I am mystified by Hillary Clinton. She's not so much a politician as a brand, and not a bad one at that. People know her; know little of her (or can you name one significant policy proposal she has come up with? No? I thought so.); and most importantly, people know what they think of her. She's the best-known politician in America – better known, arguably, than former Texas governor Bush, whom many people still confuse with his father, the President of the same name. She seems to be riding to a re-election that will be not so much an election as an inthronisation. And onward, it seems, to a subsequent coronation as the first female Presidential nominee of a major party in American history.
Is Hillary, in fact, invincible? At first glance, it does seem so. Consider: she has been in the headlines for fourteen straight years. That's four years more than The Beatles were a band. She has raised dozens of millions – perhaps over one hundred million – for various Democrats. Her husband is a revered former President. A rock star, she most certainly is; but she's a rock star that has benefited time and time again from the nature of her adversaries.
During the Clinton Presidency, she served as a very convenient lightning rod for the extreme right, more attractive for this purpose, at least for a while, than her likable husband. This demographic, smallish but very loud, continues to despise her, and avidly reads whatever it is that Dick Morris fabulates at a given moment. They call her Hitlery – seriously – and thereby help her cause. With enemies like that, can she really be all bad, so goes the thinking. And every anti-Hillary book, avidly consumed by the same folks who bought all predecessor volumes, merely makes her more the victim of the crazies, and thus paradoxically more popular.
In the 2000 campaign, the other side first sent out Rudy Giuliani against her; and when he withdrew, they followed up with a political puppy, the hopelessly outmatched Rick Lazio. Not a contest against a sitting first lady.
In the current campaign, Hillary is again benefiting from the haplessness of her supposed opponents. There are two republicans in New York who would make credible candidates for the United States Senate – Rudy Giuliani and George Pataki, either of whom would stand a real chance. Running instead are an Upper East Side housewife who inflates her résumé and talks publicly about black helicopters, and the former mayor of the most corrupt city in the state. Just to give you an idea of what an abysmal choice the latter is: in the most pro-choice state in the union, that mayor embraces forced pregnancy – in the year that Samuel Alito got confirmed to the Supreme Court and South Dakota took possession of every uterus within its borders.
On the primary side, there's a number of pretty good Democrats out there who have the statewide profile to run against Hillary. Problem is, none of them decided to run – the Spitzers and Cuomos of the world are seeking other offices. The actual contender, Jonathan Tasini, is a good enough man in a human sense, with a young and enthusiastic team; but as a candidate, he has zero institutional support, represents no major constituency, has zero name recognition, and is running a single-issue campaign directed more at the Iraq war – and the Democratic Party – than anything else. Whatever else that may be, it's not the way to win a primary against a team working at White House level with millions of dollars to spend.
Interestingly, Tasini's support looks broader than the Hudson in spring when compared to the support for the idea of Hillary as the Presidential nominee in 2008. It seems that whenever politically active Democrats come together, the subject comes up; to be inevitably followed by some ashen-faced version of "We're going to get crushed".
The problem for all those concerned with the viability (and desirability) of another Clinton winning the White House is two-fold. First, presently, the powers that be – the national republicans and the NYS Democrats – share an interest in Hillary winning her current race. The other side, obviously, stands to benefit from her, especially when her campaign for the nomination begins; that's perhaps the reason why her opposition is so weak. The New York State Dems, meanwhile, are counting on her coat-tails to help in other races across the state.
Second, the real problem with Hillary – other than electability – is that our party needs to make a break with Clintonism. Over and over, we hear that Democrats stand for nothing – which is just another way of saying triangulation. Triangulation cost us the Congress in 1994; triangulation cost us the clear message we needed to win it back for the rest of that entire decade. We need to stand for our core values – which might be just a trifle iffy to do convincingly when our nominee has gone on record in support of a flag-burning amendment. Hillary as the nominee would set back, or even reverse, the entire grassroots-driven rebirth of the Democratic Party that is currently happening everywhere.
Perhaps, just as 2004 was the year of "Anybody but Bush", 2008 will be the year of "Anybody but Hillary". Which could very well translate into Mark Warner.
