At this year’s Annual Meeting of the National Rifle Association, NRA Executive Vice President and bastion of bloviation Wayne LaPierre made his oh-so-enlightened opinion of a possible Hillary Clinton presidency famously known, when he declared that “eight years of one demographically symbolic president is enough.”
Racism and sexism in just nine words! Very impressive, Wayne.
LaPierre, of course, is an utterly ridiculous person. But behind the incredibly thick layers of obnoxiousness and bigotry lies a red flag that must be addressed by the Democratic Party and liberals as a whole. Consider it an unintended warning carried by a horrifically flawed messenger.
To fully understand this small kernel of truth, we must look back six months to the aftermath of the 2014 midterm elections.
Through November, following the Democratic Party’s second consecutive midterm shellacking, the post mortems quickly reverberated throughout the political media space. They were obvious obituaries: Republicans nationwide largely dominated campaign messages in what was widely seen as a referendum on Barack Obama, while Democrats ran away from a President whose unpopularity has been exponentially exacerbated by a lack of salesmanship.
The Democratic accomplishments over the past six years are both significant and succinctly sellable. Nearly 20 million Americans have gained health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. Unemployment is below six percent. The stock market is at unprecedented highs. The national deficit has been more than halved. Gays can openly serve in the military, and can now legally wed in more than half of states.
This isn’t that hard.
But instead of embracing their party’s accomplishments, the Democratic party’s political campaign strategy was distancing themselves from the president’s agenda and embrace? nothing at all in their political campaigns. Collectively, the Democrats? 2014 campaigns seemed like an onerous, protracted version of Obama’s disastrous first debate with Mitt Romney in 2012: poorly packaged, mealy-mouthed truths drowned out by roaring, confident waves of the usual GOP blame-gaming, fear-mongering and long-disproven policy points.
This train wreck of a midterm was, perhaps, the biggest display yet of what is becoming more fact than theory: Republicans are proud to be conservative while Democrats are ashamed of being liberal. For God’s sake, Alison Grimes, the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate in Kentucky, wouldn’t even admit to having voted for Obama; she was awarded for this ridiculous dodge with a landslide loss.
This enthusiasm gap ? one pitting a loud and proud GOP against a tepid, vacillating Democratic Party ? simply is not sustainable. Democrats must be able to sell voters on the party’s agenda on a consistent, biennial basis with their political campaign rather than just winning the one-on-one presidential match-up every four years.
Because right now, Democrats have already forfeited both Houses on Congress, and – getting back to our good friend Wayne – their tenuous hold on the Executive Branch can be largely described in one word:
Novelty.
By this word, I don’t mean a circus act. I really mean ?firsts,? and the enthusiasm bumps that naturally arise from them. A brief history, and a projection:
In 2008, the first black president galvanized African-Americans at just the right time – a period of outright disgust with the final years of the Bush Administration ? and against a flawed candidate (John McCain) with an embarrassingly ill-prepared running mate (Sarah Palin). Four years later, Obama beat Mitt Romney partly because incumbents have a huge advantage, and partly because Romney was a poor candidate who made more than the usual share of campaign gaffes.
In 2016, the Democrats will most likely succeed in electing another first, as Hillary Clinton is the odds-on favorite to become our first female president; her chances currently sit at about 11 to 10 – which basically means 50/50 – while no other candidate is more than 7 to 2. She will likely do so by winning the already liberal-leaning women’s vote by unprecedented margins, and because the Clintons are nearly as popular with African-Americans as the current president.
What then? I know we’re getting well into the future here, but what about 2024 – the last year of a (Hillary) Clinton presidency’s second term?
In other words, what happens when the Democratic political campaign plan has no other viable ?firsts? in line for the presidency? Assuming we’re not ready by 2024 for a gay president ? and that’s a pretty safe bet, despite promising recent progress ? what are the Democrats going to do when they no longer have a novelty to bolster support and turnout in presidential campaigns?
Of course, both Obama and Hillary Clinton are exceptional people; let it not be misconstrued that ?novelty? intimates that either is undeserving of their status as current and more-than-likely next president, respectively. In fact, the opposite conclusion should be drawn: Obama’s and Clinton’s individual exceptionalism may be helping Democrats delude themselves even further about the need to develop and deliver a passionate, progressive platform capable of winning elections without the beneficial backdrop of making presidential history.
An argument can be made that Obama’s current tenure, and Clinton’s likely pending one, serve as procrastination-encouraging safety blankets that, sooner or later, will be stripped away from the Democratic Party.
And of course, though a safe bet in Vegas? eyes, a Hillary Clinton presidency (let alone two terms of one) is by no means a given. After all, she is 67; what if a health issue arises between now and November of next year? And what if one of the inevitable series of semi-scandals being systemically hurled at her – most recently the allegations surrounding improper, potentially influence-purchasing donations to the Clinton Foundation – end up being more than just spaghetti thrown at the proverbial campaign wall? If one of the myriad existing and future accusations actually sticks, the Democrats will need to expediently remove their eggs from the lone basket in which they currently reside.
And regardless, Hillary’s in for a tough fight in the general election should a moderate like Jeb Bush gain the Republican nomination rather than a wing-nut lightweight like Ted Cruz. Here’s why:
Looking at recent presidential history, the last two administrations (Bill Clinton and George W. Bush) have served two full terms and then seen the opposing party take back the White House.? This is partly because Americans are easily convinced that a “change” is needed – and that typically means changing the political party of the Executive Branch.? As a woman, of course, Hillary herself represents a significant change… but the “(D)” before her name diminishes this novelty’s impact significantly, especially considering the prevailing portrayal of Barack Obama as a waning, tired leader who has had about enough of the Oval Office.
So in terms of finding a confident, cohesive voice and sellable platform with which to win over the American public, Democrats either have a little more than nine years or ? a far scarier scenario ? a little more than one. Rebuilding a nationally viable brand in a decade’s time is definitely doable; doing so in 18 months is nearly impossible.
Either way, the clock is ticking for the Democratic Party, down to a time when their causes and candidates will have to sell themselves, without the galvanizing possibility of making presidential history. As it stands now, the Democrats are setting themselves up to go from firsts to worst, from new to none, from heroes to zero. In the process, they risk banishing their progressive agenda to the political hinterlands for years to come.
