Hillary's Looming Electability Crisis

There are moments in time when you see a slow-motion disaster unfolding before you, and you can only yell out and hope those around you notice in time. Now is such a moment for Democrats, and "in time" means before the Super Duper primaries this Tuesday across the nation. Hillary Clinton may be a good U.S. Senator, and has deep symbolic importance as our first viable female presidential candidate, but three factors represent crippling structural flaws for the Democratic ticket this November if she becomes our candidate.

First is the nightmare we saw once before. Ralph Nader has just declared his decision to form an exploratory committee for 2008, and will certainly wage another presidential campaign hammering the Democrats. Under ordinary circumstances, Nader's inevitable next candidacy would be unimportant given his meteoric fall from electoral relevance. Thanks to voter resentment over his impact in 2000, and to efforts including our "Ralph Don't Run" campaign by anti-Bush progressives opposing Nader's candidacy, his vote total fell from an election-tilting 3% in 2000 to 0.38% in 2004. As we said in 2004, Nader's votes always come at the expense of the Democratic candidate. While Nader was not a factor in 2004, Hillary's weakness among progressives -- millions will never forgive her vote authorizing the Iraq war -- means that Nader will crawl back up into the low single-digits. We saw in 2000 the carnage "low single-digits" can cause.

Second, after his victory in Florida and endorsement by Giuliani, John McCain is the presumptive GOP nominee. McCain's greatest appeal will be to independent voters, a large vital block of the electorate that is Hillary's great weakness. Hillary is a highly polarizing candidate, which damages her among independents. As Time magazine's most recent polling indicates, she has the deadly combination of very high negatives (41% unfavorable) plus a deeply fixed voter impression (91% say they know enough about her to form an opinion). The latter figure means those numbers are not going to change substantially, and McCain will almost surely win Independents. This should be a deafening alarm bell for Democrats.

Finally, Hillary has an ironic power shared by no other candidate: from the wreckage of a broken, dysfunctional Republican party with deep rifts among its factions, she would create sudden GOP unity. If Clinton is our candidate, the Republican base will come out in numbers that have nothing to do with John McCain and everything to do with Hillary and Bill Clinton. As GOP pundits are now openly admitting, they want Hillary this November. They fear Obama.

Here, then, is the Clinton disaster scenario. Even in a year when Democrats are in great position to win in November, if Hillary unifies the Republicans, loses independents, and loses the progressive left, her chances of winning the general election are slim indeed.

Let look at the alternative. Barack Obama inspires Americans across the political spectrum, with his greatest strengths supplanting Hillary's greatest weaknesses. He unites independents, the young, minorities, and progressives alike. He will not unify the GOP, and indeed will take Republican votes. That same Time magazine poll shows that among those who have an opinion, he has astounding 70% positives. Yet 51% of voters don't yet know him enough to even have formed an opinion. With his power of ideas and remarkable personal charisma yet to be fully seen, his upside is enormous.

In 2004, we had our regrets about having to fight the often admirable Ralph Nader to most effectively oppose the reelection of George Bush. We beseech Democratic primary voters this Tuesday to make such an effort unnecessary in 2008, as Barack Obama unites progressives, independents and Democrats, and discourages rather than unifies Republicans. If we want to win in November, we must choose the transcendent appeal of Barack Obama, as Americans reject tired partisan divides of the past and join together in a new politics of integrity, hope, and a profound unity for the American people.

John Pearce and Kathy Cramer were founders and Directors of Ralph Don't Run, a progressive citizens' campaign opposed to Ralph Nader's candidacy in 2004.

Comments

[Zenpilot]

It takes courage to vote against the pattern of failure that continually haunts Democrats in recent elections. The juggernaut of Gore and Kerry's runs may have seemed like the slow motion disaster at the time to some, but there were no better choices looming. This time, Obama can be the choice that averts the inevitable Hillary implosion in November. We Democrats just have to have the strength and courage to act now before it's too late again.

[Clinton]

Nader is a viable alternative to Clinton.

[NABNYC]

I think the part that is the most disturbing to me is the knowledge that a small group of corporate money whores inside the Democratic party, placed there by Bill Clinton through the Republican-aligned DLC, picks our candidates for us and we never even hear anything about it.

Why was Hillary chosen? Because the DLC gave her their stamp of approval. So Bill went from corporation to elite gathering with his crew of truckers following behind to back up to the headquarters and haul away the money. They buy the candidate, they own the candidate, and the candidate promises to do only what the corporations and the wealthy want.

Where is my party? What happened to the Democratic Party of FDR that stood up for working people? Why is it that working people, who make up probably 80% of the country, are completely ignored in this system. Excluded. Their needs are considered unimportant.

Businesses used to provide health care and pensions. Yet today they make obscene levels of profits and working people are told (by Hillary) to buy their own health insurance and start saving if they ever want to retire because the businesses won't provide pensions.

The early death of workers from a lack of health and safety in their place of employment, lack of healthcare, is irrelevant. Their children are only important to the extent they can be shipped off to foreign wars to serve the corporate interests.

Which party is representing that 75% of the country? That's the party I want to join. I don't think it's Hillary Clinton. I don't think it's most of the multi-millionaires in Congress. So where is my party?

[BeyondKen]

>GOP pundits are now openly admitting, they want Hillary this November. They fear Obama.

Let look at the alternative. Barack Obama inspires Americans across the political spectrum, with his greatest strengths supplanting Hillary's greatest weaknesses. He unites independents, the young, minorities, and progressives alike. He will not unify the GOP, and indeed will take Republican votes.

Right. Obama is a Boy Scout:

Obama certainly knows how to handle feminists. He was first elected to office by unseating one. Not that he actually beat her in an election of course.
He was elected an Illinois State Senator after paying lawyers to force all other opponents off the ballot.
According to David Jackson in the Chicago Tribune:
"A close examination of Obama's first campaign clouds the image he has cultivated throughout his political career: The man now running for president on a message of giving a voice to the voiceless first entered public office not by leveling the playing field, but by clearing it. His overwhelming legal onslaught signaled his impatience to gain office, even if that meant elbowing aside an elder stateswoman like Alice Palmer."

Obama Knows His Way Around A Ballot

Some say his ability to play political hardball goes back to his first campaign
By David Jackson and Ray Long | Tribune staff reporters6:48 PM CDT, April 3, 2007
The day after New Year's 1996, operatives for Barack Obama filed into a barren hearing room of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.
There they began the tedious process of challenging hundreds of signatures on the nominating petitions of state Sen. Alice Palmer, the longtime progressive activist from the city's South Side. And they kept challenging petitions until every one of Obama's four Democratic primary rivals was forced off the ballot.

[oldpotsmuggler]

"As GOP pundits are now openly admitting, they want Hillary this November. They fear Obama."

Oh yeah, just exactly who I would trust to look after the best interests of the Democratic Party, our nation, and the World. Honesty abounds in that group, no doubt, and if they say that they really, really don't want to have to run against Obama I'd be willing to take it to the bank that the person they don't want to see on the ticket in November is Clinton.

Hillary got how many hundred thousand more votes in Florida than McCain did?

But this piece does point out one absurdity in our current way of doing politicing. Given the time spread between now and November there is absolutely no way to make any kind of an intelligent assessment of electability. If we had one of those systems where 60 days pass from when an election is called until the dust clears one could almost feel safe in believing that the electability of any particular candidate or party would have a hard time changing so quickly. In ten months, not so much.

[altohone]

Very nice.

I think you summed it up well.

[degjack]

Electability crisis?

You wish!

[QueenMaedb]

Amen, John!