Changing "The Rules" on Clinton

David Brooks, with his inimitable instinct for oversimplification, has posed a false choice for Barack Obama: get into a "knife fight" with Clinton or refuse to counterattack now that it seems that "Clinton attacked him, and the attacks worked." Brooks mocks the Obama campaign's purported belief that "they can go on the attack, but in the right way. They can be tough and keep their virginity, too."

The last time things got nasty, before South Carolina, Obama shut down the Clinton attack machine for two months by very coolly pointing out that the Clinton's well-known truthiness problems undercut their credibility and hence Hillary's chance to build the "working majority" that Bill Clinton failed to build. In other words, he offered an essentially accurate critique of her Rovian attacks and integrated that critique into his pitch to reform our political process. I think he'll find a way to do that again -- by challenging the Clintons to the kind of disclosure (tax records, donations to the Clinton Library and Foundation, etc.) that they cannot withstand, and by continuing to debunk Hillary's ridiculous claims to substantive foreign policy experience.

It is not true, as Brooks asserts, that Obama"has never explained how this new politics would actually produce bread-and-butter benefits to people in places like Youngstown and Altoona." Obama has been explicit and precise on this point. He will get those "bread-and-butter-benefits" enacted by appealing to independents and Republicans as well as to Democrats; he will take the poison out of the political process by building a "working majority" that will ease partisanship and thus empower him to move to the substantive process reform of curbing lobbyist power. The appeal beyond the party base is grounded in part on the 'demonstration effect' of his clean campaign; in part on his eloquent appeal to broad American values; and in part on his channeling of Reagan, which is built on a genuine respect for the last "transformative" president -- a respect that conservatives can sense. At the same time, the promise of a new politics is wrapped around a frankly liberal, untriangulated policy platform that, if passed, will counter the tides of income inequality and risk transfer from the community to the individual.

Back in January, Obama found a way to shut down the Clinton attack machine without getting into the gutter. He bought himself two months, during which time he became the frontrunner. Now that desperation has led Hillary to a more deeply malicious and misleading set of attacks, I believe he'll find a way to stymie her once again. "Virginity" is a snidely charged way of casting what he stands to lose. I believe that he will highlight Clinton's weaknesses without losing his integrity.

Related posts:
Audacity of Respect: What Obama Owes to Reagan II
Truth and Transformation
Obama: Man, those Klinton Kids are Something
The Lying Clinton Meme

Obama decries the 47% solution

While sharpening his case against Hillary Clinton as nominee in a rally in Virginia on Sunday, Obama fused his case for electability with a case for 'governability.' He's casting electability not as an end in itself, but as prelude to building a working majority to push through what's in large part a consensus agenda among Democrats.

Obama is treading a delicate line when on the attack. He has to steer away from the 'say anything, do anything' politics he decries while suggesting that Hillary is mired in those politics. Hence his inoculating praise of both McCain -- "a genuine American war hero" he said again on Sunday -- and of Hillary. Taking a cue from Joe Biden, Obama, as reported in today's New York Times, suggested that she was hampered by forces beyond her control:

“She’s a smart person, she’s a capable person, she would be a vast improvement over the incumbent,” he said in response to a question at a rally with 3,000 people, with 1,200 more listening in an overflow room. “What is also true is, I think it’s very hard for Senator Clinton to break out of the politics of the last 15 years.”

And again, distancing the person from the criticism:

“Senator Clinton starts off with 47 percent of the country against her,” he said in response to a question in Alexandria. “That’s a hard place to start.”

Then, with perhaps a degree of mano-a-mano payback, Obama effectively named that albatross he was hanging around Hillary's neck "Bill Clinton" -- getting more specific than ever about the limitations of Bill's legacy:

“Keep in mind, we had Bill Clinton as president when, in ’94, we lost the House, we lost the Senate, we lost governorships, we lost state houses,” he said. “And so, regardless of what policies they wanted to promote, they didn’t have a working majority to bring change about.”

Finally, completing the contrast, according to the Times (curiously this passage is in print but not online):

Mr. Obama said he would be able to create a working majority because he did not 'demonize' his opponents, and because he had been able to attract independents and Republicans.

So there's the case: the man who can win a broad majority can also defang the opposition.

Fact-and-fairness check: first, the Clintons were more demonized than demonizing. Second, the loss of a Democratic majority on Bill Clinton's watch was not mainly his fault. As Obama never tires of reminding us, "now" is the moment for Democrats to show "audacity," thanks to multiple Republican train wrecks.

As David Frum recently wrote with admirable clarity in the Financial Times, “The conservative ascendancy in American politics is coming to an end... If they eat right, exercise and wear seatbelts, today’s 20-somethings will be voting against George W. Bush deep into the 2060s. Most ominously[to Frum!], US polls show an ideological sea change: a desire for a more activist government, a loss of interest in the tax question and a shift to the left on most social issues (although not, interestingly, abortion)."

As Obama has also said in other contexts, this change in zeitgeist isn't about him. His case is that he's the one best equipped to seize it, but it's fair to say too that Bill Clinton played great defense when the tide was running the other way. Does that mean that Hillary can't build a working majority? Not necessarily. Is Obama much better positioned to do so? Very probably.

Related posts:
Obama brings it back to earth in Virginia
Feb. 5: Hillary's Speech was Better than Obama's
Obama's Metapolitics
Obama: Man, those Klinton Kids are Something
Obama Praises Clinton, and Buries Him