Hillary Clinton and her supporters are naturally in a state of euphoria over her victory in South Carolina. And they should be. The size of Hillary victory was unexpected. And it certainly bodes well for her chances of success during Super Tuesday and beyond. This diary is not meant to rain on their parade. Yet, HRC’s speech last night was important. It was her first speech at a point in the nomination campaign where her success is very likely, at least since before Bernie’s rise. The worry on her left has now greatly diminished. So, she no longer has to feint to the left for political reasons. Starting last night, she could point more and more to the general election and the candidate that she wants to be rather then the candidate she felt she had to be to win the nomination. So, I was interested in what she said under these new circumstances.
I can honestly say I was disappointed, though not surprised, by the generic nature of her speech (h/t to David Michigan for transcribing speech). Yes, it has progressive sounding phrases and promises. Yet, there is no specific solution that she will try to enact in the entire speech.
To summarize, Clinton talks about creating “ladders of empowerment and opportunity,” but there is not a whisper of an idea how she will do this. Clinton decries “crumbling schools and communities” but doesnt say what she will do about them. She decries drug companies who raise prices to increase profit, companies that move off shore to avoid taxes, corporations that cheat their employees, exploit their customers (she probably meant exploit employees and cheat customers, but whatever) or pollute the environment, but, again, offers nothing remotely specific about how she is going to stop this. After decrying all these bad things, she then endorses good things that she likes: higher wages, investing in manufacturing, clean energy etc, affordable child care, paid family leave, great schools and teachers, black colleges and universities. Again, not a whiff of how she is going to support these things. HRC then turns to the issue of racism. She is against it. “Specifically,” she states that we have to “face” systemic racism, reform our criminal justice and immigration system and invest in communities of color. And we need to “guarantee opportunity, dignity and justice for every American.” How are we going to do this? Not a word.
In probably the speech’s best moment, she gives recognition to five mothers who lost children who were murdered. She congratulates them for turning their grief into activism.
She ends by mentioning Flint, but she emphasizes not to make an ideological point of the dangers of anti government fanaticism or the powers of special interests, but as a feel good story in light of the offers of many good samaritans to help out. And she uses John Lennon’s ‘imagine” literary framework to mention other worthwhile goals. Again, no substance was included.
Interestingly, in her laundry list of things she supports or opposes does not even mention in a vague way campaign finance reform, nor health care nor global warming.
Contrast this to Sanders’ speeches after his New Hampshire win. His promises are specific. For example, he doesnt just promise to “raise wages,” he promises to raise the minimum wage to $15.00/hr. He doesnt just promise to make college “more affordable,” he promises to make college tuition free. He doesnt just promise vaguely to improve health care, he specifically advocates a medicare for all single payer system.
I dont mention all this to make a partisan argument in favor of Bernie. I am trying to make two much larger, more important points.
First, a generic, vague “feel good” speech and campaign doesnt help create a narrative that will allow the Democratic Party a victory up and down the ballot. Republican candidates are also going to be for higher wages, for holding corporations accountable, for increasing opportunity, for better education and for encouraging local manufacturing. If HRC wants to create a “wave” election, she is going to be much more specific in substance to demonstrate how she will accomplish her goals in order to create a contrast with the Republicans regarding how they would achieve what they will say are similar goals. This necessity is specifically acute this year because our party has had the presidency for the last 8 years. Generic promises to do this or that high minded goal is going to be easily refuted by the Republican argument that “the Democrats have had 8 years to do this and failed.” Only a specific program to accomplish specific goals will sound plausible and will be able the Democrats to nationally create a narrative that distinguishes us from them.
Not only are more specific, substantive promises important to make sure that we have a “party” and “ideological” victory, they, importantly, create a mandate for the advocated policies. If HRC wins in November after advocating specific promises that she believes will increase wages, or protect consumers or make our criminal justice system more fair, then she will have a much stronger hand in dealing with congress then if she just makes generic, nice sounding promises. True, that wont assist passage of legislation if the House is solidly Republican. However, if the House and Senate are closely divided, having campaigned on specific solutions will be immensely important to the success of her legislative efforts. Moreover, if HRC’s program is blocked after having specifically campaigned on them, this will increase the political cost of obstruction.
My prediction is that if Trump is the nominee, as seems very likely, HRC will run a very conservative campaign. Conservative both in refusing to take any risks and in the positions she takes on the issues. As a result, she may very well win a personal victory, somewhere between the margins of victory Obama received in his two elections. But this course will only lead to the gain of a handful of seats in the House and wont giver her any mandate for the policies that she will want to pursue. But I hope I am wrong.