When people ask why I think Obama might actually be able to pull off a whole-scale realignment of US politics, I usually give a three-part response.
First, the electorate is clearly ripe for a realignment. The coalition that Reagan built is now nearly 30 years old, a lifetime in American politics. Reagan's brand of Republicanism was based around smaller government and lower taxes, a philosophy that resonated with many Americans after the perceived failures of the 1960s and 1970s. But the 1970s were a long time ago, so long, in fact, that a majority of voting age Americans alive today were not old enough to vote when Reagan was first elected. Reagan's coalition, along with the rhetoric and ideas that inspired it, is either only dimly remembered or not remembered at all by a huge percentage of today's voting. And as a result, its only a matter of time before the next wave of change.
Second, and directly related, the Republican brand has been very badly damaged by the behavior of both the Republican-led Congress and the Bush administration over the past 12 years. We could argue about where to peg the start of the decline - I myself would tie it to Clinton's framing during the government shutdown of 1995 - but wherever you start it, its clear at this point that most Americans simply do not trust the ability of Republicans to govern this country.
On their own, however, these two elements are not enough. We may be ripe for a realignment, but that doesn't necessarily mean we'll get one. Without the right kind of leadership, and more importantly, without the right kind of presidential campaign, we're likely to see only incremental change. Unless we elect a leader who both recognizes that a fundamental transformation of our politics is possible and who seeks to make it a reality, we'll continue to fight the same battles in the same ways and with the same language as we have for the past 30 years. Only presidents and presidential elections can simultaneously change the master narrative of our political system and build new political coalitions around that new narrative.
From the beginning of Obama's campaign, I've worked to highlight how he has deliberately constructed his campaign around a realignment narrative. What I've paid less attention to - in large part because it is much harder to see and document - is how he has worked to build a new national coalition that combines liberal activists, independents, moderate Republicans, and first time and infrequent voters. It has always been implied in what he has doing, but until the primary process began it was impossible to know if he could pull it off.
With the three early states out of the way, however, we finally have some evidence to consider. And so far, it appears for Obama, so good. As Hilzoy points out here, in both South Carolina and Nevada, Obama has built a bottom up ground game that exists entirely separate and apart from the traditional Democratic base. In Nevada, it meant reaching out directly to rural voters, a strategy that allowed him to win a majority of Nevada national convention delegates despite losing the more widely-covered (and politically irrelevant!) state delegate count. In South Carolina it has meant building campaign structures in areas of the state that had previously been ignored by the party, including five counties where the party had no presence at all.
And this is, of course, precisely how realignments happen. By broadening the potential reach of your party, you change the way it is organized. New voters bring new issues, new concerns, and new ideas. Put enough of them together and you change both your political party and the political system as a whole. That's been Obama's strategy from day one, and apparently it is working.
Compare that, however, to the Clinton campaign. Their organization has been called a "machine," and rightly so. After 8 years in the White House and a similar number in the Senate, the Clinton family controls many of the levers of power in the traditional Democratic Party. Their strategy isn't to expand the base to bring in new voters; it is to activate the base that they believe is already there. Their plan is to win by working within the system as it already exists, because it is that very same system that of course brought them into power in the first place. They may want to change which party holds political power in DC, but they most certainly do not want to change the underlying organizational structures on which that power is based.
In short, while Obama is focused on a long-term transformation of our politics, the Clintons seek only to drive short-term political change. They seek nothing more than a return to what once was. Obama, by contrast, is looking beyond short-term change to something much deeper and much more fundamental. His goal is to do for the Democratic Party what Ronald Reagan once did for the Republicans - to build a new governing majority that lasts well beyond his time in office.
So what does this mean for the race?
If your goal is short-term change, vote for Clinton. If you are happy with the frames and narratives that have dominated our politics for the past 30 years, vote for Clinton. But if you think the change we need is more fundamental than this, Clinton will never be enough. To truly accomplish fundamental change, she would need to reject the approach to politics that allowed her and her husband to gain power in the first place. And that, of course, is something they will never do.
If your goal is long-term, vote for Obama. Among the Democrats, only Obama is consciously trying to construct a new majority coalition. Only Obama is trying to construct a narrative that moves beyond the language of the seventies and eighties to something new. Policies matter, of course, but on their own they aren't enough. What matters more - far more - is the narrative of which they are all a part. "If you want to change the world," joseph Campbell once said, "change the metaphor." Obama gets that. Clinton does not. In the end, it really is that simple.
UPDATE: This post from Andrew Sullivan reminds me that once again I have forgotten to talk about the candidates on the other side. I don't have time right now for anything remotely resembling a complete analysis, but l don't want to let it go without saying anything. So... let's stick to Andrew's analysis of McCain:
In fact, the stronger McCain gets, the clearer it is that he represents an opportunity to move past the bitter, angry elements in today's GOP - elements that have made it very difficult to give a positive case for conservatism's merits as a governing philosophy. On spending, immigration, climate change and torture, he is the reform candidate - a chance to turn the page on the unconservative spending insanity, climate denialism and detainee indecency that have scarred conservatism's reputation under Bush and Cheney and Gonzales And Yoo.
No, I don't agree with McCain on everything. But if it's a choice between him and Limbaugh, there really is no contest. McCain makes all the right people on the right angry. McCain represents a chance to remake the GOP on reformist lines, just as Obama represents a chance for the Democrats to escape the sleaze and cynicism of the Clintons. Maybe the Republicans, unlike, it appears, the Democrats, have the courage to choose the future over th past, to break a dynasty rather than entrench one. I sure hope they do.
That sounds like McCain might represent a potential Republican realignment, no? No. Let me explain.
Realignments are only possible when one of the two parties is willing to transform. It's still an open question whether the Dems want to undergo a fundamental transformation, but it is absolutely clear that among Republicans there is no such desire. In debate after debate, every candidate has battled to be more like Reagan. Their first debate, in fact, was held in Reagan's library. And although it is true that McCain represents in at least some respects a new direction for his party, as Limbaugh's opposition makes clear, his direction is not one that many in the base are likely to follow.
Were McCain to win the presidency in 2008, my prediction is that his time in office would in many ways be like that of Jimmy Carter. Carter tried to remake the Democratic party, and the result was a disaster. In the Congress, for example, in vote after vote his primary source of opposition came from his own party, so much so, in fact, that by 1979 one of his own party leader's was willing to openly challenge him during for the nomination in 1980. Like Carter, I have no doubt McCain would work to transform his party. But like Carter, I also have no doubt he would spectacularly fail. You can't transform a party that doesn't want to be transformed. It never has worked like that, nor will it ever.
More on this from me as we move through the primary process.....
UPDATE II: OK, more now. Check out this new ad and statement from McCain's campaign.
Democrat [sic] Senators Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards said John McCain’s name 15 times during the course of their hour and a half-long debate this week,” McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said in statement. “Why? They fear John McCain most because he’s the one candidate who can rally the conservative Reagan Coalition while appealing to independent voters to win in November.”
You don't drive a realignment by claiming that you're going to resurrect the political coalition around which the current alignment is based. You just don't.
This is the fundamental dilemma faced by candidates as their political coalition ages. How do you simultaneously attract older voters with familiar rhetoric while simultaneously reaching out to newer voters with new ideas? As Stephen Skowronek has shown, the further away you get from the moment when the coalition was first put together, the more difficult that task becomes. For Bush I that task was difficult but not impossible - think about his problems with his "no new taxes" and "environmental president" pledges and you'll have some idea of what I mean. For Bush II it was far more difficult but still not yet impossible - campaign promises to govern as a "compassionate conservative quickly gave way to more traditional Republican concerns once the White House had been secured. And for McCain? Well, there's just no way I can see how this will work.
Sullivan trumpets his reasonable approach to immigration, climate change, and torture, and when compared to the other men running for the nomination, no doubt McCain is the most sane. But as Limbaugh's opposition makes clear, what appears sane to independents and moderates is almost unthinkable to the conservative establishment. You think what the right-wing noise machine did to Clinton was bad? Just wait until McCain puts forward an immigration bill cosponsored by the Democratic leadership that grants "amnesty" to illegal aliens. Just wait.
If we elect Clinton, we're going to get 4 years of political hell. If we elect McCain, the details of the fight will change, but its ferocity will be unchanged. If that's what you want for this country for the next four years, take your pick. But if you want something else, neither of these two will do.
It's called a pattern because it repeats. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
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