Imagine the scene at the Democratic National Convention. A triumphant Barack Obama stands onstage. To his left stands John Kerry, to his right Al Gore. Next to Gore stands Jimmy Carter. Ted Kennedy stands next to John Kerry.
There is a lot of hope for an Obama-fueled "new Democratic majority" that can ignore the great unwashed--the dwindling number of white working class voters they used to call "Reagan Democrats." The suggestion that Democrats cannot win without them is ridiculed as "inside the beltway" nonsense. However, a Brookings Institution paper by Ruy Teixeira and Alan Abramowitz reiterates this group's significance to winning an electoral college majority in 2008:
During this year's Democratic primary season, Hillary Clinton has generally run far ahead of Barack Obama among white working class voters (though there are signs this may be changing). But due to the structure of the Democratic primary electorate, with its heavy minority and college-educated representation, this has not translated into electoral dominance and her campaign is now in serious trouble.The story will be different in the November general election however. Here the voting proclivities of the white working class will make a huge difference and could well determine who the next president will be.
In a later interview, Teixeira makes clear that Obama can still make up a winning coalition, but the Obama camp is obviously, wisely, taking no chances. They're now working hard to win this group. The lapel pin has reappeared, and the candidate has developed a sudden penchant for bowling. Demonstrating how much stock they place in this demographic, the opposition is trying to keep it out of reach. They're attacking Obama as "not one of us," which is a none-too-subtle fix of their addiction to racism and tagging Democrats as elitist and out-of-touch with "real Americans." As we all know, real Americans are white, working-class Americans.
This is going to be a tough race and Obama needs every state he can get if he's to collect 270 electoral votes. Now, let's return to that convention scene:
Republicans, with a generous hand from the media, successfully painted John Kerry as elitist and out-of-touch. In 2004, he lost the white working-class vote to George Bush by 23 points. He ran an embarrassing presidential campaign, and since, has not distinguished himself as a spokesperson for Democratic or progressive ideals. In short, when it came to national office, he lost--badly.
Al Gore's post-political career has been extraordinary, culminating in a Nobel Prize. However, as a candidate he was also (with a generous hand from the press) labeled elitist and out-of-touch. Let's face it. He was a sitting vice president who lost a campaign that was his to lose.
Jimmy Carter also boasts an admirable post-presidential career with a Nobel of his own. However, he was an unpopular, ineffectual one-term president whose stewardship is considered a failure.
Ted Kennedy represents the last of the Kennedy political dynasty. He has been an extraordinarily effective senator. However, he remains representative of presidential promise unfulfilled. The Kennedy legacy, to which he has anointed Obama something of a successor, is a legacy of great national promise--tragically unfulfilled.
On that stage, Obama would be surrounded by a group of men, each extraordinary in his own right, but each of whom failed to connect emotionally with a politically significant swath of the American public and whom the opposition successfully belittled and bested (with big helping hands from the press). That picture would speak one thousand words. It would paint Obama as their candidate successor.
Think what you will of him, there is only one living Democratic presidential politician who connected emotionally (and maintained that connection) with broad swaths of the American electorate--across all racial and class lines. He won the presidency--twice--and did it during the apex of the Republican ascendancy. He even eked out a victory among the white working class, despite Ross Perot's third party appeal to this group.
Now that we're talking realignment, it's progressively fashionable to pooh pooh his presidency for relying on center-right Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) policies. In doing so, the logic goes, he failed to lay the groundwork for a new progressive majority. Obama himself suggested as much in saying, "I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America, in a way that Richard Nixon did not, and in a way that Bill Clinton did not."
Maybe the DLC way was the only way to win at the time. Maybe it wasn't. That doesn't matter anymore. What does matter is ensuring that the Obama camp not help McCain paint him as the ineffectual Kerry-ite successor to feckless McGovern-ism.
Despite his sometimes, ahem... eccentric electioneering this season, Bill Clinton still casts the winner's long, deep shadow. He can still connect with important constituencies like the elderly and the white working class. He can still appeal to the latter group, and every other, by speaking to expanding economic opportunity in something other than the abstract--because he accomplished it.
A Bill Clinton in the distant background will only highlight the recent Democratic history of failed, "weak" and "elite" Democratic presidential contenders and cast Obama as yet another. It will cast him as successor to a legacy tragically unfulfilled. Bill in the foreground paints him as a successor to prosperity and success. Bill in the foreground helps highlight the post-presidential accomplishments of a Carter and a Gore, instead of highlighting campaign and high office failures simply through the lack of any countervailing electoral narratives onstage.
Symbols matter. Elections are as much about perceptions as issues. Yes, there's bad blood between Obama and the Clintons, and judging from his initial attempts to secure the Edwards endorsement, Obama does not grovel well. But once Hillary Clinton is securely put away, Obama will need Bill, so I suggest he improve his groveling. Hell, he secured that lapel pin and got that bowling ball down the lane, didn't he? When the prize is as big as the presidency, you don't leave any assets on the table.
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never thought i'd say that about another Dem.
But there you have it.
Bill Clinton has really helped Hillary. David Axelrod has helped Obama. Guess who came out on top.
During the Gore campaign there was lots of hectoring and criticism of HIS distancing HIMSELF from Clinton, from not using him and not bringing him out on the campaign trail.
After the "loss" there was so much condemnati
"Why didn't he use Clinton? they screamed?
Why? Clinton could have won it for us! was the battle cry.
But now?
Clinton, both Clinton's are castigated
Why is that?
What kind of new politics is this?
Paul v. Clinton
htto://www
The Clinton's former pastor Reverend William Procanick, has been convicted of 1st degree Child Molestatio
http;//www.uticao
The articly you posted about the pastor gives no references to where he was their pastor, how long he was their pastor and what kind of relationsh
I go to a church where I shakke the hand of the pastor when I leave. That's it.
so unless you can provide some actual facts about their relationsh
You know I have defended Obama with the Wright BS, defended Wright for that matter though I personally wouldn't have gone to his church more than a couple of times. I like that kind of preaching but the content would have eventually made me uncomforta
I defended him about bittergate
I defended him about the flag pin crap too and the stupidity of the questionin
I have condemned people from bringing up Larry Sinclair against Obama but for Obama supporters nothing is too venal to use against the Clinton's.
You could teach the neocon's a few things.
When Clinton supporters realize what is at stake, when they are confronted with two starkly contrastin
Then can someone tell me why he and his campaign did so much to marginaliz
Sounds to me that Obama thinks the Clinton Presidency wasn't leading anywhere and didn't do anything for the country, not like Reagan did.
Sounds to me that according to Obama the Clinton's were responsibl
The fact that the neocons were the ones who were causing that crap seems to be forgotten, particular
Yup, gonna leave those fights of the past behind
Pretty ironic for all the divisivene
They're gonna change the direction of politics and they are not gonna care who we alienate or marginaliz
Christ almighty. what people won't stoop to in trying to destroy the Clintons.
Its a fricking sin.
Gore chose to distance himself from Clinton and did not want him to campaign.
When Gore "lost" the Presidency how the shouting and condemnati
That's why he lost.
Why did he side line Clinton? Why did he distance himself from Clinton.
Clinton would have given him the margin.
Oh, on and on and on it went.
Kerry?
You people are so low.
The neocons have nothing on you.
You will stoop to saying anything, lying means nothing to you.
The new politics..
"Clinton heads to New Mexico and his home state of Arkansas this weekend, hoping to generate some momentum for Kerry in the last days before the Nov. 2 election. The former president, ***who is recovering from a Sept. 6 quadruple heart bypass surgery,**
"Calling himself a foot-soldi
"In an expansive conversati
out with the old, in with the new.
We don't need no stinking old guys.
We got new guys to consume that we can throw under the bus in another 10 or 20 years.
Dammit this is a consumer nation and we are gonna consume. And we are gonna consume who the media tells us is the new best thing.
And we are gonna tell everything the media tells us about the new big thing to anybody who will listen.
And we're gonna throw out the old things cause we gotta sell this new product for the sponsers so we can keep having this new reality show the "media" puts on for us.
'cause we gotta sell product.
And this product is a can't lose... this is not even new and improved, this is straight out, brand new, nothing like anyone has ever seen before.
YUP.
Don't look behind the curtain though, there's a bunch of old guard guy's standing there collecting money and Axelrod, more old guard, "shaping public perception
-MS
ove it.
That is a good one.
Except that they will do the same thing to her again. Unless a few respected historians
Nah, that would require taking some responsibi
Oh... the new way but behind the curtain are the same old players.
What a joke.
And Axelrod the king of the shapers of reality.
Damn I wish Hillary would have hired him.
Seriously.
He really is a stinking master at astroturfi
LOL
not funny, but damn, ya gotta laugh at the complete absurdity now and then.
If Hillary isn't the nominee, I wouldn't hold your breath in Bill giving a damn...act