I strongly prefer Mr. Obama to Ms. Clinton. Many people who do not support Mr. Obama seem confused as to why he has garnered such fervent support. Since they cannot understand the basis of this support, they assume that it must be some form of madness, and call it "Obamania". But projecting one's own confusion onto others is no way to understand the universe; if you don't understand it, you should either shrug your shoulders and let it be or take the time to investigate more closely.
I know why I prefer Mr. Obama to Ms. Clinton, and I suspect that others share my thinking, if perhaps subconsciously. It lies in one's approach to the nature of our Republic. Let me sketch the two opposing schools of thought:
Winner take all
This is the political philosophy that has dominated the American body politic since the inauguration of Mr. Bush. The thinking is very bottom-line oriented: if we can get 50% + 1 of the votes, then we don't need to worry about the opposition. A simple majority permits us to do anything we want. We can cram our decisions down the throats of the opposition, and they can't do anything about it. Every political battle is fought in isolation, with the goal being victory at all costs. If we can't get 50% + 1 with our preferred policy, then we'll water it down just enough to get to that magic 50% + 1 point. If we obtain more than 50% + 1, then we have compromised too much and we need to sharpen the terms. It's all a matter of vote-counting and pushing as hard as we can for the greatest victory.
This approach is almost by definition polarizing. It forces both sides to fight every battle tooth and nail, to treat each and every battle as a matter of simple victory or defeat. It is corrosive to the health of our democracy because it encourages citizens to take sides between one team or the other rather than consider each issue on its own merits. The Republicans played this game better than the Democrats, enforcing what they called "party discipline". In truth, it was not so much discipline as the imposition of the "winner take all" philosophy upon the entire Republican party. The slogan was "You're either with us or against us"; no room was left for minor differences of opinion. This allowed the Republicans to win a lot of Congressional votes. However, the Republicans will pay for their party discipline in November. The sins of Mr. Bush will be visited upon the Republican Party. Every Democrat will rightly accuse their Republican opponent of rubber-stamping the Bush agenda, which is widely perceived as having failed badly. Mr. Bush's sub-30% approval rating will stick like tar to every Republican candidate.
Ms. Clinton seems to accept this "winner take all" style of politics. She's fighting hard, and doesn't seem to scruple at any ploy she can to win the nomination. If she gets the nomination, she will respond in kind to the dirty tricks and nasty smears that the Republicans will surely direct at her. And if she wins the Presidency, she will take full advantage of the Democratic Congress to cram her own policies down the throats of the Republicans.
I can certainly understand the desire for some payback. After all, the Republicans have driven this country so far to the right that we'll need eight years of Democratic payback just to get the country back into balance. But it is likely that eight years of Democratic supremacy will lead to a simple cycling of American politics, swinging back and forth between the extremes of left and right. That's just not healthy.
Compromise
The essence of the Obama philosophy, as I perceive it, is the emphasis on compromise. The fundamental concept behind democracy is the realization that people disagree, and that they have to come up with workable compromises that most people can live with. Without compromise, policy is subject to a tug of war, flipping from one extreme to the other. That's no way to run a superpower.
A good example of how corrosive polarization can be is provided by the abortion controversy. For 35 years now, we've been hamstrung by this controversy. Most Americans accept the basic principle of a woman's right to an abortion, but many would like to place some constraints on late-term abortions. For the most part, the current regime reflects, I believe, a compromise that most Americans can live with. However, a small and extremely vocal minority refuse to accept the compromise, and fight hard to get that compromise overturned. This in turn has a dangerous effect upon American politics. No Republican candidate dares support abortion rights -- they must all cater to the pro-life extremists, because those people can wreck a Republican candidacy. Even though the matter has been resolved in the minds of most Americans, it continues to distort the political process.
What we need to do is hammer out a Constitutional amendment putting the existing compromise down on paper. Yes, we might have to fiddle around with the compromise to get a workable wording. But, if we had a reasonable political system, we'd be able to work something out and settle the matter once and for all, thereby removing this distorting element from American politics. Unfortunately, we all know that this is a political impossibility. There is no way that a Constitutional amendment reflecting the desires of, say, 70% of the American citizenry could pass. We are so divided that we cannot find a solution that 2/3 of the politicians could vote for. And that's not healthy.
Mr. Obama will not solve the abortion question. But he can start us down the road towards a new philosophy of political discourse, one emphasizing agreement through compromise rather than the battle for absolute victory. I think that Americans are sick to death of the Swiftboating, the ugliness, the nastiness, the dirty tricks and Rovian tactics of the last eight years. I think that many Americans want a government that works rather than one consumed in political wars.
The first President Bush promised "Read my lips: no new taxes!" and then famously broke that pledge. The second President Bush promised to be "a uniter, not a divider" and then proved to be the most divisive President in American history. I believe that Mr. Obama will be a true uniter, and Ms. Clinton will end up being a divider.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Mr. Obama Versus Ms. Clinton
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10 comments:
Excellent essay on why Obama is the right choice for the Dems.
"...the Republicans will pay for their party discipline in November....Every Democrat will rightly accuse their Republican opponent of rubber-stamping the Bush agenda, which is widely perceived as having failed badly. Mr. Bush's sub-30% approval rating will stick like tar to every Republican candidate."
This is the current conventional wisdom, and it's a delicious prospect indeed. With the economy now adding to the huge mess which Bush has created, it seems clear at this point that he will have screwed up in every conceivable way during his presidency.
But it's a long long way from February to November, and you never know.
P.S.: I do think you're on the right track in your analysis of an Obama presidency over an HRC presidency. She brings too much baggage, and he brings essentially none.
Haven't had much time recently (as always), but this brings up a lot of points worth discussing.
This is very much the most clear description of "why Obama matters" that I've heard. The Atlantic said basically the same thing as you, but put it in a way that goes on and on about "1968", which works great for nostalgics like my parents, but did not make complete sense to me. This is far more clear cut in describing the actual problem that needs to be fixed.
However, I'm not as hopeful about the Republican party's doom. I don't mean to sound critical, but you did believe that Bush had no chance of winning in 2004 (which was reasonable, he had a 50% approval rating and the war in Iraq was already a miserable failure), and underestimated what people thought about particular issues. This is not meant to be an insult or a detraction, but I just wanted to bring up the point that oftentimes it's very easy to underestimate particular things.
The GOP can still always count on moral issues like religion and abortion to get strong leverage; despite what pundits like Coulter have to say about McCain, it's hard to believe that he'll really lose any religious votes to the democrats. A lot of other things that could be said about that, but I feel that I'm headed off of the point.
I would mostly agree that Obama is more capable of Clinton in uniting the two parties, but I am hoping that he does not try to follow the path of many democrats in trying to force socially liberal measures on socially conservative states; not because I don't agree with them, but because I feel that there is nothing productive in alienating populations on the basis of values that they simply will not accept, legislation or no legislation.
Yep, I was flat dead wrong in any analysis of the 2004 election. I still don't understand how it happened. I was thinking in differential terms, extrapolating from the 2000 election in which Mr. Bush eked out a victory over Mr. Gore. I felt that Mr. Bush was much less popular in 2004 than in 2000, and Mr. Kerry was more popular than Mr. Gore had been, and there wasn't the distracting factor of Mr. Nader. Moreover, while the 2000 election did not generate much passion on either side, the Democrats were very passionate in 2004. And then of course there were the many scandals and problems of the Bush Administration (Abu Ghraib, Supreme Court slapdowns, various sexual scandals on the part of the Republicans), all of which boded ill for the Republicans. What I failed to appreciate was the magnitude of passion on the part of the right. Moreover, I continue to harbor suspicions that the election was tampered with in Ohio and possibly Florida.
In all this, I committed what I considered the worst sin against integrity one can commit: allowing my desires to affect my beliefs. This is the greatest weakness of the human mind, one that I have long feared and bolstered myself against. Here's a good maxim for clear thinking: when considering a question of truth, first ask what answer you would prefer -- then attack that answer as ferociously as possible. Accept that answer only if it survives your assaults. But in this case, I failed.
I also agree with you that a President Obama would be foolish to try to force socially liberal positions on socially conservative states. For example, I think that the issue of gay marriage is best left to the states. Abortion is a trickier issue, as I would not like to see the situation we had in North Dakota, which placed harsh restrictions on abortion. In other words, I'd be happy to see variation on top of a basic floor of abortion rights.
"I would mostly agree that Obama is more capable of Clinton in uniting the two parties, but I am hoping that he does not try to follow the path of many democrats in trying to force socially liberal measures on socially conservative states..."
What Democrats are "trying to force socially liberal measures" on socially conservative states? In fact it's the socially conservative states, and their rabid right-wing representatives, who are trying to force socially conservative measures on the entire American public. Regarding abortion and gay rights, Democrats are fighting a defensive fight against being stripped of the right to make their own decisions in these areas. Ironically, they're fighting to uphold a cardinal "conservative" position: that the government should stay out of people's private lives.
Since we don't have a representative of the conservative viewpoint here, I'll make an admittedly half-hearted attempt to represent what I think the conservative answer to your point would be:
The push for gay marriage is definitely an offensive, not defensive, action on the part of Democrats. That is, the historic norm has been that marriage is a heterosexual privilege, and now there is a push to change that. In this sense, the social conservatives are on the defensive and they see the push as an intrusion. For example, my state of Oregon has passed an initiative defining marriage in heterosexual terms. I think that social conservatives in Oregon would be outraged by a federal intrusion on this point. And I have to admit that, if we wish to preserve the philosophy of federalism with its respect for the individual states as laboratories for social experiments, then gay marriage is one of the issues most appropriate for state-level definition.
"The push for gay marriage is definitely an offensive, not defensive, action on the part of Democrats."
There's some truth to this, but falseness as well.
The "push for gay marriage" is hardly coming from Democrats; you could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of elected Democrats who've come out in favor of gay marriage. The "push," such as it is, comes from gays themselves (and I'll bet some of them may even be Republicans). There's a vocal minority of Democrats who do favor gay marriage, but they're outliers in their own party.
When the social conservatives propose and pass state constitutional amendments banning gay marriage, as Oregon has, that state is then imposing these social conservative values on everybody in the state. To me that's an offensive move, not defensive; gay marriages impose no harm whatever on anybody else. Actions to restrict gay marriage are straight-up denials of equality, liberty, and freedom of choice.
Regarding abortion, I feel the same way, I feel that some basic rights need to remain in place for the benefit of our society. There's not too much logic in this unfortunately, I simply can't bring myself to say that it's ever okay to legally ban abortion anywhere.
In response to Gerald's comment: I don't necessarily believe it's right for a state to ban gay marriage; but whether it's right or wrong, I don't think that it changes the fact that there is nothing productive about forcing a state to legalize gay marriage. For example, if the democrats forced Missouri to legalize gay marriage, not only would it alienate most of that state, but I do not believe that very many married gay couples would feel safe in that area regardless of what the law allows them.
Thanks for correcting me on the point about the Democrats not being the source of the push for gay marriage, Gerald. As to the point about who's being defensive and who's being offensive, I would argue that it's based on who's out to maintain the status quo and who wants to change it. This line of reasoning leads us to conclude that the social conservatives are on the defensive even when they pass an initiative defining marriage as heterosexual. I would argue that they are merely putting down into law what most people had long assumed. The times are changing and the social conservatives want to enforce the old ways. I believe that they are wrong to do so, but I won't claim that they are the source of the innovation.
And I do agree with Alex's point that having the Federal government impose its will on the state in this matter would be wrong. In fact, the Justice Department has filed suit against the State of Oregon against its voluntary suicide law, and Oregonians are really miffed about that.
I want Senator Clinton to win the Presidency. I'm greedy that way. And I'm thinking everything you wrote about Obama's value to the nation compared to Clinton's is true. As time wears on and I see them in deeper comparison, I have to squash the little second-guesser and keep my eye on the ball. I need Senator Clinton to win.
See, my daughter is six. When I was six, Carter was beating Ford. It was the first election that I was aware of. In a very real sense, in my internal encyclopaedia, next to the word PRESIDENT are pictures and bios of Ford and Carter. There in my head forever.
And one of the absolute and immutable facts that I picked up as I became politically aware is that presidents are men. I can't guess how much this understanding did to me -- maybe none. And it doesn't trouble me so much that my older son knows that's how it works.
But my daughter. I'd really, really like to have a woman lodged in her head next to PRESIDENT. And it'd be good for lots of other girls and women and even good for the nation's psyche (I can make unsupportable claims, right?) and our standing on the world stage. But really, it's my daughter that matters.
Maybe if I thought there was more difference between the candidates than I do, it'd be different. Maybe if a radical, Parecon socialist or even a radial anarcho-capitalist could get elected -- someone who'd really change things, I'd abandon my greed and support them. Sure, Obama is more of unifier than Clinton. But how much? How much power will he seize to bring unity? How much will he be allowed? The same lobby groups will be pulling the same strings (by which, I don't mean all of them, but surely many-many) whether we have a Rep or a Dem or a unifier or a divider in office. Most of the same laws and policies will be enacted -- Iraq will churn on for years longer regardless. So, I might as well serve my own interest. At least that's where I am right now.
And yeah, all the same arguments apply to the notion of having a president of color -- I've read some blog articles by black Americans to try and get a feel for Obama's role in their thinking. But it's hard for me to own that since I'm lily-white even as I'm all-for real equality.
(And just in case it's not obvious, I wrote this in an attempt to point out that there are valid apolitical aspects of this race.)
(Oh, and also, I have this funny part of me that wants McCain to just because I liked him eight years ago and was disgusted to watch the things Bush/Rove did to secure the primary nomination.)
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