Ready for losing...again?
Hillary Clinton will have to separate herself from President Obama in order to win in 2016. This is to be expected as Democrats seek to retain the White House for a third term. No matter who is the Democratic nominee, this will have to be done. But the hamfisted way Clinton has gone about doing it on this first try out is giving me doubts about her ability to win. I say this as a person who has endorsed her and truly believe she is the best candidate we have available.
In what appears to me to be a strange and stupid tactic, Clinton is separating herself from Obama on the very point that led to her defeat in 2008: aggressive, interventionist foreign policy. I can say with certainty that President Obama's foreign policy, which I tongue in cheek called the Nobama Doctrine in 2011, is popular with Democrats. Very popular. Mainly because it sets forth no grand global ambitions, no sweeping theories, no costly promises, and most of all, a reluctance to use military force as the sole solution to every foreign problem. That's a good thing. That's an excellent thing. That's the sort of thing that avoids disasters like the Iraq War. For Clinton to choose this as her point of separation, no matter how much it aligns with her sincere neocon beleifs, is political malpractice. This is one issue on which a Democratic presidential nominee does not want a Sista Souljah moment. The Democratic Party, and the country, has no appetite for the Washington Establishment's global schemes and lofty ambitions.
Already, the Clinton camp is walking it back, and looking even worse:
Spokesman Nick Merrill said in a statement that Clinton called the president to “make sure he knows that nothing she said was an attempt to attack him, his policies, or his leadership,” adding that the two will “hug it out” in Martha’s Vineyard tonight.
This isn't about President Obama's feelings. I'm quite sure he could care less what she or anyone else thinks at this point. He's won his two presidential bids and has nothing to prove to anyone he beat. Its actually Clinton who has to prove she can win with the neocon stuff. She needs to 'hug it out' with Democrats, not the President.
Which brings me to my point: if this is the kind of amateurish, stumblebum, Washington centered campaign message the Clinton camp proposes to take into a general election in 2016, then surely we are headed for defeat. Wrong on message, wrong on execution, and worst of all, wrong on policy.