Why Hillary Will Lose
I don’t usually blog about politics, but I had to respond to the standing ovation Hillary Clinton received at the end of the debate with Obama and state this unequivocally:
Hillary has thrown away her best assets as a public speaker and potential Presidential candidate: her capacity for apparent candor, warmth, and most of all, a gracious effort to appeal to common experiences and common goals. It was a well-done answer she gave the question, one that let down her guard for a precious (and rare) instant to do something she almost never allows: a moment to laugh at herself.
However, like many in this country, I think the tack she took at the end of the debate is, like many other campaign decisions she’s made, an issue of too little, too late.
Overall, Clinton’s strategy has been what I like to think of as hunting for mammoths. You know — the idea that all the cave tribe has to do is bring down a couple of big mammoths in order to live through the winter.
It’s not a bad idea, survivally speaking. What the ancient cave hunters discovered, for the most part, is that bringing down a mammoth can indeed feed a tribe over the winter, and do so well, provided, of course, that the hunt is successful and doesn’t cost too much in terms of hunters or in lives.
Hillary managed to bag some major mammoths in her campaign: California and New York both went to her, with their respective groups of delegates. As of this writing, it’s my prediction she’ll bag Ohio and Pennsylvania too. It’s a strategy she’s exercised in her campaign financially as well, getting mammoth donations from mammoth contributors.
The problem with this strategy? It doesn’t work.
As many ancient groups discovered, bagging a mammoth is the ultimate in risk. It’s a risk you undertake basically when you have something like a comfortable margin of stored food already banked. It’s a risk you undertake when you can afford to lose it. One dead hunter, one missed shot, one lost mammoth, and the whole enterprise can collapse.
I believe that Super Tuesday was that mammoth Hillary didn’t bag. She expected to win, and when she didn’t, she had no exit strategy to fall back on.
Other people have made that observation (I believe on Washington Week in Review), so it’s not original with me, but it’s shocking how much it’s true. Super Tuesday took place February 5; by February 6, Clinton announced that she was lending her campaign five million dollars of her own money: a terrible sign of an impending loss. She expected to win and coast through the February contests with little serious opposition. Instead, that’s not what happened. Moreover, the mammoth campaign contributions she relies on are tapped out.
This campaign is the largest organizational effort either candidate has headed, and it’s fascinating to see what’s happening. Obama’s strategy has been the opposite of Clinton’s: instead of hunting the mammoths, he’s bagged the small stuff. So far, he appears to be winning. I would argue that this essential difference between them is emblematic of the kind of leader each would be, if elected. Obama is all about the bottom up: he does sweat the small stuff, knowing that enough little snowflakes will add up to one hell of an avalanche. Clinton is all about the top down. And that’s the kind of leader she would be.
I am not voting for Clinton because underneath what I perceive as a voracious hunger for power, she ultimately operates out of fear. Her sense of power is grandiose, and like most overinflated things, is terribly fragile. I am not voting for Clinton because of what her political enemies have said about her, but because of what she has said about herself.Quoted in a recent article in The New Yorker, Clinton stated, “It’s also important to say, ‘Look, there are certain things we have to do as a country. You may not agree, but let me explain why, and let me try to persuade you. But if I can’t persuade you, we have to go forward anyway.’”In other words, if she is in charge she, like Bush, will be “The Decider.” Your agreement, really, is not relevant to her decision. But there’s more. In a speech at a Democratic party fundraiser in 2004, Clinton stated, “”Many of you are well enough off that … the tax cuts may have helped you. We’re saying that for America to get back on track, we’re probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.“”
Hey, I enjoy the idea of speaking truth to power, particularly truth to rich people. I also think the tax cuts overwhelmingly benefited the wealthiest one percent, as they were intended to. I am not in favor of the tax cuts because, like most of us, I understand that services must be paid for. However, what I find extremely disturbing about this quote was not what Clinton said, but her manner of saying it. Like a punitive parent who rips a toy out of her child’s hand, she’s going to be the arbiter of what constitutes the “common good” and will “take things away from you” on its behalf.
I am not a child, and I resent being treated as one, even by proxy as a fellow Democrat and American citizen. I do not want a mother as a President, nor a decider, nor an autocrat. I want someone who will work toward consensus and accord between rich and poor, black and white, Republican and Democrat.I find that Clinton perceives herself as the person who “really” knows what’s best for us all even in her campaign’s advertisement, an advertisement deliberately parodying the classic final episode of The Sopranos.
Like a somewhat overbearing mother, she knows what’s best for us — even when the other people at the table are grown-ups too.
I also find it interesting that, in this ad she chose to run, she portrays herself in the Tony Soprano role. I do not find this coincidental.
Finally, I’d like to quote from a conversation Clinton had in 1993 with Rep. Dennis Hastert. Hastert recalls the conversation as follows:
“I said, ‘Well, part of that’s an education process. People have to understand that [if] they behave in a certain way, they’re going to save money, [with the] preventive medicine issue — you get the pre-screenings, if you can inoculate your kids you save money on it. I mean, they’re not sick. You save money.’She said, ‘No. We just can’t trust the American people to make those types of choices … Government has to make those choices for people.’”
Yeah, I know Hastert’s not her bosom buddy, but I also know that this statement is consistent with statements she’s made throughout her years in the public eye. I find it more than disturbing that she “just can’t trust the American people to make those types of choices.”
Trusting the American people with those types of choices is the fundamental principle of American democracy.
Having such a palpable disdain for the maturity and capability of the American people — or any people — is a signal characteristic of an elitist autocrat who, not unlike Socrates, looked upon democracy as derision. Interestingly, Socrates and his pupil and disciple Plato suggested that the best form of government was one ruled by a philosopher-king, a father-figure who would make decisions in the best interests of the people. This, of course, is absolute despotism.
Feel free to disagree — above all, I think that the American people ARE smart enough to decide these issues of importance. And more.
I guess we’ll see.
Leave a Reply