The most interesting thing to come out of the umpteenth Republican debate
Sunday is confirmation that the GOP is dying to run against Hillary Clinton.
Like Don Rickles flaying a heckler, each candidate whacked at Clinton as if
she were a pants-suited piñata. When they were done with their one-liners,
former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee deadpanned: "Look, I like to be funny.
There's nothing funny about Hillary Clinton being president."
No, but there's something deeply advantageous to having her as an opponent.
So far, the commentary about the Republican offensive against Hillary has
focused mostly on how it reflects poorly on the GOP (those Clinton-hating
wing nuts are at it again!). What's not been fully grasped is how Hillary
gives the GOP its best chance at being the party of change.
Newt Gingrich, for one, has been pointing this out for months, using the May
electoral triumph of Nicolas Sarkozy in France as an example. A cabinet
minister for the unpopular Jacques Chirac, who'd served as president for a
biblically long term of 12 years, Sarkozy ran against his own incumbent
party's complaisance as well as his Socialist opponent, Segolene Royal,
arguing that she represented a return to a failed past and more of the same.
America isn't France - obviously - but Democrats may be misreading America
nonetheless. It seems incandescently clear that voters want a change, and up
to now, change meant little more than Democratic victory and no more
President Bush. But Democrats got a significant victory in 2006, when they
took control of both houses of Congress. And now Congress is even less
popular than Bush. In other words, the clamor for change in Washington is
much bigger than Bush.
Besides, Bush is leaving no matter what. And unlike every other election
since the 1920s, there's no White House-approved candidate in the race. Any
Republican will start with 40 percent to 45 percent of the vote in his
pocket once he gets the nomination. The question is whether the critical 5
percent to 10 percent of swing voters will think Hillary Clinton represents
the sort of change they want.
To wit: Most independents and swing voters want an end to the acrimony and
bitterness in Washington - and a candidate they like. Whether that's right
or not is irrelevant. That's what they want.
Which Democratic candidate would be most likely to give those voters what
they want? Not Hillary, it's safe to say.
Right now, she can get away with boasting about her tenure in the Clinton
administration. Party activists are drunk with Clinton nostalgia. On the
stump in Iowa, Bill Clinton responded to the claim that Hillary was
"yesterday's news" by saying, yeah, but "yesterday's news was pretty good."
In the general election, audiences will remember Whitewater, Travelgate,
illegal fundraising, bimbo eruptions and impeachment. If they don't, you can
be sure Republicans will remind them. Fair or not, the Republicans' intense
dislike of Hillary will underscore the idea that a vote for her is a vote
for more of the same rancor.
Hence the irony of the Clinton candidacy. Liberal activists keep saying that
they want a candidate who is pure, speaks from the heart and refuses to
"triangulate" on core principles the way Bill Clinton did. But Hillary
Clinton is Clintonian in more than just name. On national security in
particular, she has been alternating between reflexive anti-Bushism to bouts
of outright hawkishness. Desperate to win, Democrats have been willing to
overlook that - so far. But such shifting costs her credibility and passion.
It's all deeply reminiscent of how John Kerry wound up as the nominee in
2004. Once Howard Dean, the conviction candidate, experienced the political
equivalent of spontaneous human combustion, Democrats immediately cast about
not for another principled politician but one they deemed electable.
Bizarrely, they settled on the left-wing senator from Massachusetts who
synthesized Ted Kennedy's politics with Michael Dukakis' charisma while
bragging about his service in a war he built a career denouncing.
If Democrats could get out of their bubble, it might dawn on them that
virtually all of their other candidates are better positioned to run as
champions of change. Hillary Clinton has shrewdly tried to trim the
differences between her and the competition by claiming that any of them
would be better than George W. Bush. From a liberal perspective, that's
obviously true. But that perspective won't necessarily dominate come next
fall, particularly if conditions in Iraq continue to improve.
Is it really so obvious that, say, Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney represent
"change" less than the ultimate Clinton retread, complete with Bill as
"first gentleman"? That's how Democrats are betting right now, and they may
be bitterly disappointed - again - when it comes time to collect.