By Gabor Steingart in Charleston, South Carolina
Turn around German military strategist Carl von Clausewitz's definition of war as "the continuation of politics by other means" and you get the approach adopted by Hillary Clinton's advisor Sidney Blumenthal: "Politics is the continuation of war by other means."
If proof of the statement's truth was still needed, it was provided on Monday night in the first official question-and-answer session featuring the Democratic Party's eight presidential candidates, which was held in the historic citadel of Charleston, South Carolina, a relic of the Civil War.
YouTube users were able to submit their questions by video message for a debate in which politics came close to psychological warfare.
Clinton Barks But Doesn't Bite
The first question fired at them from the video screen was about the credibility of their election pledges. What substance is there behind all the political platitudes, a young man from Utah wanted to know. Be honest with us, he urged -- apparently unaware that honesty doesn't pay off in close political combat and is therefore strictly prohibited.
As it happens, Hillary Clinton is immune to such appeals. The Democrats are unified, she claimed, contrary to the facts, revealing her great skill as an actress by not flinching for a moment. Then she posed the only relevant question, that of power: "The issue is which of us is ready to lead on day one."
Clinton's answer to this question -- She herself, who else? -- was automatically answered in the minds of her audience. "During the time that I've been privileged to work as first lady and now as senator I've worked to bring people together," she said, "to find common ground where we can and then to stand our ground where we can't."
Clinton's biggest challengers, Obama and Edwards, stared into space. Hillary's campaign managers were more than pleased with their protégé. She had barked, but without biting.
Opinion polls released in recent days have shown that Hillary Clinton enjoys an advantage over her rivals, one that had commonly been considered her disadvantage earlier: her age, her experience, her often masculine toughness.
The debate between the Democratic Party's presidential candidates is to the campaign managers what the Milan fashion fair is to designers and the Detroit Auto Show to carmakers: a public display of their skills and power. They like to refer to themselves as the men behind the candidates, as helpers in the background. But that is mere coquetry. In fact they create the candidates. Advisors used to polish up images, but today they model the entire candidate, if they are allowed.
Party leaders used to tell their top candidates what to do, but now the advisors tell the candidates what they should be. According to Clinton advisor Blumenthal, the task consists of "manipulating symbols and images" to influence what voters expect from the candidates. Everything else is secondary to this task, he adds. The candidate's personality, even the subsequent governing. The permanent campaign is "the ideology of our age," he wrote in a book about Washington elites. And he didn't mean a lick of it as criticism.
Pussyfooter, Rainmaker And Steamroller
The seven men and one woman appeared in Charleston as living prototypes of the various schools of thought. In the damp and humid air of the American South, the archetypes known in the lingo of the advisors as Pussyfooter, Rainmaker and Steamroller could be inspected in almost clinical purity.
Hillary Clinton has been allotted the role of Pussyfooter, a type of politician who avoids making commitments early on, who can smoothly change his or her position, who serves the voters' need for a screen upon which to project what they think and feel, and who doesn't spoil their dreams by espousing overly harsh views.
"How would you define the word liberal and would you use this word to describe yourself?" Clinton was asked last night. She replied that she disliked the word because it has been "made to stand on its head" and added. "I prefer the word progressive, which has a real American meaning, going back to the Progressive Era at the beginning of the 20th century. I consider myself a modern progressive, someone who believes strongly in individual rights and freedoms."
And so she continued. She said yes and she said no. She confirmed and denied. Catlike, she walked through the entire political china shop without breaking anything. She rejected nuclear energy, but not out of principle. She argued that the war in Iraq should be ended, but not abruptly. In the field of foreign policy, she said it is important to talk, but not with just anyone.
This way of measuring the options and carefully testing the ground gives Hillary Clinton a presidential air -- an intentional side effect planned by her advisors. The candidate has to talk like a woman who already bears responsibility for the entire country and not just for the state of New York. The audience must be able to see in her the future president.
In Charleston, Clinton flatly rejected the possibility that she as president would sit down at the negotiating table with the charlatans of this world -- the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea and Iran. "I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes," she said. "I don't want to make a situation even worse but I certainly agree that we need to go back to diplomacy, which has been turned into a bad word by this administration, and I will pursue very vigorous diplomacy, and I will use a lot of high-level presidential envoys to test the waters, to feel the way."
"But certainly we're not going to just have our president meet with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and, you know, the presidents of North Korea, Iran and Syria until we know better what the way forward would be."
It was a lecture aimed at Obama, who had embarrassed himself. The political novice, who has been active in federal politics as senator for only two years, had allowed himself to get carried away. He answered one question by saying that, as president, he would immediately talk also to Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. After all, he said, John F. Kennedy had spoken to the Soviets too. The great Obama suddenly seemed very small.
Obama as Rainmaker
His strategists have picked the role of rainmaker for him -- without saying so out loud, of course. Native Americans considered the rainmaker to be a mystical person. With his knowledge of how to conjure spirits and change the weather, he earned the respect of his fellow men.
In politics, the rainmaker tries to eliminate the traditional party camps. He offers political mysticism, which is especially popular with the audience in difficult times. But it is better for him to remain silent on policy issues.
Indeed, Obama was able to evoke a changing political climate more impressively than any other Democrat. "People have an urgent desire for change in Washington," he exclaimed into the CNN cameras. "Washington has to change," he said, adding that "we don't just need a change in political parties in Washington. We've got to have a change in the attitudes of those who are representing America." Criticizing the influence of lobby groups, Obama insisted that "we've got to get the national interests up front as opposed to the special interests."
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