Bill Richardson, Tom Vilsack, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden and all the rest can just go home now.
The Democratic primary for President is for Big Dogs only.
That’s the way it is when there’s no incumbent and your troops are expected to win.
That’s the way it was in 2000, when Al Gore and Bill Bradley sucked the air out of the room. That’s the way it was for Republicans in 1988, when George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole sucked the air out.
When there is no incumbent and your side is expected to win that’s the way it is. Dwarves may apply for the Republican primary only, and remember the unexpected is always possible — both Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were upset Presidents, dwarves, because their parties were presumed to be losers before they ran, yet they won.
So this is, at best, a three-way race, and Barack Obama is doing everything he can right now to make it a two-way race as quickly as possible. He’s doing this by taking a forthright stand against the Iraq War, and thus sucking the air out of John Edwards, who was (after all) half of a losing team last time. Barack plans to be John Kennedy to Edwards’ Estes Kefauver, and that’s the way to bet right now.
By consolidating the anti-war forces behind him early, by announcing very early and getting all those other questions (he’s black, he isn’t black, he’s too young) out of the way early, Obama hopes to then focus on beating the Democrats’ Nixon, Hillary Clinton.
Comparing Clinton with Nixon is not the slam it sounds like. (The picture is from Free Republic, where Clinton-hating has been a full-on obsession much as liberal hatred for Nixon was.)
Historically
Nixon was an important figure. Nixon created the present Political
Thesis that dominates Washington, the assumptions that led us into Iraq
and our present anti-terror strategies, the beliefs that have caused us
to ignore the greater problems of climate change and our hollow
economy.
Hillary also represents the old Anti-Thesis, the Clintonian
leaning-into-the-wind against Nixonism that her husband practiced
throughout his career. Nixon did the same thing as Eisenhower’s Vice President.
But when a Thesis falls its Anti-Thesis falls with it. Clintonism is obsolete so Hillary Clinton’s
task, should she choose to accept it, is to build a new Thesis, to
create a New Clinton, embracing the themes of the Netroots, feeding it
rhetoric, while slowly strangling it with establishment money and
neo-Democratic votes.
Obama’s task is trickier. He wants Democrats to follow their heart.
Imagine if Ronald Reagan had chosen to begin his Presidential journey
the morning after his election as California Governor and you have some
idea of it. Obama is deliberately taking on all the stands which the
Netroots have crafted, grafting them onto a centrist personality. He
would be, if elected, the same age Hillary’s husband was when he won
the Presidency in 1992, and I can’t wait until he fires that zinger in
debate.
Edwards has to hope both stumble. He’s done the work, he could do the
job, but his timing was bad. His Presidential learning curve has
always been a beat off, a little tinny. He failed to embrace the
Internet early enough last time, he wound up backing a loser in John F.
Kerry, and to many people he looks like Yesterday’s Man. He has to Win
The Debates by appearing both mature and in-touch with the party’s
heart, then try to overcome a Clinton lead that will become larger if
Obama fades.
That’s the way it looks now. Things could change. They certainly
changed from early 1967 to the election of 1968, and that’s the kind of
period we’re entering. No one should surrender to the patterns of
history until those patterns have played themselves out.
We haven’t even heard from Al Gore.
