Beyond the Shark Nets; the Panic in the Clinton Camp
Once, many years ago, around 1975, I was (laughably) on a short-board in the water off Durban, when I realized I had drifted way too far out, near the shark-nets which were there to protect the (white) swimmers. I imagined the sharks just waiting beyond the nets, eagerly anticipating lunch. Somehow the dappling of the light on the water had created a kind of hypnotic effect, a petit mal attack. I panicked, trying to get back in. It wasn't happening. I was done, and I started to fight, tiring myself more and more, the more I fought, the more I could not believe it was going to go down this way. Fifteen, comfortable in the waters, and flailing. The life guards came out, and towed me and my board in.
The panic I felt is being felt in the Clinton campaign as Barack Obama pulls ahead in New Hampshire. Senator Hillary Clinton is awakening from the hypnotic petit mal torpor of bad advice, and the smug certitude of a presumptive nominee, into the cold hard snowy January reality of an actual battle for hearts and minds of an unimpressed electorate. Infighting dominates at her camp, finger pointing prevails, and still Bill and Hilary come out swinging against Obama. With each punch, each vulgar assertion of his inexperience, or his lack of a stand on women's rights, they seem more and more and more desperate, more vicious, and ever more out of sync with the emerging spirit of the day.
Seven months ago, I was at a Hollywood Hills fundraiser for Senator Clinton, when she answered a young girl's (reasonable, but I felt stage-managed) question about "the glass ceiling for women". I sensed in this tiny bit of theatre, all of the cautious triangulation that she employs to cover all the bases. The moment evidenced the crushing lack of spontaneity in her approach to campaigning, and even decision making. When I asked her why she felt the need to have shills even in friendly crowds in the hills above Sunset, there was a dismayed gasp. She snapped "You try doing this a dozen times a week". The crowd cheered her, booed me, and I knew she was going to have a hard go of it, then and there -- if all she had was that brittle humorlessness. No charm. No grace. No admission of anything amiss. And then it kept happening: The shills in the crowds.
Well. Voters know what the fire this time looks like: They are thirsty for intellect unfettered by compass-watching-perpetual caution. That alone draws them to Obama.
They are voracious for a passionate and credible communicator; that too, points them towards Obama.
They crave a new model, a new kind of American, who somehow is not redolent of the old and shop-worn language of the past. That craving brings them in a straight and inexorable line right to Obama.
And the Clinton camp knows it, and sees it, and has literally no clue how to respond. Because all they have is a candidate who is tough, and admirably indefatigable. (The one moment in the New Hampshire debate on Saturday night that seemed to humanize her was the "likability" beat. She admitted to having hurt feelings over some of the negative qualities attributed to her. ) She smiled, and in that moment, Hillary seemed human, vulnerable, light of touch, tough, strong and funny. One of us. But still, after an endless presumption of inevitability, hearts had grown slightly cool.
By Sunday, Obama was ten points ahead of her, virtually, as if proving -- she is not the one who captures the almost entirely extinguished dreams of an entire nation. By today, he is even further ahead. In the Clinton camp there is almost nothing they can do to make her seem anything other than the triangulated politico she is. (I maintain that when she is humanized, warm and funny, it makes her seem strong and capable.) I have to admit, what she has been through over the past two decades would rip out anybody's trust and render their sense of ease into shreds; I am not without sympathy, nor without memory of how badly the Clintons were treated during Whitewater. And maybe America along with her husband -- helped ruin her for a great future -- the scarring stigma of Gap dresses and the humiliation visited on them; her husband's word-games -- this parade would turn most of us into maniacal hermits. The Clintons are thin-skinned and rancorous when they should be expansive and winning . And yet, and yet, and yet. The advisors, the ex-president, and the senator herself all look so scared to lose now -- as if they know that they are drifting towards oblivion, especially if she continues to wage a nasty campaign of old style D.C. negativity.
Are we seeing something bigger happening; a refutation of the unknowable (stolid dead-white??) politco, after Bush and co? The American appetite for that may be on the wane and it is evident that the Clinton advisors are out of their depth here. Do Americans feel willing to endure ANY level of disconnect in their president -- after Bush? No. No. No. After two terms of inarticulate falsity, they are positively electrified by the raw power, the soaring oratory, and the youthful romance of Barack. And every time the Clinton camp attacks this man, they look worse and worse and worse for it. They talk of experience, and of acts, not words -- but what to make of the ACT of voting to authorize a heinous, trillion dollar plus war that has cost thousands of lives and untold misery -- all on a bad hunch and bad intelligence -- an act she has never backed away from? How much more would we respect her for being able to say "I will regret that for the rest of my life, every single day, and I will work to take responsibility for having been a part of that rush to war"?
Barack Obama came out against the same heinous war.
THAT is an act. THAT is a deed. THAT makes him more and more attractive to the young, and to women, and to the increasing number of antiwar parents of military men and women.
Obama's path to this candidacy is wildly impressive, romantic, and even heroic. He represents hope for the millions of disenfranchised Americans who have not had the means or even reason to dream for a candidate who seems anything like them. In any way.
Obama may very well turn out to be the unimagined realization of a very old and time-honored American dream of the everyman. I don't know. But it IS a dream and in politics after the age of the neocons betrayal, THAT particular dream, at least, seem to involve the embracing of the human race, rather than the cold-eyed and oil-lubricated urge to dominate it.
And voters in Iowa, and New Hampshire can feel it. If that good man is elected as the leader of the free world -- I can think of no greater lesson to the rest of the world in the power and triumph of American democracy in action. We are watching a national awakening to that notion: Should Barack be elected, America regains her moral-authority in the world -- a world that is being pulled out to sea, in panic, in the dark, past the shark nets of civility and into the barbaric and uncharted waters of chaos and fractious division.
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Jon,
First off, I have a giant-sized man-crush on you, and thanks for making yourself available as a blogger here.
Hillary should really drop the stage-managed stuff because it makes her look too much like Bush 2.0. She's brilliant, is the thing, and can think on her feet--has the Senate gotten to her? I watched her speak extemporaneously at my brother's graduation from U Penn, and she was terrific. She didn't look down or to a prompter once.
I don't know where that woman is.
I do know that when it comes to Obama, I like him, but I fear him becoming the Third Coming--there's such a messianic need in the crowds and it's terrible when at moments he feeds into it--he's better when he's just himself, a progressive, intellectual man, who, like Clinton, is possessed of a ferocious mind and real principles.
In both cases I feel like I'm watching good people struggle with the fight to be seen in public life. And so I'm glad Obama didn't win NH, because I think he'll be a better candidate in the long run if he has to fight more, just as Clinton will also for not winning Iowa. I think we're all better served by a long race. As long as all involved keep their personal integrity.
My fingers are crossed for us all.
As I am writing this, Hillary is ahead in N.H. Looks like she might outswim the sharks. Hopefully the Obama supporters will vote for her if she gets the nomination, as I would expect to vote for Obama if he get the nomination. Remember who the enemy is and don't rush to join the lemmings, as the Dems. often do if they don't get their way in the primaries.
Stop the blood letting! Why can't they run together???
I feel sorry for both the Clintons. They blew it so big-time in their eight years. They really hoped for "do overs".
At the same time, I agree with Clinton and Edwards. The corporations will not give up an inch without a fight. God, i hope every one of these great candidates will be in the new administration to help no matter who wins the nomination.
Bidden!
Dodd!
Richardson!
Clinton! and most of all:
Kucinich and Paul!
All hands on deck! Avast! There be pirates ahead!!!
Well, I think you're overstating the Obama case just a bit here; after all, he HAS voted to fund this war that he opposed. Don't forget, John Edwards has done exactly what you say Hillary should do -- acknowledge that he fucked up massively by voting for the war.
History will remember Hillary as a kind of tragic figure; done in by time, by generational change, and by a husband who's both the love and the bane of her entire life. She is not making a very good underdog. She started this race with an air of inevitability; running straight for the general election. This turned off a lot of people who might otherwise have stuck with her against the inexperienced Obama.
We shall see how it all pans out; I am still expecting the Bush Administration to manufacture some dire threat or attack to warrant either martial law or else a tilt towards the Republicans -- just in time for the election.
If you think a young woman asking about the glass ceiling is a shill, you need to go back to journalism school so that you can better tune your intuitive skills. Every woman in America deals with the glass ceiling--actually for the White House, it is more like an Iron Ceiling. And for those of us who have been fighting this for decades, we are making a new commitment to Hillary--unwilling to be dismissed by young, unaffiliated voters who have never been in the trenches. We say, with Hillary you don't have to choose between experience and change. With Hillary you get both.
Well put. Except for several unmentioned things. The election process is still essentially rigged; the people who put a "legal" dictatorship in place are not about to hand that power over to anyone else before they've even used it themselves; there will be a trigger event contrived so they can use it; those detention camps aren't really being built to contain illegal immigrants; and they can always fall back on their favorite resort: assassination. Blackwater at our doorstep, folks, and you better believe it.
Baitz-
I suggest you go back and re-read your own "Leaving LA" series.
There is nothing wrong with Obama, and there was nothing wrong with you when you created "Brothers and Sisters", but, just like you weren't prepared for the LA that chewed you up and spat you, so is Obama not ready for ruthless hardcore Washington and not ready to be a leader in the real politick realm of international politics
Obama has not even come close to being tried and tested in the real world.
The next president has to have something more to offer us than just pretty words to fill our ears.
That might work in your profession, but not for the president of the US, who faces many challenges after the disastrous Bush years.
I am getting real tired of "change" being used as a litmus test for the next president. This isn't innovative or even original, folks. Every new regime has it as a clarion call. Carter used it after Nixon. Regan used it after Carter. The republicans in the 90's called it a "contract with America" and took the legislature after the "leadership" of Bill. Bill ["it's the economy stupid"] used it after Bush I. Bush II used it.
Change doesn't require the outcome to be good. And, running a country can't be done with Cliff notes either. Whoever gets it, democrat or republican, WILL NOT change the way business is done in Washington. Anyone who thinks charisma or a bright smile will create a new environment in that cesspool is smoking those funny cigarettes.
"Barack Obama came out against the same heinous war. "
Was Obama a US senator at this time? Nope, just a remote state senator. Did Clinton have access to the unredacted portions of the NIE?
No.
If you're itching to do a smack down on someone that voted for the war then vote out those members of the Intel Committee that had full unredacted access to the NIE. Otherwise, Hillary was caught up in the same hysteria most of us were at the time.
This from an Edwards fan.
"But still, after an endless presumption of inevitability, hearts had grown slightly cool."
I'm no Clinton fan but hearing this thing about inevitability is getting just a bit tiresome.
If it was "INEVITABLE" then why has she bothered to campaign at all?
Hillary's "sell by date" was 2004. That was her chance, but she took the easy way out and waited.
Stick fork in her, she's done.
You were precisely right to confront Hill on her mealy-mouthed-say-nothing Kabuki dance of a campaign.
So why don't you demand the same of Obama?
Change? In what way, towards what end?
Bring us together? Around what issues?
Hope? For what ends, and through what means?
Meanwhile, Edwards is consistently first with specific plans, he shows an understanding of what problems we face and how to confront them.
I don't get it.
Hippo Hips is toast.
Saying what you think as a citizen and legislator in the state of Illinois is not an ACT. It's an expression of free speech a citizen. Casting a vote in the U.S. Senate in light of phony intelligence ponied up by the dumbest, evil puppet President we've elected is an ACT. At the time, most citizens stood behind it.
Now, unhappy with the results, you're ready to vote for an empty suit whose agenda of "Change and Hope" mirrors Hillary's in detail. Obama is a "me too" candidate beneath the buzz. Before you hop on the bus, please examine what else he may be.
I was 12 when JFK was elected. He WAS different. Inspirational, yes; but also experienced and savvy enough to ACHIEVE his goals. Before accusing me of being part of the "Kumbaya" generation, please MEASURE Obama. Kennedy set a goal, landing the first man on the moon in 10 years, at a time when we could barely get a satellite off the ground. We beat it. He demanded that citizens SERVE their country and created the Peace Corps, a uniquely American institution that brought us worldwide kudos. How would a generation that thinks You-Tube represents American culture and "change" means "I'll get my way" react to JFK??? I can imagine!!! It ain't pretty!!!
Apparently, so can Obama. For NINE presidential elections I've been waiting and voting for TRUE "hope" and "change". JFK had what it took. It cost him his life. And America has never recovered. Since then we've invariably elected the lowest common denominater. The politicians learned how to wow. We didn't learn how to elect.
I'm not an "original" Hillary supporter. My choice was Biden. Hillary's a distant second, as was her husband in 1992. But she's it. She knows how to achieve goals. Obama hasn't stuck around in any office long enough to demonstrate that. So, I think you guys are the "Kumbaya" Kids!
"DUMBYA" was the "popular" candidate last time out. Look where that got us! Trust, but VERIFY!!
Yet there is a long term strategy to keep using fear to woo them her direction. It could work. Fear dominates the quasi brave and foolish patriotic mindset.
It is, after all, that fear that keeps so many voters away from the other candidates, no? How many times have you heard someone say, "I like him best, but..."? People start guarding against the lesser of two evils long before the official campaign even begins. Hence, we get essentially two "viable" candidates' supporters spewing their vitriol at one another (on HuffPo, for example).
But if her machine thrashes at his long enough, just when people think, "Wow, he just might-could win this thing," the Obama dream will turn to the "fear of the unknown" and the voters will flock to Clinton in droves. Or so one camp in her corner believes; "Keep sockin' it to 'em. Our breaks is comin'."
And you're right, she could at least give a heartfelt apology for the war she authorized, but that sincereness doesn't exist, and there is still the question of her continuing to enable it, as well as the slow destruction of our civil rights.
I don't believe the trade off she made for viability (and power) to have been worth it. I am not enamored of Senator Obama, however. That's why it is sooo pathetic and sad that the registered Democrat is sixty percent likely to tell me that one of these two is the only possibility.
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