Molehill Politics

[one...two...tree 2,762]

(click on the link for the full piece...it's long but a good read)

By Elizabeth Drew

The Democrats didn't expect so much pain. The assumption was that out of a patch of good candidates one would emerge to take on an inevitably weak Republican-the field was seen as lacking and George Bush as a drag on the party-and defeat him in what everyone knew was a Democratic year. But this has been the year of the unexpected. Now, anguished Democratic Party leaders fear that the increasingly bloody struggle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will continue until the end of the primaries or, worse, play out further at their convention in late August-which could only benefit the Republicans' putative, and unexpected, nominee, John McCain.

The Democrats' contest has changed from simply a fierce fight for "pledged delegates," who are elected in the primaries and caucuses, which Obama is winning, into a battle to convince the as-yet-uncommitted superdelegates which candidate would be stronger in the general election-regardless of who has won the most pledged delegates. This is an issue injected into the contest by the Clinton campaign. Mathematically, there now appears to be no way for Clinton to catch up to Obama in pledged delegates; the final decision will be made by the superdelegates, who are under extreme pressure from both sides.

In this fight, the Clinton camp is the more aggressive of the two, and it's adept at what might be called molehill politics: making a very big deal in the press about something that's a very small deal-such as a single word in a mailing or a slip-up by an aide. Clinton's strategists pounce on whatever opportunity presents itself to attack Obama, and try to knock him off his own message, and his stride. Clinton's approach resembles her tactics in the White House, in which her inclination was to attack (which caused a number of problems, and was one of the reasons her health care bill was defeated). The Obama camp has sometimes been slow, and even reluctant, to respond, because if he attacks her personally (which the Clinton campaign would like him to do), he's not Barack Obama anymore. Moreover, Obama takes care not to come across as the "angry black"-a stereotype he does not fit, but that could be imposed upon him by others.

While it's true that the two remaining Democratic candidates have few substantive differences, they have very different approaches to campaigning, which give us clues about the differences in how they would govern-and that, after all, is what this whole thing is, or should be, about. It's useful to try to imagine these people in the White House, and, from their campaigning, to try to figure what they will be like there: how they will use power; how well they would sustain their appeal over a considerable period of time.

It's been long said among politicians that "the Clintons will do anything to win." Unfortunately, they are increasingly proving the point. As the primaries in Texas and Ohio approached, the Clinton campaign, which has a tendency to announce its next steps, said that it would use a "kitchen sink" strategy against Obamaâ€â€and so it did: with the famous and apparently effective "red phone" ad questioning his fitness to be commander in chief; and in frequent and heavy-handed conference calls to reporters (an innovation), in which Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson makes charges against Obama, raises questions about him, or moves "goal posts" designating what Obama has to do to win. (Obama "has to win Pennsylvania," which few think is likely.) This propaganda makes its way onto cable and other news outlets. But where does, or should, a "kitchen sink" strategy belong in a presidency?

Hillary Clinton is employing conventional politics, while Obama is trying to create a new kind of politics. Similarly, as they respond to the country's desire for change, they have very different concepts of what "change" means: briefly, for Obama it means changing the very zeitgeist of Washington, creating a new way to get things done by building coalitions that transcend longstanding political divisions. For Clinton it means passing bills-though sometimes she has suggested that it means electing a woman president. ("I embody change," she said in a debate in New Hampshire.)

....

The Clinton campaign's false assumption—based on a 350-page, state-by-state study in the summer of 2007 by key strategist Mark Penn—that Clinton's victory was "inevitable" led to a series of mistakes: (1) presenting herself as the "inevitable" nominee; (2) prematurely running a general election campaign; (3) assuming that the race would be over on February 5—Super Tuesday; and (4) believing that a number of small states that held caucuses could be skipped. And if Penn's strategy didn't work there was no Plan B. It's never a good idea to have a pollster in an important policy position in a campaign, since he or she can design the polling to get the answers he or she wants, as some believed Penn had done in the Clinton White House. (Hillary Clinton brought him in after the electoral disaster of 1994.) The Clinton campaign has been divided and sometimes almost paralyzed by internal feuding among outsized egos. By contrast, this hasn't happened in the Obama campaign: Obama deliberately picked congenial people and instructed his staff that he wanted "no drama."

In early March, Clinton went from, in a debate, "I'm honored...to be here with Barack Obama...absolutely honored" to, a day and a half later, angrily, shouting, "Shame on you, Barack Obama." In that instance, she was engaging in molehill politics: a flyer on trade that the Obama campaign had sent out quoted her as saying that the North American Free Trade Agreement had been a "boon" to the United States' economy. The use of the word "boon," an accidental error, was taken from Newsday, which put in quotes the gist of her remarks.^{<a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21231#fn1">[1]} Obama replied calmly. "Senator Clinton has...constantly sent out negative attacks on us, email, robo-calls, flyers, television ads, radio calls, and we haven't whined about it because I understand that is the nature of these campaigns."

Clinton's frequent switching of tactics and personas raises the question of who she is and why she's so changeable: employing a Southern accent in a Selma, Alabama, church; dropping her g's while touring in Appalachia; sounding something like a cowboy in Wyoming ("concerns that keep ya up at night"), and then back to a Southern accent in Mississippi. Clinton's variability does not mean that she lacks her own core belief about the need to help improve people's lives. But it suggests that she is not a natural politician and is willing to try almost anything, while her feuding staff gives her conflicting advice. As a result, her campaign has had no overall message, and her themes have shifted almost by the week. The disorder within her own campaign team raises questions about how she would govern.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21231