This presidential campaign has been a frustrating one for me and for a lot of other Democrats I know. Unlike the Republicans, we had (and have) a field of strong candidates, but one in which real policy differences among the major Democrats are hard to come by. For instance, in terms of current policy, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are now arguing with each other about small points of disagreement on health care policy as well as a few others. This can make it extremely hard for many to decide on a candidate and, at least in part, accounts for other conversations we end up having. We have fights about who said what to whom. We have identity fights along race, sex and generational lines. Finally, we fight about who will bring about amorphous “change.” All of this is done in the hope that somehow we will make a decision and convince others to come in our direction.
For me, the situation is even harder because my first choice of candidates – Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin – announced long ago that he would not seek the nomination after so many of us thought he would. In Feingold, I saw the person most likely to move a progressive agenda forward as president. On nearly every fight over the past seven years, Feingold has stood with progressives even when it was unpopular to do so.
Thus, after Feingold declared his intentions, I had to find another candidate who would hopefully work as hard to move the progressive agenda forward. And now I must do this despite a near total lack of policy disagreement between Clinton and Obama. In such a situation, I feel our only choice is to turn to the candidates’ pasts for insight as to how they will operate in the future as president. After doing so, I believe the clear choice for our vote is Obama.
I say this, however, not to denigrate Clinton and her past. She clearly has a toughness brought about by years of perseverance against trying circumstances. Going to law school and becoming a lawyer at a time when few women were in the field forced her to confront the most blatant forms of elite sexism. Upon assuming her role as first lady, she was under unrelenting assault by both right-wing and mainstream media who despised her and her husband for the most irrational of reasons. And, of course, her husband’s infidelities have clearly tested her personally in a way I would not wish on anyone.
However, it is this same toughness and resolve which has also led to a bunker mentality that is ultimately responsive, cautious and distrustful of all but a few. It is not surprising that Clinton’s history would have produced such a mentality, but it is undeniable that such an attitude cannot be the catalyst for progressive change in this country. Moreover, such a mentality encourages a conservative status quo because it lets conservatives set the terms of the debate and places policy-making in the hands of an elite few without seeking to involve the American people in the process. We saw both of these problems play out in 1993 and 1994 as Clinton tried – and failed – to pass health care reform.
Obama’s past experience – particularly as a grassroots organizer, civil rights lawyer and state senator – has clearly given him the opposite sensibilities. In place of Clinton’s cautiousness and responsiveness, a history of grassroots organizing forces one to be bold. In place of distrust, Obama’s past is fundamentally built on a need to trust “the people,” broadly construed. In obvious ways, such a mindset is far more encouraging of progressive change. It will encourage Obama not only to lead in setting an agenda but also to enlist nonelites to help bring that change about. Most importantly, it will help enlist trust in the government – a fundamental prerequisite for progressive reform.
However, beyond simply being superior for creating progressive reform, Obama’s past – and the mindset created by that past – engenders better judgment. Nowhere has this been more evident than on the key policy decision of our time – going to war with Iraq. Clinton was responsive to the Bush administration; cautious, lest she not seem “tough,” and ultimately distrustful of the vast majority of Democrats who were against the war.
Obama refused to be responsive and cautious because he once again listened to the grassroots Democrats around him who were arguing the invasion was ill-advised. In 2002, when Clinton voted for authorizing the war, Obama declared, “I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.” In 2007 he again correctly delineated the elite sensibilities which brought about the war when he argued, “The American people weren’t just failed by a president – they were failed by much of Washington. By a media that too often reported spin instead of facts. By a foreign policy elite that largely boarded the bandwagon for war. And most of all by the majority of a Congress – a coequal branch of government – that voted to give the President the open-ended authority to wage war that he uses to this day.”
But this is not just about past mindsets and past decisions. It is also about what these pasts tell us about the future decisions they will make. In other words, what if, on the next president’s watch, we face another terrorist attack? Will that president overreact? Will that president listen to a foreign policy elite who will inevitably push for an overreaction? With a Republican president, the answer to these last two questions is most certainly “yes.” But with Clinton, I must conclude from her past that she would overreact as well.
Thus, in the end, Obama’s candidacy is fundamentally about ending not only the war, but, as he said in the last Democratic debate, “the mindset that got us into war in the first place.” Obama’s past offers the best evidence that he will do so and for this reason I’ll be caucusing for him tomorrow. I hope you will as well.
Jason Stahl welcomes comments at [email protected].
