08 Primaries
Newsday had an interesting article about the 2008 Democratic presidential field yesterday. I think it kind of misses the mark, though. The left-right dichotomy is useful at times. I don’t think that it is when it comes to Edwards and Clinton. John Edwards’s politics have something in it that Bill Clinton’s had: southern populism. President Clinton’s much vaunted (or despised) triangulation was built on that foundation of southern populism. It’s naturally liberal on economic issues, but somewhat distrustful of large bureacracies. It’s more moderate to conservative on social issues, but surprisingly liberal on some of them, varying from candidate to candidate. President Clinton skillfully and cynically manipulated those natural tendencies for his own electoral and PR benefit. Politicians who don’t hail from the south have a harder time pulling that off in a way that is at all natural. It comes off as nothing but cynical and insincere. For a lifelong liberal (and one with a real authoritarian streak in her) such as Senator Clinton, all we see when she does this are the worst aspects of her husband’s political calcuations. She may really be a natural hawk. That doesn’t surprise me or seem calculating at all. It fits in well with the kind of liberal tradition that she’s from that could easily be summarized as being the Kennedy and Daley branch of liberalism. Joe Biden, by the way, is busy trying to wrap himself in that coat, if you haven’t noticed.
Edwards is running as a classic southern populist, but one who is very moderate in his tone and style. He will appeal to a lot of liberals, but that doesn’t mean he’s just running to the left of Clinton. He’ll be on par or to the right of her on a few things, unless she actively just positions herself to the right of anything he does. Where I do agree with Newsday article it comes by inference more than anything they’ve directly stated. If the media chooses to frame the Edwards vs. Clinton battle in the primaries as him on the left and her in the center, that benefits her in the general election, assuming she gets that far. But I don’t think it hurts Edwards if he’s the one who gets that far. His natural demeanor, political skills, and voting record in the senate probably make it difficult for anyone on the R side to just tar him with the L world. His amiability and ease with the media make it less likely that they’ll just accept the R narrative on Edwards like they did with Gore and Kerry, both of whom lacked that ability to make social ties with the media members who covered them. In the unlikely event that Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney get the Republican nomination, we may see the first election in a generation that’s played out on slightly more complex ground than “america hating pinko” vs. “crazy, right wing religious fascist’. Edwards might come off as the more conservative candidate in either of those match ups, depending on what the most important issues are 20 months from now.
