Its been a while since I checked in with my friends at Red State so there may be some bits of trenchant analysis that Ive missed but from what I can tell, it looks like most pundits have responded to last weeks midterms with an unusual degree of perspective. In marked contrast with what happened after Republicans won in 2004, and after Democrats won in 06, 08 and 12, there have been few declarations that Americans now lived under de facto one-party rule. The fact that turnout last Tuesday was so historically atrocious is probably a key reason. Its hard to credit an outcome to the peoples will if they dont show up.
Weve had low turnout elections before, though; so that cant be the only explanation. More influential, Id guess, is the role currently being played by Hillary Clinton, whose impending 2016 campaign looms over the rest of American politics a bit like the monolith in Stanley Kubricks 2001. Among Republicans, the specter of another President Clinton is being used to tamp-down internal division and call a truce in the GOPs ongoing civil war. And among Democrats, her front-runner status is being used as an excuse to chalk up the midterm blowout to demographics and avoid any further introspection.
On both sides of the aisle, in other words, the assumption that 2016 is Clintons to lose is so dominant that its causing a kind of political stasis, with both sides deciding to more or less hold steady and see what happens. But while this is probably a smart move for a Republican Party that lost in 2012 due in no small part to internal squabbling that pushed its candidate too far to the right, a new report from Politico Magazine on Clintons relationship with Wall Street shows that, for Democrats, the wisdom of staying the course especially in this increasingly agitated, restive political climate is far less certain.
Sure, theres value in Clintons being able to attract a big tent of supporters. And from a campaign managers standpoint, all those Goldman Sachs donations are no doubt enticing. But where is the line that separates a diverse coalition from an incoherent one? How big can the tent get before it becomes, in the immortal words of Yogi Berra, a place so crowded that nobody goes?
These questions are never too far from the surface, at least when it comes to the Democratic Party, whose coalition over the past generation or so has been markedly more diverse than the Republican one (indeed, a more appropriate name for Democrats would probably be Not-Republicans). But with the Barack Obama circa 2008 post-partisan/kumbaya approach now thoroughly discredited, I think most voters are going to be uninterested in a candidate who repeats empty clichs about coming together; and I know that most Democratic voters would rather hear just about anything else. For this reason, as well as the fact that Clinton herself is a longtime D.C. fixture, the blank screen strategy wont work.
Yet if were to take the Politico piece on Clinton and Wall Street as any guide and, coming as it does from former banker William D. Cohan, theres reason we shouldnt it looks like thats the approach the Clinton folks have decided to take. According to Cohan, Wall Street is almost giddy over the prospect of a Clinton candidacy, describing it with the kind of vacuous (and intensely ideological) non-ideological phrases that they used when rhapsodizing over Obama back in 2008. Many of the rich and powerful in the financial industry, Cohan writes, consider Clinton a pragmatic problem-solver not prone to populist rhetoric. Regardless of whatever she may say to win over Democrats, Clintons got a pass from these masters of the universe, Cohan reports, because [n]one of them think she really means her populism. The Streets support is rock-solid and not anything that can be dislodged based on a few seemingly off-the-cuff comments.
As Cohan notes, despite their recently spotty record on wise investments, the Wall Streeters confidence in Clinton is pretty well placed. They already know her quite well from her years in the White House years that were characterized by a wave of financial deregulations that came at quite a price for the rest of us, though they were doubtlessly beneficial to the 1 percent. And they know her better still from her brief stint as New Yorks junior senator. Clinton and Wall Street, Cohan reports, are simply comfortable around one another. They go to the same parties (in the Hamptons) and travel in the same circles (among the financial, cultural and entertainment elite). She understands how things work, in the words of one Cohan source, who helpfully clarifies that, on the Street at least, shes not a populist is what that means.
And the affinity is not just historical or cultural, either. Cohan finds that one of the reasons Wall Street is so gung-ho about Clinton 2016 is because it believes a second Clinton presidency would lead to progress on the issues that, in its eyes, matter most namely, fiscal and tax reform, which is the elites favored euphemisms for cutting Medicare and Social Security as well as lowering taxes on corporations. She will be trying to govern from the center with a problem-solving bent like her husband, says Greg Fleming, the president of Morgan Stanley Wealth and Investment Management. Going unmentioned, of course, is the fact that the problems being solved in Wall Streets imagination by a future President Clinton are currently only a significant concern among those in the 1 percent.
As a few quotes in the piece from those within the machine make clear, the Clinton people are not unaware of the political risks associated with being seen as the candidate of Wall Street. But if the vague endorsements of vigorous government oversight and tweaks to the tax code that they offer in the article is the best they can come up with, theyre going to have a real issue. Voters dont know much about policy, and they certainly dont have strong opinions about the carried-interest loophole or financial transaction tax. What they do understand, however, is that they live in a system rigged to benefit the already powerful and wealthy, and that the rules for some people like those Clinton hobnobbed with, according to Cohan, at a recent party for Hollywood mogul/ogre Harvey Weinstein are different than those for the rest.
So if two years from now Democrats find themselves on the defensive, watching in horror as someone like John Kasich or Ted Cruz successfully labels Clinton as the candidate of the status quo and the 1 percent, they shouldnt say no one saw it coming. In an era of populist anger and increasing polarization, there are downsides to having such a big tent.
Link:
Wall Street and Hillary Clinton: The risk Democrats run by embracing the big tent