I often wonder if we in the Democratic Party understand the big picture. There is, after all, a war of ideas going on between the GOP and the Democrats, between the right and left, and it's a battle that I (and many others) want to win. And there are Democratic leaders, like Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama, who seem to be interested in winning. And then there's Hillary Clinton, who seems not to want to win so much as keep the war going. Why is this? Is it because she is a closet conservative? Perhaps, but I suspect that ideology moves her less than power. Does she want to keep the culture wars, such as they are, going because she is evil? No, not unless you define evil as doing what is in your best interest, everyone else be damned, which actually might not be a bad definition.
No, the real reason why Clinton is enamored with refighting the same goddamned boomer battles is because if they went away it would be easy enough to see that she's not much of a liberal, not much of a Democrat, and really not much of a leader. When she's being attacked by Fox News, she can pretend to be a liberal since the right-wing conspiracy attacks her. She has the right enemies, which does matter a lot in politics. Unfortunately, this impression is belied every time Terry McAuliffe or Ed Rendell or some other jackass waxes rhapsodic about Fox's "even-handed" coverage of the nominating process. There's an alliance there, an alliance that can also be seen when Clinton's press release in the aftermath of "bittergate" was cosmetically identical to that of John McCain's. She's still playing by the Reagan-era rules of the game, where assertive liberalism just can't win. Even though she is promoting a liberal agenda, her instincts are anything but liberal. And this worries me.
Ultimately, I'm not interested in just winning one election. Well, I am, but I think there's more at stake here. We in the Democratic Party have the opportunity to nominate someone who is not only able but willing to forcefully articulate an alternative to the GOP line on war and security. These areas have typically been strengths for the Republicans, at least since Nixon. Now, with the failure of the Bush Administration, these issues are up for grabs, and I want them to become Democratic strengths. I want the Democrats to own them. With no domestic policy to speak of, and without security to fall back upon, the GOP will be back to the drawing board for a decade at least. Barack Obama is poised not just to be an historic candidate, but also to break the back of the conservative movement once and for all. No wonder they're scared to death of him, literally.
Clinton, for all her strengths on domestic policy, has never really given me reason to believe that she really cares about foreign policy. Her campaign is reminiscent of nothing more than John Kerry's, which basically was premised on "taking the war off the table." Clinton now opposes the war, but she's hewed extremely close to the line of public opinion every step of the way, and she rarely talks about the war these days, preferring instead to focus on domestic policy. Ultimately, though, I just don't think her heart is in leading a revolt against the neocon worldview, and I don't think she wants to fundamentally remake the landscape of the American political scene. She doesn't want to end the polarization--that's how she got where she is, and she's even doing it in microcosm in the Dem nominating contest. Quod erat demonstrandum.
All I know is that the gods have presented us with a singular opportunity in this election cycle, and Barack Obama might just be able to end this war by winning it. Maybe the task isn't possible, but it is too compelling an idea for me to not support Obama.
