It was obvious that the silence of Bill Clinton during the awful presidency of George W. Bush was about smoothing the way for Hillary. This silence was deadly. There is no greater political talent in the United States than Bill Clinton. Why was his powerful mind, genuine charisma, and brilliant rhetoric silent during the serial outrages of the GW Bush presidency? Because he wanted to serve Hillary’s ambitions, he said nothing of Bush’s lunatic war, his handling of Katrina, the "surge," his economic policies, and on and on. Bill Clinton speaking against the war may have had real impact. He may well have saved lives. He remained silent for her. I find this hard to forgive.
It was obvious when, as a presidential candidate, HRC voted for the Kyle-Lieberman amendment, she was pandering to powerful special interests, closely associated with the neocons. A presidential candidate must do these things, she thought, or was consulted to think.
What message is to be taken from Iowa caucuses? People have had enough of Bush, that’s for sure. They want a candidate to put Bush in history’s "worst president ever" dumpster, which awaits him. They want someone to bring the America they knew back again. This is clear in both the Democratic and Republican votes.
The Bush-accommodating Hillary is, by her own choice, not that candidate.
The Iowa vote also was also an ass-kicking for the neocons. The neocons have no real support in the American electorate. They are, in Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s words, "parasites who have found a willing host in the Republican party." They comprise a Beltway illusion, held aloft by the Weekly Standard, National Review, the WSJ editorial page, and a collection of freakish imperious buffoons kept on life-support by think-tanks endowed by loony benefactors or corporations like Exxon.
If the general public really knew what these crackpots were about, they would be tarred, feathered and run out of town on rails, like that scene in "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" Consider: the Republican neocon candidates, Giuliani and Romney, were severely rebuked. And neocon-lite Hillary (with PNAC affiliate Michael O’Hanlon as an advisor) got what the voters gave her, after millions were expended by her campaign consultants: 3rd place. People see way too much of Bush and the neocons in Hillary.
Taking a broad view, it’s perfectly clear: Hillary’s decision to go right was wrong. It’s not 1992. George W. Bush is not Ronald Reagan, with soaring popularity. What Bill Clinton did back then was to take the Republican issues and make them his own, undermining the right. That was the DLC strategy. Hillary can’t repeat that approach today, because, unlike Reagan, Bush’s Republican issues are perceived as catastrophically bad and unpopular (even though they are Reagan’s taken to their absurd full realizations).
Everything has changed.
Since 2004, Bush has gifted the Democrats with rare opportunity. The opportunity for a leader to appear who would give voice to what the electorate was feeling – that Bush is the face of a Republican party which is capable only of failure, corruption and incompetence.
With a trail of ruin in his wake, Bush had demonstrated that the Republican way doesn’t work. His America was and is becoming unrecognizable. People wanted a leader to lead them from the wingnut wilderness back to a functioning modern democracy. An opportunity to be seized. Thanks to Bush, Cheney and the neocons, the Republican party had become a sitting duck, vulnerable to political slaughter.
But, the Dems were too scared to be critical and too hidebound offer a new way. The media was missing, fearful or compliant. The zeitgeist had a message, but America had no messenger to deliver it.
Hillary missed this opportunity and instead of leading with the passion, vision and intelligence that she clearly possesses, she pandered to some of the most ignorant and irrelevant elements of American political life. She did this to win over those who would never have voted for her anyway. And she made the arrogant mistake of assuming that Dems would have no where else to go.
How could a bright person like Hillary go so far off track?
Part of it is that she is stuck in the rut of her past "go right" winning DLC formula, which Bill Clinton employed successfully.
But the most important factor is the political consultation she receives from the phalanx of hacks which surrounds her. Mark Penn appears to be her Bob Shrum. Shrum, you may recall, is the most losing campaign consultant in modern history, having lost eight Democratic presidential campaigns, including Kerry’s in 2004. Shrum’s claim to fame and legitimacy was that he had gotten Ted Kennedy re-elected. Well, now. As Dr. Drew Westen, author of "The Political Brain," has observed, "Bozo the Clown could do that in Massachusetts. There’s no trick to it at all."
Expert advice in the form of a consultant is a rational thing to seek. But, the political class of Democratic consultants has developed a collective culture of visionless formulaic hackery and this systematized cowardice has captured the party, holding it frozen in a political-industrial-consultantcy complex. Why? Because it makes money for them. They get paid, win or lose. So, why not play it safe? Why not be obvious?
Today’s Democratic political consultants see the world via the lens of beltway cliches. They think along K-street lines. They are a political cargo cult. They take the press and pundit echo chamber seriously. They shouldn’t. They aspire to a defective paradigm. It’s not about responsive politics, not the people, or even the candidate; it’s about them. That’s why they and the candidates who depend on them, are so seriously out of touch.
Is it over for HRC? No. She may still win the nomination. Buried in the caucus stats was the fact that among registered Iowa caucus Dems, Hillary and Obama were tied, so it wasn’t really so bad among the rank and file. Obama’s victory was delivered by the independents. And Obama has a number of vulnerabilities, per the formidable Paul Krugman and others, which HRC may still have time to exploit.
And here’s something people need to remember: Hillary is flush with super delegates. That, coupled with the fact that she is losing elected delgates so fast (10 points behind in the first post-Iowa poll in New Hampshire) could mean that she might only win the nomination, after having lost the popular Democratic primary vote. This will be a difficult — if not impossible — problem to deal with. How would Hillary deal with the rank and file outrage, if she lacks majority popular support, but wins by votes of the super delegates, who represent the party establishment? How could you run as the un-democratic Democrat?
She has very little time left to re-position and re-define herself. The clock is ticking.
To do that, she’ll have to dump her consultants and try to think for herself. A difficult thing to do at this late date. I know people who know her, smart people. The private side of HRC, they say, gets it completely. If this is true, She needs to show it now. She needs to get real.
Seeing my party stultified by hack consultants led me, in frustration, to tell a dark sarcastic joke while speaking at a 2006 Democratic Convention in California.
Here it is (a variation on an old joke usually targeting lawyers, but having multi-purpose application):
Q: What’s a hundred DLC-type Democratic campaign consultants at the bottom of the sea?
A: A good start. A very good start.
People laughed. The consultants in the room remained silent. Better to play it safe, they thought.
Louis Vandenberg is a congressional candidate in California's 44th CD.
