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September
18, 2003, 9:00 a.m.
Clark-Hillary 2004?
A winning ticket.
By Peter Augustine
Lawler
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 he
serial-primary method used by our parties to pick presidential nominees
is chaotic and unpredictable. Everyone knows that party elites have no
real power any more, and nobody really knows how our involvement in Iraq
and the stock market will look next year. Candidates also sometimes self-destruct
because of personal foibles that would not be clear this early in the
campaign. Nonetheless, predictions must be made.
Some facts that
are probably facts: All the Democratic candidates except Dean and Clark
are stillborn. They will be wiped off the map by crushing defeats in Iowa
and New Hampshire. Dean is the candidate of the most-articulate faction
in the party — the upper middle-class, bourgeois-bohemian (bobo) crowd.
He appeals to West Wing fantasies and Vietnam antiwar nostalgia,
and especially to those on the Left who believe that Clinton demoralized
the real (as opposed to the new) Democratic party. He presents himself effectively
as an "outsider"; he has the image that perennially suckers primary
voters. And he really is an outsider; he would radically reform the Clinton-dominated
party establishment. It's hard to see how he wouldn't do very well among
the disproportionally bobo (and very white) primary electorates of Iowa
and New Hampshire.
That doesn't mean
that Dean can get nominated, much less elected. Bobo candidates (such
as McGovern or even Dukakis) don't fare well in general elections. They
exaggerate the nation's cultural divisions, and so they rally regular
guys with no strong partisan affiliations to the Republicans. George W.
Bush, one of the most-regular (including religious) guys ever to the president,
would have a strong personal advantage over the smug and snotty Dean.
More than that, African-American voters don't like bobos; Clinton —
who speaks with the cadence of a populist black preacher — won because
he understood that so well. Ethnic Catholic northern, and white Protestant
southern voters — still a large part of the party's electorate —
also are repulsed by the intellectual elitism — including the lack
of patriotism — of what was until recently called "yuppie scum."
So it seems to me
that all Clark needs to do to prevail after the first couple of primaries
is to be the viable alternative to Dean and be enthusiastically endorsed
by both Clintons. And Bill and Hillary are clearly raising their visibility
with that job in mind. They are the Democratic establishment, and they
can't risk having a nominee they can't control. On Bill's word, African-American
voters will flock to Clark as the alternative to the bobo, and the pro-choice
Catholics (Democratic Catholics) will have found one of their own. Clark
will remind many gullible Democrats of the pseudo-integrity of West
Wing's Catholic — President Bartlet, and a new fantasy will develop.
(Clark, like Bartlet, was also a professor economics for a while!) Clark
is also more of an outsider than Dean; he has no political experience
at all! And all astute Democrats will choose him over Dean as the man
who could really beat Bush, as more a Clinton than a McGovern. Clark is
actually Clinton with some Eisenhower added; it's hard to accuse a general
of lacking personal courage or ignoring issues of natural security. Lieberman,
the national-security candidate at this point, will endorse Clark when
he drops out fairly early in the primary season. Clark, more than Clinton,
will be a formidable candidate in the south.
Clark has to be regarded
as the favorite for the nomination, and it would be a mistake at this
point to regard him as an underdog in the general election. The main stumbling
block to his success would be Hillary entering the race. As far as I can
tell, her judgment is that the risk for her at this point is too high.
She surely secretly hopes for a narrow Democratic defeat next year to
clear the way for her in 2008. But political results can't be engineered
that precisely, and don't be surprised if she doesn't adopt the amazingly
low-risk strategy of making herself available as Clark's running mate.
That would make her the presumptive nominee in either 2008 or 2012, depending
on the general's skill and fortune.
Why would the senator
give up her all the influence that comes from having a safe seat from
one of our largest states? The former First Lady could hardly be fulfilled
as a mere senator; her real ambition is to be president. And whomever
Clark picks as his vice-presidential candidate — if the ticket is
elected — would have immediate advantages in the struggle to succeed
him. Hillary can't count on that person not catching on. And no insider
Democratic senator has won the party's presidential nomination under the
present primary-nomination system. If Mrs. Clinton wants to be president,
she'll want to be on the Clark ticket.
—
Peter Augustine Lawler is Dana Professor of Government at Berry College.
He is author of Aliens
in America: The Strange Truth About Our Souls.
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