can contrast his views on trade and Wall Street regulation with Bill Clinton’s record and invite Hillary to do the same. “
For me, that’s the key, but so far so good. Still planning to vote for Bernie in the primary, but open to change, but NOT corporatist change.
It does only if you assume the current Congress. There is an extent to which Obama has dangled triangulation in front of the Republicans for over six years–taking away their accomplishments but not sacrificing a few of his own. That realization has the party strategists worked into a tizzie. They see that too many people think that he’s given into Republicans; they even have successfully played that in a few places. But in terms of his real power over policy, they have not gotten him to do more than co-opt Republicanish policies.
The GOP fear with Hillary is that she will take some of their considerable constituencies away from them, leaving them with the carefully nurtured crazies. JEB got a little taste of what that might look look like during this weekend CPAC.
If O’Malley is opening on triangulation, no matter how you want to parse the term, he’s seeking an anti-Clinton Democratic informed an activist base at the moment. That’s a little like a candidate’s first visits with funders. You want immediately only those who respond to the signal.
Back in 2008 we thought there was a difference between Obama and Clinton. Then they worked together in his administration. For all I know, the two of them still have pretty much identical views on the issues of the day. While I don’t like Clinton’s foreign policy, it is essentially the same as Obama’s and I suspect O’Malley will continue the same if he did manage to get elected.
So I don’t really know the point of supporting one democratic candidate over another. We’re going to get the same policy no matter which one wins.
Domestic policy and trade. You will find differences there. as for foreign policy, you can look, but there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between actual democratic and Republican foreign policy and there hasn’t been much since WW II. Rhetoric , yes, but actual action? No.
There were a couple of known key differences between Clinton and Obama in 2007 (when committed primary voters made their decision). One — she vociferously supported the IWR and Obama made a statement against it. Two, she supported for DOMA in 1996 and Obama had never supported any discriminatory public legislation. Those two differences do say important things about their political orientations, worldviews, and character.
WRT to domestic economic policies, there were no doubts as to Clinton’s views which are unacceptable to social democrats. Obama’s were unknown, and therefore, a crap shoot that they wouldn’t be worse than Clinton and might be better. So, unfortunately, we probably got similar to Clinton. Perhaps a little better in some ways and a little worse in others. The latter is because he still doesn’t get it that SS isn’t broken regardless of how many times since 2007 Paul Krugman has tried to explain that to him.
When I think of Hillary I see Goldwater Girl metamorphizing into a Zbigniew Brzezinski acolyte. Not that great a distance, really. Regarding US foreign policy I see little difference between Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski. Running backs on the same team.
My question about her is did she groom herself or did someone groom her?
Did you know that her daughter was an arbitrage trader?
Let’s not start on bringing children in, eh?
As to the other comments, I do have my questions.
She was raised to be an arbitrager. That says something about Hillary’s family values. If Barbara Bush were Ma Barker wouldn’t you want to know. Actually, she was pretty much like Ma Barker, but her crew robbed banks from the inside out.
No, she wouldn’t have been raised to be an arbitrager. The family business is law degrees and licenses and politics. Family connections got her a job at McKinsey and that led to the hedge fund job. Then she landed the $600,000/year MSNBC sinecure all on her own. Now she handles the new family business — big dog’s charity. Trust she developed some competency in accounting along the way.
Seriously? I was raised to be a computer professional. I write novels for a living. The idea that what someone ends up doing is what they were raised to do is just profoundly silly. Especially among the classes where money worries aren’t really going to come into it.
Yes, ‘an extensive record of her own’, maybe everyone will remember that. What is it? That’s going to lead to a great discussion which she definitely won’t be able to deal with adequately. Unfortunately the whole damn Monica Lewinsky horror show will somehow get billing, too. ‘Triangulation’ has a bad odor, no matter what it means to different people. Who goes around saying?, ‘Hey guys, I’m going to triangulate, wanna get in on the fun.’ It is basically understood to be a craven strategy to avoid standing on principle and gaining personal advantage.
Television “news” needs something to attract ratings. Lewinsky and Weiner (name made for television) provide something the public can understand.
President Bill Clinton lied about the stupid, morally questionable but consensual sexual relationship between himself and Monica Lewinsky. In the wake of the revelations and the attempts by Congressional Republican to remove him from office, his support among the American people actually increased.
First lady Hillary Clinton did not lie about the stupid, morally questionable but consensual sexual relationship between her husband and Monica Lewinsky. The public controversy about the incident took place 16 years ago. Yet we’re supposed to believe that public support for Hillary will decrease if Hillary’s opponents attack her Presidential campaign by bringing up Bill and Monica?
No. No, Hillary would not lose public support as the result of such an attack. That’s one of the stupidest predictions I’ve ever heard. It’s such a guaranteed loser of an attack that if Hillary ends up as the democratic nominee, I hope the Republicans and the plutocrats’ PACs spend a lot of money and time making that attack. What the public would understand if the MSM reported on that “sensational” attack is that the attack is boring B.S.
Whisper, whisper, whisper … Obama is a Muslim….pss…remember Bill… I do not subscribe to the view that a husband and a wife are separate individuals. That’s a peculiarity of my personal brand of stupidity and emotional confusion.
I’d like to hear her comments on the following:
She is simply running on the name and the gender right now. I see her as a pre-failed candidate, and think that she is another failed candidate.
1. Bitching about white men losing jobs to minorities, even if it’s a race to the bottom, will be branded as racist in our party. This isn’t a negative, it’s part of immigration reform!
As much as people would desperately like to believe that they have some sort of underlying cynical-but-undeniable point (‘look, I know about freedom and opportunity and blah de blah, but it’s either your countrymen or foreigners and it’s just a brute fact at this point’) the fact remains that they really don’t. No, seriously, they don’t. They have:
It’s just freefloating resentment from people who realize that they don’t have anything stronger than weak correlation and boogeymen but still prize their intuition above a reasoned policy analysis. These people like to claim that liberals are unfairly silencing them by going ‘shut up about your first world problems, racists’ but they wouldn’t have a leg to stand on even if they weren’t being indirectly censored.
Europe and Australia are net exporters. Trade is good for them.
Regarding Alabama, what else would you expect after kicking out young working age people? The most productive and highest consuming people- win win. Or in Alabama’s case – Lose Lose.
Exports, or rather the slavish devotion to maintaining a trade surplus and the policy decisions that this entails is noooooot a good thing for the EU right now. They think it’s good, because our elites have an essentially mercantilist view of the economy despite giving lip service to Keynesianism, but it’s not.
But regardless, I was referring to immigrants and the whole ‘immigrants ended up taking all of our jobs and liberals try to elide this issue by refusing to talk about it’ line of argument. Other EU countries such as Sweden and Austria have comparable rates of immigration to the United States, so how come we have wage stagnation and they don’t? Could it be that the issue is more complicated than H1s and importing Chinese/Indian computer scientists and whatever? … nah, that’s too complicated. And fuck the Democratic Party for not catering to our facile delusions.
Most of Europe has Leftist governments. Even “conservative” Germany is considerably farther Left than the USA, i.e. full national health care without deductibles and co-pays and mandatory unionization.
In point of fact, that is absolute and total bullshit. European countries generally require that no local can be found to fill the position.
Where do you get such absolute horseshit crap stuff you post? It’s amazing. You are just 100% wrong about all visa stuff.
Who gives a shit? North, South, and Scandanavian European countries have rates of immigration comparable to the U.S. and yet have higher wages all around. You can go on and on about visas and hiring locally, but the fact remains that:
Ironically, the only way to combat this is to throw open the doors on immigration. If an underpaid engineer or technician in India or Brasil can’t move because of closed borders, then they have to take what they can get. But this doesn’t magically drive up wages in the countries with closed borders: what the corporation ends up doing is moving the capital. However, if the worker can threaten to move to the United States or the EU or whatever for higher wages, then the company has to provide higher wages and it discourages local labor surpluses.
You are comparing US visas to enemy states like India and China with EU country transfers within the EU?
Is that your point? If so, it bespeaks a lack to understanding of the EU which makes your discussion of it pretty ludicrous. The EU was DESIGNED to allow transfers, and has been such since the beginning. Our visas to enemy states have only been going at the current level since 1992, and Obama has put the whole thing on heated skates.
Did you note the wholesale replacement of the entire IT department at SC Edison? This is a total violation of the entire H-1B system. But I can’t expect you to follow fine points of any issue.
They took the word “triangulation” and made the whole article about that. The AP/Yahoo story on his remarks in South Carolina was more informative:
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who still likes O’Malley.)
Looks like he wants to convince the activists behind the “Draft Elizabeth Warren” movement to back him when they decide that they should spend time helping someone who is actually running. Smart move.
O’Malley’s a successful governor of a non-tiny state who is a serious politician. He’s been thinking about running for President for years, and has worked the policy side and the political side with that in mind. He’s as well-poised as anyone to make a run for the Presidency. If Hillary wasn’t sucking so much oxygen out of the room, he would have a higher profile already. Win or lose, he can improve the national conversation. I wish him well, and will consider sending him money when he declares.
Is he running for POTUS of VP? He would make a nice safe and bland choice for Hillary. He can easily be recognized as a decent guy. Help her lock down the mid-Atlantic states including VA.
If he running for POTUS, he has to up his game by a lot and quickly. His TV IQ is lower than Obama’s and Clinton was only spotted ten points against Obama. This time around she’s been spotted 20+ points.
Yeah, at this point, it’s very difficult seeing him mounting a truly credible challenge to Clinton, but if he gets enough money and runs a good enough campaign, he might be able to ride the media’s desire for “a horse race, ANY horse race” to help push the conversation in a more liberal direction. If he can give Hillary at least a little bit of a scare on her left or get her debating on liberal ground in debates, that’s a win. (Of course, the Republican primary promises to be plenty exciting already, so maybe the media’s addiction to horse race politics might not be enough, especially if O’Malley’s not talking about the Muslim scare du jour 24/7.).
And, yes, I realize that that’s keeping the bar pretty low, but I’m trying to remain upbeat. I fear that there’s no stopping the Clintons this time around, unless Hillary’s health situation takes a sudden turn for the worst (and while I’m concerned about her foreign policy preferences and choice of advisers, I hold her no ill will, so I certainly don’t desire that).
I can see O’Malley pushing for the anti-female vote – Democratic men who deep down down don’t want a woman president.
His politics and policies are classic technocrat Dem – no real daylight with Obama-Clinton-Kerry-Biden mainstream.
But I have to say, he looks like an idiot using right wing talking points.
I expect that’s part of Jim Webb’s appeal, but I doubt O’Malley would take that tack (it wouldn’t be a wise choice in a Democratic primary).
As for O’Malley’s policies; we don’t yet know what his proposed national policies will be. I expect him to not be far outside the Democratic mainstream because I believe he wants to win, but there’s a spectrum in the Democratic mainstream, and pushing the discussion further left would be a positive development. That would also be the obvious path to taking on a strong established candidate like Hillary.
What “right-wing talking points” are you seeing him using? At this point, I just don’t get the hostility towards the guy.
Tom jumped on the “Ready for Hillary” bandwagon a long time ago.
More than that, Tom lays out the Hillary talking points for us
See his sudden popularity on Drudge.
“Triangulation” is a right wing talking point.
LOL!! What does that have anything to do with anything? If not O’Malley, he’ll latch on to whomever else might run in the primary against Hillary. Democrats would do well to ignore Drudge.
But I have to say, he looks like an idiot using right wing talking points.
LOL!!
He’s not-Hillary. Surely that’s enough! Dynasty! Iraq! Banksters! DLC!
Yeah exactly. His chromosomal portfolio is in order (for some).
Yeah, he’s the wrong color too.
The problem, as I see it, is that most people have no idea what “triangulation” refers to…
That’s true, but the biggest problem is that most people have no idea who Martin O’Malley is. He’s waited way too late to play in the 2016 game, I’m afraid. Maybe running and getting name recognition this time will help down the line.
A simple call for us to expropriate the expropriators, and a declaration that he’s going to seize the commanding heights of the economy in the name of the workers, and O’Malley’s right back in the race.
I’m sure that was snark, but I think the comment is correct. America wants a man on a white horse (or a Joan D’Arc).
Winning = selling out.
Selling out = getting cut dead by all my internet friends.
So I’m backing a noble loser. I’m looking for a blend of the tactical acumen of General George Pickett and the politics of Eugene Debs.
Social democracy is one glorious failure away!
Man, you lost me there. I don’t know WTF you said.
We lose because the candidates we nominate are insufficiently leftward.
And when we win the candidates who win are a disappointment, because they’re insufficiently leftward.
The way forward is to nominate increasingly leftward candidates, until the losing stops.
And in the meantime, while we wait for the losing to stop, we can bask in the awesome cred.
I used to feel that way, too, but even die-hard party activists right now seem to be in no mood to even talk about 2016. I like that the Dem candidates are slow-playing this. It’s giving time for the Republicans to show their asses, and let us see what they’re all about before they all pivot to non-stop Hillary-bashing.
What crapola. Well at least the veep list was winnowed.
While Clinton managed to grab any good Rep Bills away from Rep and call them his own, Obama has been faced with literally zero good Bills coming from the Rep side. There’s been nothing to triangulate from during his administration.
But because he’s chosen to promote Dem causes that have polled favorably (well yeah, ACA like pulling teeth, but it’s gained) he now OWNS most if not all of the issues that Americans care about. Sure there’s struggle in how he gets there but since the Rep offer only crickets for policies they have zero to build on.
So perhaps Obama has led beyond triangulation? The Dems will be utter fools to run a Pres candidate in ’16 and shut him out like Gore did to Clinton or even like ’14.
While Clinton managed to grab any good Rep Bills away from Rep and call them his own,
What were those good Rep Bills? All I recall was a stinking pile of crap designed to continue dismantling both the legislation and spirit of the New Deal. Plus it’s false that team Clinton stood aside at Congressional GOP offices crafted the legislation and waited until it was done before claiming credit for it. They don’t like to talk about that in public, but his team was very active in the sausage making part.
From Booman’s post “He would pass legislation on Rep wish list and then take credit for it, robbing them of campaign themes in 1996 election”
Wasn’t disputing that Clinton publicly took credit for legislation passed by the GOP congress. Only that his team’s involvement began much earlier than that point. What gets overlooked wrt triangulation is that the actual suckers or marks were liberals. The GOP and Clinton got what they wanted and liberals clapped loudly for Clinton and his politically savvy moves in getting the GOP congress to pass GOP approved legislation that Clinton supported and signed. Legislation that would have appalled liberals had Reagan or one of the Bushes been in the WH supporting it when it was passed.
That aside, my point was that Obama has had nothing to triangulate with. No Rep Bills or anything proactive legislatively to grab. That said, he’s managed to claim nearly every relevant issue Americans poll in favor of. Some more sloppily than others, but there’s no policies left for Rep to work up a real policy platform from.
Sure there is. SS “reform” because there’s bipartisan agreement that it’s going broke. SSD and Medicaid “reform” — also broke. More tax cuts. More deregulation and privatization. And the “Cold War 2.0.”
Guess I missed those Bills coming to Obama’s desk.
Was responding to: there’s no policies left for Rep to work up a real policy platform from.
They still have a platform left to work on if they can bamboozle enough of the people with it in the next few election cycles.
No bills in keeping with their platform are hitting Obama’s desk for three reasons. First, they couldn’t get them through the Senate. Second, Obama would veto them and the GOP couldn’t override the veto. Third, fighting for such legislation now in Congress and with the WH would be much too public and that risks a voter rebuke in 2016 because their platform isn’t popular. They want to sneak this crap through without public awareness or full disclosure just as they’ve done for the past thirty-four years.
My point there is that Obama has moved without them. While they’re busy with obstruction and infighting he has moved on the majority of the issues that poll well with Americans…he and likely the Dems, own those policies now. But, again, he’s had no Bills on his desk that came from the Rep wish list that he can sign and take credit for, like Clinton did. Triangulation hasn’t been available to his administration.
I think the meat is right here:
That theme will cover pretty much everything that Hillary will offer – where does she take a courageous stand on anything? When has she taken a courageous stand on anything that wasn’t convenient? Triangulation was the one point in this speech, but I can see this theme being the lynchpin of his campaign. Or at least it should be.