It's His Party
Dana Goldstein and Ezra Klein | August 18, 2008
..Most outsider candidates for the presidency recruit an outsider team to deliver it. Bill Clinton's main strategists in 1992 were the little-known Paul Begala and James Carville. His first chief of staff was Mack McLarty, a childhood friend who had risen to become chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party. It was a team untainted by Washington but also unschooled in how Washington worked. The Obama campaign and Senate staff, by contrast, are full of Daschle and Gephardt veterans--an unexpected rebirth of the power bases and reputations of two politicians who had long been written off....Before Clinton could build a new image of the party, however, he had to get elected. That meant not strengthening the party but holding it at arm's length, except as a useful vehicle for fundraising....In sharp contrast to the early 1990s, it is Republicans who now have a nominee best known for his apostasies against his own party. Democrats don't have to run from their party anymore. And so Obama hasn't. Rather, he has run against polarization, against legislative gridlock, against special interests. This is why he could bring the DNC to Chicago: The problem isn't Democrats. It's the atmosphere and working relationships that impede their work in Washington....His rhetoric has often signaled an appetite for compromise that has left some wondering about what, exactly, Obama's core policy commitments would be in office. But less attention was given to what Obama seemed to think would attract folks from across the aisle: real policy-making, which Obama's campaign believes requires a Democratic Party infrastructure strong enough to pass the president's priorities. In other words, strong parties aren't the problem; they're the solution. And now that he has one of his own, Obama is determined to prove it.
..Most outsider candidates for the presidency recruit an outsider team to deliver it. Bill Clinton's main strategists in 1992 were the little-known Paul Begala and James Carville. His first chief of staff was Mack McLarty, a childhood friend who had risen to become chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party. It was a team untainted by Washington but also unschooled in how Washington worked. The Obama campaign and Senate staff, by contrast, are full of Daschle and Gephardt veterans--an unexpected rebirth of the power bases and reputations of two politicians who had long been written off..
..Before Clinton could build a new image of the party, however, he had to get elected. That meant not strengthening the party but holding it at arm's length, except as a useful vehicle for fundraising..
..In sharp contrast to the early 1990s, it is Republicans who now have a nominee best known for his apostasies against his own party. Democrats don't have to run from their party anymore. And so Obama hasn't. Rather, he has run against polarization, against legislative gridlock, against special interests. This is why he could bring the DNC to Chicago: The problem isn't Democrats. It's the atmosphere and working relationships that impede their work in Washington..
..His rhetoric has often signaled an appetite for compromise that has left some wondering about what, exactly, Obama's core policy commitments would be in office. But less attention was given to what Obama seemed to think would attract folks from across the aisle: real policy-making, which Obama's campaign believes requires a Democratic Party infrastructure strong enough to pass the president's priorities. In other words, strong parties aren't the problem; they're the solution. And now that he has one of his own, Obama is determined to prove it.
Comments are closed for this post.
