Sunday, February 25, 2007

Doubts About Obama and Edwards

It scarcely took me any time to me figure out who were my favorites in the presidential primaries. They were Edwards and Obama. The two of them were willing to take strong, affirmative stances on very liberal issues, while Clinton, seemed prone to equivocation. An expert political actor, Clinton appeared to be driven by polls and political concerns, not heart-felt, deeply seated beliefs.

I still support Edwards and Obama, but my initial enthusiasm has been tainted by a realization: Edward’s and Obama’s out spokeness is very likely a symptom less of heart felt conviction, than of real politick. Granted, it’s never really possible to speculate definitively about other people’s motivations, but this isn’t an essay about definitive truths, it’s about doubt, about questioning the credibility of candidates who I, by and large, support.

The fact is that the three front runners in the presidential primaries are acting very much in accordance with the logic that real politick would suggest that they ought to. Clinton is the front runner in the primaries because of the popularity of her husband’s administration within the Democratic Party. But, she doesn’t have the same sort of support amongst the general populace, which generally imagines her to be too liberal. Because she can take the support of her party mostly for granted, she doesn’t need to make strong liberal statements, which would attract people to her in the primaries, but could become a liability when she faces moderate voters in November.

Obama and Edwards on the other hand are more popular amongst the general electorate than Clinton, and are therefore less concerned about alienating them than with tackling the juggernaut in the primary elections, Hilary Clinton. To do that they need to be taking radical positions that will appeal to the democrats voting in the primaries. The more desperate they are, the more inclined they are to make more radical statements in the primaries, which they know might come back to haunt them in the general election. Hence Edwards, the one who trails furthest behind Clinton, is calling for universal healthcare, an extraordinarily liberal proposition. The notion that Edwards is making these statements for political purposes is supported in part by the fact that he wasn’t nearly so radical in the last election, during which the field was less crowded, and he didn’t have a name as big as Clinton’s to contend with.

Though, despite these doubts I still prefer Obama and Edwards to Clinton. They’re just doubts, and, quite frankly, what matters is what they do, not why they do it, so the question of motivations is almost a moot point. I’m tried of seeing democratic politicians without backbone. To win democrats need to start electing real leaders, people who stand by the guns. Anyway, sticking to the center is a strategy of extraordinarily dubious utility, since the center might well be far left of where we imagine it is by the time election day rolls around. Already Clinton’s stance on the war puts her well to the right of the majority of the nation, and even further right than some republican politicians. If there really is a political shift happening, we need leaders who aren’t afraid to take advantage of it, who have the charisma to cultivate it, and who can give it a strong, respectable face.