The Clintons, Atwater, Rove, and the Future

The Clintons, Atwater, Rove, and the Future

By Reed Hundt | bio

It is certain that the Clintons' thousands of friends are cringing, turning away their attention out of sheer shame, grimacing, as they read the former President's derogatory dismissal of Obama's landslide victory as no different than Jesse Jackson's win there. But it's important to scrutinize what the Clintons are doing and how it might work out.

Most notable about the South Carolina results was that Hillary did not get a majority (based on exits) of any racial or gender-based demographic. She is famous; obviously she has a great deal of money and support from the old guard of the party, such as it is; and she is very well-prepared on policy. But she is not tremendously popular. She was wrong on Iraq; she has little personal record of fighting for a cause; she offers a management-style Presidency as opposed to visionary change.

Most of Hillary's votes appear to come from women, seniors, and lower income voters. These demographic groups could turn to Obama. She has not aroused passionate commitment by them.

Hillary has a tenuous status as the alleged front-runner. This is of course the reason she and her husband are taking the low road in terms of tactics. (Not for a second should anyone think she has not approved her husband's tactics, or that he has run amuck.)

The former President's repeated injections of racial references are unacceptable in modern politics, or even modern society. If he were a commentator on the Golf Channel, he would be asked to resign. We know he is doing this because he believes that there is a racist strain in the groups that Hillary is counting on. In particular he believes he can encourage Latinos in California, New York, and New Jersey to come out to vote against Barack, simply because Barack is African-American. He does not believe he can persuade them to want to vote for Hillary, but hopes they will either not vote, or will vote for anyone but Barack.

Yet the Clintons cannot make the case against Barack based on any policy. This frustrates them. There is not one aspect of Barack's policy arguments that can arouse much desire among any Democrats to vote against him. He was right on Iraq; he is progressive on virtually everything, despite Paul Krugman's irritation that not every economic policy prescription fits Dr. Krugman's preferences.

In effect, the Clintons want people to dislike Obama the same way that some dislike the Clintons: irrationally, with groundless preconceptions, passionately. They both feel stigmatized for no good reason. To them it probably seems fair, or at least simply part of the process, if Barack is also unfairly hated.

Pehaps too the Clintons feel that the Republicans would attack Barack on racial grounds, so it makes no difference if they beat McCain or Romney to this tactic. In any case, the Clintons are going negative because they do not believe they can with a positive message attract more voters to Hillary. They want to drive voters away from Barack; they want his negatives to be as high as theirs.

The Clintons are thus running their own version of the Republican Southern Strategy that worked so well to elect conservatives from Nixon through to the current Bush. Ironically, the Clintons themselves spent their political careers battling against that strategy. Defeating it in the border states in 1992 was central to Bill Clinton's election.

There's no crying in baseball or politics, so let's not shed a tear over the completely unprincipled use of race-baiting language by the former President. He knows his Presidency was marred terribly by the impeachment, and that his record of accomplishment was much less than he hoped it would be. He wants this return to the White House to give him, and Hillary, a chance to rewrite the history book entry on the Clintons. He does not believe his repugnant tactic will be part of that history; he is sure that if and when they get back in power they will accomplish so much that the way they got elected again won't matter.

Indeed, they suppose that in the general election all will be forgotten. Barack will be campaigning with them. Everyone will have a good laugh about the tricks they all pulled to win the primaries. If such amity does not come to exist, still the Clintons believe they can count on blacks to vote for them in the fall no matter what. After all, Bill Clinton has the chutzpah to think of himself as the "black President" so taking that demographic's votes for granted is no stretch of the imagination for him.

But the Clintons' use of the tactics of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove inevitably contributes to the perception that Hillary Clinton is running a campaign that is trapped in the past, where race has always mattered much in elections. That was true in the 80's and 90's. But in the 00's it may not be so. Harold Ford barely lost the Tennessee general election; affirmative action is not one of the big issues of this election cycle; nor is welfare; while race has been the history of America it may not be the future. In any event, even if Obama defeats the Clintons, it is possible that the Clintons' use of the race tactic now will inoculate Obama in the fall. It is possible that the public will see him, may indeed already see him, they way people see Oprah or Denzel Washington or Tiger Woods -- public figures whose race and personal history is certainly well-known, but is not a reason for disapproval, hostility, or even disagreement. (Exit polls in South Carolina reported that about 70% of white voters said they would be satisfied if Obama were the nominee.) If by surviving the Clintons' tactics Obama became that sort of public figure, then he would give Democrats at the top of the ticket a candidate who could produce a landslide not only in the South Carolina primary but also across the country in the general.

This is not a reason to applaud the Clintons' tactic. The Clintons' admirers, of whom I have long been one, still should be consumed with regret that the election has brought Bill and Hillary to make this choice. Howard Dean and others who have been silent should still speak out against what they are doing. The New York Times editorial page should have inveighed against this tactic instead of endorsing Hillary. The Los Angeles Times should speak up. But if Obama overcomes what the Clintons are doing, he may have turned a page in American history and he will certainly be the dream candidate for Democrats this fall.

OFF THE BUS...

But that said, enough's enough. I don't like dog whistle racial appeals when Republicans do it, and I don't like it when Bill Clinton does it. (And unlike Hillary's MLK/LBJ remark, which was idiotically mischaracterized, don't even try to pretend that this was an innocent remark. We're not children here.) Yes, Obama has to be able to handle this kind of sewage, and yes, this will almost certainly be forgiven and forgotten among Democrats by November. But it's not November yet, is it? My primary is a week from Tuesday, and I'm not feeling very disposed to reward this kind of behavior.