Let us address the central paradox of the Hillary Clinton campaign. To do that, though, we must first refresh our memories. Specifically, this ad:
Remember it? It is, of course, an edited version of the iconic Apple 1984 ad which was altered to convert it from revolutionary agitprop praising a multinational corporation to revolutionary agitprop praising an undistinguished machine politician from Chicago. And, to be fair, it was successful agitprop. We will be arguing for decades about just how Hillary Clinton managed to lose that primary fight, but she did – and videos like this probably didn’t hurt.
But… that’s the problem, isn’t it? In 2007 the Democratic electorate was told, point-blank, You do not have to ‘settle’ for Hillary Clinton. You can have something that’s better. Different. Not more of the same. And the Democratic electorate arguably responded* to that. And their reward? …Hillary Clinton has come back in 2016. Only now she’s almost a decade older, and probably considerably more bitter about life. Not to mention, really inevitable this time.
Thus the paradox. Hillary Clinton was used to establish, fix, and personalize everything that the Obama campaign wanted primary voters to think was wrong with the current system. Then they brought her into the administration, which means that she’s inextricably linked to it. So Hillary Clinton can’t run on being opposed to Obama’s policies, because she helped implement them**. But if she runs on being on-board with the Obama agenda, she’s left with two problems, the second*** one being that a large part of the Obama agenda was that he supposedly represented a break of the politics of the past, which were in no small part exemplified by… Hillary Clinton.
This situation just cycles, endlessly. Probably not what Phil de Vellis (the guy who came up with the video originally, and the guy who now works for Democratic video campaign firm Putnam Partners) had in mind; I’m reasonably sure that at the time the guy probably figured that 2008 was the important date, and that 2016 would just have to take care of itself. So it did, so it did. Doesn’t really help any poor sap who has to explain to the electorate that the exact same person used as the Horrible Old Contrast in 2008 will be the Great New Hope in 2016. Hey! Maybe they can adapt this clip!
Couldn’t hurt, right?
Moe Lane (crosspost)
*It depends on who you ask. There are four different ways to score the popular vote in the 2008 primaries; it is, however, fairly clear that the Democrats’ super-delegates decided to back Barack Obama.
**There’s also the minor detail that every successful Democratic strategy for 2016 starts with First, assume that the African-American vote will remain at full intensity. Going after Obama’s policies is an excellent way to make sure that that scenario will not happen at all (as opposed to just really unlikely to happen).
***Do I really need to tell you the first problem with being on-board with the Obama agenda? Really?
Dems really screwed themselves by not nominating Clinton in 08.
She would’ve almost certainly beaten John McCain, maybe by a even bigger margin then Obama. She would’ve advanced essentially the same agenda, and if she was smart she would made Bill POTUS in all but name, which means a certain level of competence would’ve been in the WH that is currently lacking.
Dems might not be in nearly as terrible a political situation in State legislatures as they are right now. They certainly wouldn’t have lost the Senate seat in Illinois, not sure about the Gov seat though.
They could’ve always run Obama in 2016 as a multiterm anti-Clinton Democrat. And they’d arguably stand a better chance of winning 2016 if they’d gone that route.
Or if Bill had controlled the agenda in a Hillary Presidency then she’d have picked a better VP then Biden, and that guy would be the favorite to win in 2016 ( like Gore was in 2000, and we were fortunate that Bush was as skilled a politician as he was and Gore was as bland as he was or Gore probably would’ve won).
Hillary would *obviously* have picked a better veep than Biden .. and it’s even possible the initial pick would have been someone who could be jettisoned to add Obama in 2012 .. letting him run in his own (“historic”) right in 2016.
.
That said, since I don’t think Clinton will be the nominee, because shes’ not really running – just padding her resume for her transition to senior party leadership -it doesn’t matter.
.
Mew
We must make sure not to make the same mistake. The person who ultimately becomes the nominee should pick a VP candidate who can aid him in the tough job ahead and pick up the pieces when he is term limited.
We shouldn’t nominate someone overly young and inexperienced ( Cruz/Rubio)
Walker/Jindal or Bust! ( Jindal might make a better VP then POTUS at least initially, he knows how to handle the bureaucracy, provided he’s actually given power as VP, it would also aid him in any future Presidential aspirations, that for now he seems incapable of attaining)
The GOP is very lucky that the final 2008 ticket wasn’t Clinton/Obama.
I think ya’ll forget just how revolted the Democrats were with the Clintons at the time, why Obama got the nod (Honestly, I do believe he was positioning for 2016, and also was surprised by how much Hillary! was hated.). The Democrats did not cope well with the whole “Stealing the White House Furniture” thing, and Hillary! seems to have taken all the blame for it. (Gosh, just as the Democrats keep getting caught being secretly Racist, they’re Sexist too? Who knew?)
Proof that the Democrats screwed it up in 2008: If Clinton had been the nominee, and selected Obama as her running mate, he probably would have been able to win in 2016, based on two things: first, Hillary Clinton would have frozen him out of most major decisions, so he could plausibly run against her; and second, he’d still have the “historic candidacy” thing going for him.
.
If Clinton had selected someone else instead (say, Bill Richardson), Obama probably easily wins re-election to his Senate seat in 2010, and immediately starts laying the groundwork for a 2016 run after Clinton runs (win or lose) in 2012. He’d be even more untainted by whatever the Clinton administration had done, so he’d most likely win in that scenario, too.
.
As it is, they went with Obama, who (as Moe pointed out) ran on the platform of being dissimilar to the “inevitable” nominee. Who is now, once again, the “inevitable” nominee, only this time without the quotemarks. Unless Elizabeth Warren wants to take a shot at it.
.
Run, Lizzie, run. PLEASE. I think we can beat Clinton, but I know we can whoop you.
The largest flaw with this theory, Moe, is that it *assumes* the Dems have memory that goes back 7+ years.
.
Now, I won’t be insulting and insist that Dems’ memories average out as shorter than a goldfish, but .. the average *American voter*s’ memory is .. well, my pit-bull remembers better, especially if her favorite treats are involved.
.
Mew
“There are four different ways to score the popular vote in the 2008 primaries…”
.
Maybe so, but three of those ways involve not counting at least one state. If you include released and estimated totals for all the states…Hillary Clinton received more votes than Barack Obama. (If you count all the Uncommitted ballots in Michigan for Obama, that result changes. But then again, maybe Obama shouldn’t have taken his name off the ballot in Michigan.)
.
In other words, the person who actually received the most votes didn’t win. One of life’s great ironies, isn’t it, that the Democratic Party is not so in-sync with the whole democracy thing.
The Dems are rather like aerosol cheese food .. that’s *not* real cheese, despite having “cheese” in the name.
.
Mew
.
.
.
.
(also “tasty in small doses”, “full of mind-altering gas” …)
i bet she could make a great change by running against Netanyahu! or even W! it would be just like the pro rasslin! people switch from bad guy to good and vice versa all the time!