Where the Clinton Presidential Experience Hinders Them

I am commenting on the American elections as an observer, some three thousand miles away. I am conscious that in doing so there is an enormous danger that the absence of day-to-day contact with people as they go about their normal business isolates me from some of the important feelings that can emerge in a society as whole. These are the collective sentiments of a people that can, in a very rapid space of time, alter dramatically the balance of opinion during an election. My only defence for commenting, therefore, is that the distance from which the observations will be made may give some different perspective which prompts thought, however faulty the basis of the understanding may be. A few days ago, Bill Clinton put forward the idea that, when his wife entered the White House, he and former president George Bush could immediately begin a world diplomatic tour designed to repair some of the damage caused to international relations over the last few years . There was an immediate outcry from the netroots. They saw in the proposal an unwelcome association with the Bush family. It was an unacceptable association after the outrage with which they viewed the eight years of George W Bush administration. Worse, it reinforced their considerable concerns about the dynastic aspect with which the White House incumbency was being passed from family to family. It affronts their desire for a clean break and for a new start. Subsequently, and not surprisingly, George Bush Snr rejected the suggestion. Not to do so would have undermined party affiliations and loyalties. It would have confirmed in people’s mind his acceptance of a possible Democratic victory in the presidential election. More importantly at the personal level, it would have implied that the father shared the concerns about the degree of damage done to US relations with the world as a consequence of his son holding office. Whatever anxieties he may have expressed in private, and there have been indications that there have been some, the elder George Bush has never once done other than publicly express his admiration for the current president. He is not about to start doing otherwise now, at this period in the run-up to the next election. It would be naive to expect him to even hint at such doubts and certainly not at the behest of a Democratic opponent, however close the unofficial relationship may have become. Superficially, then, this appears to have been a clumsy move by Bill Clinton. It brought the embarrassment of the rebuttal by George Bush and angry rejection from the Democratic grassroots. Yet Bill Clinton is widely regarded as an adroit politician. Was this simply a temporary aberration in that instinct that he has increasingly tried to bring to the aid of his wife in her bid to halt the decline in her lead as the overwhelming front-runner of the Democratic challengers? It was not, if you take the perspective of the Clinton camp being very much concerned about winning the presidential race in its final stages. What the statement said subliminally to the American electorate was that the Clinton camp was able and willing to cross partisan boundaries, that with Hillary comes her husband Bill who has an immense popularity on the world stage and would have a valuable non-domestic role to play. It spoke to them of their anxieties of the past few years about America’s world leadership and played to that deeply important need that any electorate has to trust the leadership for which it is being asked to vote. Against this, the rejection of the concept by George Bush is of little consequence. The underlying message given out by Bill Clinton will have got home to many of the swing voters on whom the outcome of what appears to be the likelihood of another close presidential race will depend.. What is not so easily defended is the impact that this bipartisan message had on the Democratic base, on which the first step of Hillary Clinton’s assumption of the presidency depends. This base is by definition more radical than the electorate as a whole. It has more easily and clearly defined needs after the years of a president who has been seen to disregard their voice. It is as if the years already spent in the White House and successfully managing the difficulties of two presidential elections has made Bill and Hillary Clinton forget that the demands of the primaries require a different set of skills. Their experience of success in winning the big race makes them less sensitive to some of the requirements of the first stage of getting elected. It may have caused them to err in that fine balance between appealing to a wider constituency and satisfying those who, as registered Democrats, will cast the first vote. The converse of this may be seen in the campaigns of the other two leading challengers. Edwards has taken a fairly extreme position in appealing to the underlying issues such as poverty, jobs and health care, and direct confrontation with the powerful industrial lobby, in a campaign firmly directed towards and specifically designed to attract the middle class. There is no doubt that, if successful in his primary campaign, he will have to broaden his message to encompass a wider spectrum of political opinion in his bid for the presidency. Barrack Obama is taking a more measured approach than Edwards, an approach that places him in a middle ground between Hillary Clinton and his more focused rival. This has its own dangers, of course. It can lead to him satisfying none fully enough in his attempt to satisfy many. This defines the hidden power of the Clinton campaign. When they speak of their experience in comparison to their opponents, they are really speaking of their electability by the American people as a whole. It creates the dilemma for Democratic voters in the primaries, if the Clinton campaign succeeds in persuading their immediately important constituency that they have this broad appeal. Do they vote with their heart or, if they buy into the Clinton message, their head? For Hillary Clinton, it creates the dilemma that, in wanting to address the nation’s electorate as a whole to bolster her acceptance by them, she must first convince her own party. Given the polarization that has occurred in American politics, this is a maze that will take all of Bill Clinton’s political instinct to help her navigate successfully. Hillary Clinton must not forget this by having her eyes fixed on the higher goal. She needs to recognise that the experience within her campaign of all those years of actually sitting in the Oval Office can hinder rather than help her understanding of the unique nature of primary elections.