Beyond Clinton and Obama

by: Englishlefty

Sun Feb 03, 2008 at 09:39

So I could go with either candidate. But neither of them excites me especially. I admire Clinton's ability to fight and Obama's rhetorical gifts (and I admired John Edwards' willingness to say what doesn't get said enough.)

But however much Obama may have rebuilt the Dean coalition or have come to political prominence contemporaneously with the blogosphere, he's not the candidate of the section of the blogosphere with which I'd identify myself.

He's the candidate of those in the blogosphere (a fairly large proportion) and those who followed in their tracks (the overwhelmingly majority of this group) who want Obama to lead a return to civility, forcing a mutual rhetorical disarmament. If you want that, fine. Good luck with that, but I'm far too cynical to believe you'll do that without first making the situation much worse.

I'd identify myself with the other section of the blogosphere - the one which wants to reduce the conservative movement to a gibbering wreck, so it's safe for us to disarm slightly. The movementarian section, if you will.

[Cynical aside - I'd probably prefer a Clinton victory as her shortcomings are well known and she won't be associated with us. Failures on her part negatively impact us and our ideas much less than failures from Obama, and I think he'll have to use every inch of his not inconsiderable talent to have even a 50% chance of leaving office with his credibility intact. But I'm a cynical and hateful bastard, so feel free to disregard my opinion.]

And for us, the fight is just beginning. Because whilst the netroots in 2006 helped to elect plenty of candidates, most of them weren't netroots people. Jim Webb, Jerry McNerney, Jon Tester, Nancy Boyda: all of these people are better than their replacements, but few of them fit with the ideological norms of the blogosphere - although I'm oversimplifying. That year, we helped defeat Lieberman in the primary, changing the national narrative, but we couldn't defeat him in the general.

In 2008, we'll keep up the attack and the focus has begun to shift to electing better Democrats (although this may not apply so much when one considers Mark Warner and his ilk.)

But as a movement, the netroots is still young. And it's still got room for growth. I know Matt has suggested that 2012 is when it will start to be able to challenge for control of the party.

But where Clinton and Obama are concerned, the fight is too large and the candidates too much the product of older political groupings for it to be possible or worthwhile for the netroots as a whole to exercise itself in the fight. Our influence has been felt this time around, but it hasn't been a particularly dominant one, especially if you compare it to the influence of the conservative movement.

In 2012 or 2016, that will change. Whoever wins the nomination this time round becomes the nominal party leader until they leave office or fail to win the presidency, after which their Vice-President will become the heir apparent. And with neither of the candidates being white males, the Vice-Presidential nominee this time around could be somebody as pisspoor as Evan Bayh. If that's the case, then the endgame to taking back the Democratic Party in 2012 or 2016 is clear - beating him everywhere, including Indiana.

No doubt by 2016 the picture will be different. The netroots and those who think like them will be powerful in state legislatures around the country and redistricting and the retirement of elderly legislators present an opportunity for a new generation to break into Congress. The Democratic Party as a whole will be more favourable to our ideas, although the Iron Law of Institutions will still apply.

There's very little substantive to say in this diary, as I'll be the first to admit. My only real point is this: whether you support Hillary or Obama, both of them will disappoint you, betray you and fail to defeat your enemies on multiple occasions. They are not of our movement. That doesn't render them unacceptable, but I firmly believe we can do better and should be beginning to focus on how we do that next time.

If we manage to win in 2008 and 2012, we have eight years to start searching for a candidate who can do that. Hell, it could even be Barack Obama.