Letters to the Editor
Drewonimo
Published Letters: 137 Editor's Choice: 4
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There's strategy and then there's tactics
[Read the article: Quote of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]First off, I agree with those that scoff at the idea of giving Bill Kristol a larger mouthpiece on his "truisms." The attempt to manipulate thinking on the left is pretty transparent.
Having said that, there is a difference between the strategy of distinguishing yourself from your opponents (whether in the primaries or the general) and the tactics you use to do that. While I'm not thrilled with every last statement of every last Hillary surrogate that's been used to distinguish her as the tough, tried and true candidate versus Obama as the untried and weaker candidate, you can't equate making this distinction with the vile tactics that Rove and company have used for years in doing it. A quick scan of the 84 and 88 and 92 and 00 and 04 campaigns will show that the GOP attacks were intensely personal, grossly misleading and played to our absolute worst instincts without any sense of decency. Yes, we're still bogged down in trivialand but neither campaign is wholly responsible nor entirely above it. While it's clear Clinton's doggedly determined to win, I haven't seen her do or say anything that comes close to what the GOP does routinely (what Kristol neatly sums up as Darwinist). She's tough and certainly inelegant in her attacks, but putting style aside, the substance of her attacks on Obama is no worse than his on her; they're each playing to their branding.
Each candidate, Obama and Clinton, is each trying to brand themselves in a way that differentiates themselves from the other. It's been said repeatedly here that the policy differences, both real and perceived, are rather small. So instead, each is playing to their strengths as well as doing their best to shape what the press are going to write about them anyway. For Obama, being "above" politics as usual is a smart choice as he's new enough to not have a slew of baggage to disprove this branding -- but it also has it's weakness in that it doesn't give him an obvious way to show how he will deal with the nastiness of the general election (let alone the nastiness of foreign despots.) Hence, he gets typecast as a saint (not true) and not a fighter (not true either). To Obama supporters I say, yep, it stinks -- but it's a reflection of our culture's adolescent understanding of power and it's gross anti-intellectualism. Ask Al Gore how fair it is.
Clinton has had to deal with the same raw deal. She didn't exactly prosper when she was similarly typecast in the 90's when she was seen as "Saint Hillary" who thinks she's "above" it all and is elitest and smarter than us, etc. Lord knows we can't have a woman be both smart AND strong. So she's playing to type and responding to Obama's branding with branding that distinguishes her from him. The difficulty for her is similar to Obama's; if she is seen as tough and scrappy, we may respect her ability to survive, but we no longer believe that she's doing it for anyone other than herself. It amazes me how many of us had front row seats of watching Hillary play dodgeball for a dozen years and yet we act appalled when she decides to catch the damned thing and throw it back.
Personally, I like both Barack and Hillary. A lot. I respect them. A lot. But I largely distrust the media's image of each of them and I distrust folks like Bill Kristol trying to manipulate them too. But we're fools if we think that neither of these players hasn't had a hand in playing to their typecasting. Honestly, I think Obama wins on style and Clinton on substance and, at the end of the day, it will be empty symbolism and "likability" factors that swing things at the margins.
Our ability to have a nuanced understanding of each leading Dem is greatly diminished by the fact that the press and our modern campaigns are essentially giant marketing machines that need ideas broken down into relatively simple consumable bits -- and more imagery than facts, please. The larger culprit is not the candidates themselves -- who are both strong public servants who have very positive track records of trying to improve the greater good. The fault is with our obsession with process. If we did focus on the differences in the candidates' policies to a greater degree, we'd also have to eventually focus on their ability to get anything done. Instead, we're focusing on who can get elected which plays right back into the hands of the Bill Kristols of the world. I would really like to see both Hillary and Barack rise above the "electability" issue and focus on the barely covered topic of "governability." Each has strengths and weaknesses in this area but, whoever the eventual nominee is, it would serve us all to have them both vetted and strengthened in the area that matters most: doing the job.
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Great article -- well written, argued and fresh substance to boot!
[Read the article: What does Hillary want?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I was just wondering to myself yesterday what kind of negotiations the Obama and Clinton camps are having -- or will be having soon, one way or another. This piece was really illuminating and covered an area that political junkies don't often get to read about.
Thanks, Salon.