Two candidates from different political parties are competing for the same federal office.
One of them, the nominee of the Democratic Party, is a woman. This candidate is the consensus nominee of her party, the clear “establishment” favorite, a person with a distinguished record of public service and unimpeachable credentials. She’s prevailed handily in the primary election and is marching toward Election Day with all the trappings of a frontrunner: money, staff, endorsements, and sky-high polling numbers.
So maybe she’s not the most natural campaigner. Perhaps she comes across a little wooden on the hustings; she’s cut from “just get the job done” cloth and isn’t much of a glad-hander, really. Who cares? She’s favored to win—favored so heavily that her success seems almost certain and her campaign alternates between straining against this perception and stoking it, dangling promises of plum posts and leveraging the air of inevitability when convenient.
“I mean come on,” say her supporters to one another, snidely. “Just look at the other guy.”
The Republicans nominated the other guy. Now, here’s a man who loves the spotlight, a guy who relishes his TV camera lens reflection. His experience in government pales in comparison to his opponent’s; the newspaper editors long ago ruled him out as a long-shot lightweight. But what he lacks in policy chops and seriousness he makes up in bluster and doggedness, hitting the trail with his “average Joe” routine and pitching an anti-Washington, anti-elite, anti-everything message that’s as boisterous as it is vague.
This is his shtick, the “common touch” (never mind his past dalliances with the worlds of fashion, modeling, and media), and he deploys it deftly in the race’s final weeks, riding out an angry wave of popular resentment directed at government and elite opinion.
She loses. He wins. Cue the pundits.
It’s all over, they say. “Turnout,” we’re told. Blame the message, blame the messenger, blame her lazy, faithless supporters. The Democrats have overreached, the Obama coalition is fraying, and the Party’s lost these voters for a generation, at least, maybe two.
It’s music to the ears of the victorious candidate, now officeholder.
But before too long, the sheen on this guy starts to wear. His lack of experience becomes more noticeable each day and you get the sense—it’s that deer-in-headlights look—that maybe he’s out of his depth. All those awesome lines from the campaign trail (they were so awesome!) seem to impress less when the business of the day involves running a country, and the crowds at the campaign stops (so much fun!) have all gone home to watch carefully what happens next.
And then there’s this law professor…
And I daresay the particular law professor in question is going to agree with me. I know this because in her tenure, so far, she has pointedly kept to her area of expertise and has not volunteered information or efforts about things she either knows little about or which might conflict with a growing, growling, progressive orthodoxy.
You are correct that the hype over Trump is going to oh-so-quickly sour, even more so than it did with Scott Brown. And it’s going to suck, hard and for all of us. Yet, it occurs to me that your ‘parable’ also fits neatly into the 2000 and 2004 campaign and, thus, excuses the purported lackluster nature of both Al Gore and John Kerry.
But the lesson of Barack Obama is that winning the campaign is not enough.
The people who are going to fix this thing… to do the actual work of actually governing — well after the elections are all over — are going to look and sound just like Al Gore, Martha Coakley, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. Tough, determined, iron-jawed and willing to put in the long long and hard hours of negotiating with people who vilified them. That’s what is at stake here.
Think about it: Hillary Clinton swam upstream against a river of raw sewage just for the possibility of negotiating with Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan. Then she gets trashed some more because that’s not enough for some people…
You can go for the immediate and emotional salve of an uplifting campaign victory. But then what?
I think focusing on shoring up downballot races, particularly in states that with legislatures that were recently Democratic and have rapidly descended to the right wing, is the only way to wrest control of the House back and eventually the Senate.
I also think focusing on a younger, more independent, less establishment, and far more diverse and feminist bench in Massachusetts is critical. We have a lot of old white losers in the legislature who’ve been there forever and collect checks and pensions without really moving the needle in the direction we need to go. Time for them to go!
I was so proud to work directly with Keri Thompson and Jessica Lambert, and was inspired by my conversations with Kim Maxwell and Lydia Edwards. These women who challenged the status quo and party insiders are the future of the Democratic Party and we need many more of them to run!
… in fact, totally against the point. I say “winning the election is not enough.” You respond, “this is what we need to do to win an election…”
Do me a favor… the next time you are tempted to agree with me, sit on your hands and re-read what I wrote at least three times, please, before responding…
The point is this: people who are going to actually do the job and do the job well are going to act like Martha Coakley and John Kerry. They are going to be people of temperament exactly like Al Gore and Hillary Clinton. They are going to run campaigns not very different from the last few campaigns, whatever the outcome. They are the ‘old white losers’ who are, for good or ill, holding down the fort while you fantasize about someone new and shiny. There are ‘old white losers’ right now doing their damnedest to keep the other side from looting the candy jar. Who is able to charm the electorate right off their feet and then, turn around and govern well? None that I know of…
They need allies in legislatures to govern, that’s my point. Gore or Clinton would’ve had just the hard time Obama did with a GOP Congress.
And I’ll be sure not to pay you a compliment again-troll
I wish I had been old enough to vote for Gore or Kerry, especially in hindsight. I was proud to vote for Hillary Clinton. I can think she would’ve made a great President and still think she ran a lousy campaign. It’s called walking and chewing gum at the same time, something you lack the intellectual capacity to do.
…on a couple different threads. The opposition would like nothing better than for us to be at each other’s throats.
Point taken
You said you ‘agreed with me’. I pointed out that, in fact, you entirely missed my point, making you — in fact –in disagreement with me. You returned with “that’s not my point” further extending the disagreement with me and, in fact, entirely negating your own earlier statement of agreement. I’m not arguing, here, with any of your points. I’m merely pointing out exactly what you did.
You don’t read well. I’m sure that you can, if you choose. But you obviously choose not to do so. You scan something and reply too fast and without understanding what you’ve read. You’ve done this repeatedly. Maybe you’re trying to ‘multitask’? Maybe you need glasses? Maybe you’re just overworked? I dunno.
You think agreeing with me is a compliment? That explains a lot.
I wasn’t being prescriptive. But I do think the parallels are striking and perhaps instructive.
the empty suit fraud who wanted to be only the second candidate elected from two different states – the first was Daniel Webster — ended up looooosing to two women, instead ; the Lioness of the Senate, Elizabeth Warren ( D- MA ) and Jean Shaheen ( D – NH ).
Your comparison of my native hometown, scam diet pill snake oil grifter to corrupt, fascist, xenophobic bigot, 1%er, nepotism conflict of interest, misogynist, sexual predator Trump — is spot on.
I predict that Trump will be impeached for high crimes before the end of his first year in office.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Wakefield, MA
One Brown is ousted and one becomes the ouster.
Though it’s essential he gets re-elected if we want to see him run for President down the line. Sen. Nina Turner is another labor friendly, BLM friendly woman of color who is likely to run for Governor of Ohio. She is the future of the party.