If Never Hillary. . . then why wasn't there someone else? Part I
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| The Democratic Party's time in power has gutted its future leadership. How is it that a party that claims it is ahead of the curve is now dependent on candidates that represent the baby boomer generation like Clinton, or even older (Biden)? |
The Democratic Party is supposedly a battery of half or more of America's political leadership. So why did it behave as if there was only one choice for its own leader?
There have been credible accounts, including here Politico, that past Democratic Party leaders are calling for a meeting (or have held one) in order to plan for the contingency that Hillary Clinton will not be able to continue as the Democratic nominee for the 2016 election. The casual observer now sees it as bizarre that the Democrats are likely to draft by default the 73 year-old Joe Biden in her place. But if you analyze the track record of the Democrats as an organization (which they are) instead of a political movement it makes total sense. The truth of the matter is that the Party hasn't had real leaders for a long long time, and it desperately needs to start thinking about cultivating a new generation.
In many respects the Party will not have a future if it continues on a path that you will soon see has brought it to a crisis point much worse than the very real erosion of trust in the GOP. And for once during this cycle, it is much harder to blame Hillary Clinton for this problem than her old enemy and now ally, Barack Obama. For in many respects the state of the party cannot be laid at the feet of the former Secretary of State; the policies of the past eight years were formulated not by her, but by her boss and commander and chief.
The zenith of control
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| The Democrats were in prime position to succeed in 2008 when Obama was elected, but both him and Congressional leaders like Nancy Pelosi squandered literally ever advantage away. |
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| Carville's 40 More Years made a number of assumptions that would be proven fallacious within one year. |
US Senate
.svg/959px-2006_Senate_election_map_(results).svg.png) |
| US Senate 2006 showing gain of 5 seats to the Democrats: Result: D+2I-51, R-49. |
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| US Senate 2008 showing gain of 8 seats to the Democrats. Both images By Mr. Matté [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons |
In 2006 the Democrats gained five seats in a landslide election that included wins in swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania and even the Republican leaning Montana. They therefore "tied" the balance of that chamber at 49-49, yet independents Bernie Sanders (Vermont) and Joe Lieberman (Connecticut, defeated in Dem primary that year) were effectively elected as Democratic caucus members. In 2008 the Democrats further solidified those gains with a pickup of 8 more seats including crucial swing states like North Carolina (Kay Hagan) and New Hampshire (Jeanne Shaheen) and the Republican stronghold of Alaska (Mark Begich).
US House
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| US House 2006 showing Democratic gainsof 31 seats. |
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| US House 2006 showing Democratic gain of 21 seats. |
State Governors
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| 2006 governor races showing swing of 6 spots towards the Democrats. By Mr. Matté https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3378986 |
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| 2008 governor races showing swing of 1 state towards the Democrats. By Praline97 at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24140812 |
Coming into office, Barack Obama had an advantage both at the federal legislative and state executive level. Obama had also won a commanding number of states, 28 with DC and a Nebraska congressional district. Granted, this electoral achievement lagged behind Bill Clinton's wins of 32 and 31 states in '92 and '96, but Clinton had had the added benefit of having Ross Perot steal significant vote shares from his opponents. Obama had also earned almost 69.5 million votes in 2008, more than 20 million more than Clinton had in 1996, and voter turnout had spiked to 58.2%.
The Great Squandering
What Obama and his cohorts failed to process after taking office was that instead of a cohesive movement behind them, the Democratic Party was merely a federation of affiliated public officials. At the time the Democrats were much less homogeneous and cohesive than they are today. There had already been for years three main caucuses within the party: the New Democrat Coalition (representing the center-left), the Congressional Progressive Caucus (solid left), and the Blue Dog Democrats (center-right). Although they all enlisted to one degree or another to help Obama take the White House, on many policy issues the new president had committed opponents not just among the Republicans and the new Tea Party movements but also the Blue Dogs. In 2009, his first year in office they numbered 54 members (according to Daily Kos) of the House of Representatives, enough to swing the difference in any party-line vote.
Mr. Obama could not be blamed for the divisions in the party in Congress, yet the party's image was harmed more so by two ridiculous scandals in their two safe states: the attempted sale of Illinois' US Senate seat (Obama's former seat) by Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the prostitution scandal of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer. In the Democrats' first electoral test during the Obama era they lost the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races in 2009. The loss of the Jersey race was particularly embarrassing as incumbent Jon Corzine, a former Goldman Sachs banker, was effectively manhandled out of office by Chris Christie as an unpopular Wall Street candidate.
First blood
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| Nancy Pelosi's four years as Speaker of the House were underwhelming as they accomplished little more than passage of TARP and other bailouts as well as the Affordable Care Act. |
The Obama Administration may have won the war over passage of the Affordable Care Act, but it came at a price and it wasn't cheap. Whereas, on the national level the new healthcare bill had the backing of the media, youth, and eventually won the participation of the insurance industry, the bill gained Obama the eternal scorn of the Tea Party movement, a loose coalition of anti-spending and pro-gun people that were quickly labelled by the media as a racial movement. The Democratic leadership had a convenient target in the Tea Party, and they themselves were largely immune to it electorally. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi hails from a safe seat in Northern California situated mainly around Marin County. Although then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is from a competitive state (Nevada), his main lieutenants Charles Schumer (NY) and Richard Durbin (Illinois) have never faced serious opposition in their own states. The same could be said of their so-called enemy, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky who has won many of his races by comfortable double-digit margins.
Becoming expendable
Not so for the Blue Dogs in Congress. For many of them the decision to vote in favour of Obamacare would be the equivalent of falling on their swords. It should be noted that 34 Blue Dogs rejected the ACA and voted against it. The measure passed in the house by a vote of 219-212, a seven vote margin despite the fact that the Democrats had a majority in the body of 65.
The Obamacare vote exposed the real divisions in the Democratic Party, beyond just the Blue Dogs. The party leadership as represented by Pelosi and Reid had not problem supporting its inane and unintelligible structure that even they could never explain or understand. Some on the party's far left could not get behind Obamacare because it was not a single payer system, and would unduly reward insurance companies (0r so they believed), this was a key reason that it took so long for far-left Dem Dennis Kucinich to support it.
During the run-up to the 2010 mid-term elections, the Democratic Party made it apparent that it was not going to fight for the Blue Dog Coalition. These conservative Democrats were effectively thrown to the wolves as they needed the financial backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to survive stiff challenges from conservative Republican rivals in right-leaning districts. Lynn Woolsey, the head of the rival House Progressive Caucus said effectively blamed the BDC for creating a "toxic environment" through their opposition to Obama's policies.
To Obama and his cohorts the sacrifice of the Blue Dogs was not a great loss because many of these individuals such as Baron Hill (Indiana) and Zack Space (Ohio) were not cut from the same cloth as him. What they failed to realize was that neither were their constituents. Obama apparently may have believed that he could be rid of the Blue Dogs and their voters, but instead the Democrats simply lost the valuable support they had in America's rural and industrial heartlands. The unassailable fact was that the Dems required Blue Dog support in order to have any chance at a majority in the House. Lose their seats, and they would simply not have the coverage needed to gain the advantage. But the Democratic establishment as represented by the President and his supporters saw fit to minimize their power, because they were seen quite correctly as an opposition group within his own party.
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| The Blue Dog Democrats were formed in 1995 to provide a forum for fiscally and/or socially conservative Democratic legislators. |
During the run-up to the 2010 mid-term elections, the Democratic Party made it apparent that it was not going to fight for the Blue Dog Coalition. These conservative Democrats were effectively thrown to the wolves as they needed the financial backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to survive stiff challenges from conservative Republican rivals in right-leaning districts. Lynn Woolsey, the head of the rival House Progressive Caucus said effectively blamed the BDC for creating a "toxic environment" through their opposition to Obama's policies.
To Obama and his cohorts the sacrifice of the Blue Dogs was not a great loss because many of these individuals such as Baron Hill (Indiana) and Zack Space (Ohio) were not cut from the same cloth as him. What they failed to realize was that neither were their constituents. Obama apparently may have believed that he could be rid of the Blue Dogs and their voters, but instead the Democrats simply lost the valuable support they had in America's rural and industrial heartlands. The unassailable fact was that the Dems required Blue Dog support in order to have any chance at a majority in the House. Lose their seats, and they would simply not have the coverage needed to gain the advantage. But the Democratic establishment as represented by the President and his supporters saw fit to minimize their power, because they were seen quite correctly as an opposition group within his own party.
What about Bernie?
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| Relax, Bernie supporters. You weren't forgotten, just ignored. And take it as a compliment; Sanders was not to blame for the malaise that has taken hold of the Democratic Party. |
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