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Clinton's Challenge

Saving the Democrats from the Obama Effect

By Claus Christian Malzahn

Barack Obama has some interesting supporters, some of America's leading conservative commentators among them. They are hoping the Illinois senator will drive a final stake through the heart of the Clinton era. But the Democrats might suffer as well.

You can tell a lot about a candidate by taking a look at his or her supporters. Not just the cheering, chanting, flag-waving variety. Every candidate has those. But the others -- the ones not pushing into the front row at campaign events. Barack Obama has assembled a particularly noteworthy collection.

Take, for example, David Brooks. The New York Times columnist is one of the most important conservative columnists in the United States and has made a habit out of making the stomachs of liberals churn even before they've downed their morning cup of coffee. Recently, he seems to have discovered a certain admiration for the senator from Illinois. Barack Obama, he believes, would be a better president than Hillary Clinton -- partly because Obama adheres to a philosophy of "pessimistic optimism" that "detests anger as a motivating force." Furthermore, his past is not full of "inconsistencies and flip-flops." Brooks even mentions Obama in the same sentence as Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Stake through the Heart

What, it seems fair to ask, has gotten into Mr. Brooks that he suddenly gushes such praise for a Democrat? One almost suspects that he has cast aside his career as America's lead conservative thinker for one in philanthropy.

But Brooks is not the only member of Obama's conservative fan club. George Will, the Washington Post columnist and unrepentant fan of Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani, has likewise hopped aboard the Obama bandwagon. Will is already looking forward to Obama's nomination driving a stake through the heart of the Clinton era. Obama, he wrote recently, is the "un-Edwards and un-Huckabee" -- referring to Democratic candidate John Edwards and Republican Mike Huckabee. Rather, Obama is "an adult aiming to reform the world rather than an adolescent fantasizing mock-heroic 'fights' against fictitious villains."

And to round out the club of conservative Obama-maniacs, one shouldn't forget Karl Rove. Yes, the same Karl Rove who used to be known as George W. Bush's "brain" and spent years advising the president -- though he recently abandoned the Bush presidency's sinking ship. At the beginning of December, the great political strategist deigned to give the newcomer Obama a couple of important tips. Obama, he wrote, absolutely had to win in Iowa. At the time Rove penned his memo, the polls didn't look good for the Illinois senator, but Rove offered some encouraging words: Hillary may "come over as calculating and shifty," he wrote, but she also looks "in control." If Obama wanted to win, his attacks must be sharpened and become "more precise."

Purging America

Why the conservative support? Brooks, Will and Rove want to see Obama find success where they never did. It's not just about toppling the hated Clinton dynasty. Rather, it's to do with the desire to forever purge America of the political pillars represented by the 1968 protests, the Vietnam disaster and the Watergate catastrophe. Despite the Whitewater scandal and the Lewinsky affair, American conservatives have never quite managed to wipe the slate clean. Now, they are hoping that Obama can do it for them. Of course, should Obama manage to actually become the Democratic nominee, his new conservative supporters will in all likelihood fall all over themselves to cut him down -- by, for example, questioning his patriotism due to his having not supported the Iraq war.

It is almost unbelievable really: Barack Obama has managed to transform this election, which had been shaping up to be an anti-Bush vote, into an anti-Clinton referendum -- even if that might not have been his intention going in. The point is not to demonize Obama, nor to accuse him of being part of some sort of right-wing conspiracy. It would, after all, be a profoundly historical moment were an African-American to be elected president -- on par with the import of a woman moving into the Oval Office. But Obama's rise comes at a high price for the Democrats. The man from Illinois seems increasingly to be presenting himself as the candidate of some imaginary independent movement. Deep political roots in the soil of the Democratic party are difficult to perceive.

Obama's strategy has thus far been that of avoiding the concrete and embracing the general while branding all that which came before as belonging to some long-ago age of political prehistory. For Obama, the recent past is not to be divided into eight years of Bill Clinton (the struggle for equal opportunity for all, pay down of the federal debt, development of the information age and military intervention to prevent genocide) and eight years of George W. Bush (two abysmally-planned wars in Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11, a looming economic collapse and lack of faith in politics from coast to coast).

Hillary's Worst Nightmare

For Obama, the last two administrations are merely 16 years of "Washington culture," by which he means the "broken system" in the US capital. The problems in Washington "festered long before George Bush ever took office - problems that we've talked about year after year after year," said Obama.

It's an impressive bit of historical revisionism that was even applauded by some Democrats. John Edwards, who could eventually find himself as the vice presidential candidate on an Obama ticket, wasn't shy about joining in with his own bit of Clinton bashing. Hillary, he said, stands for the "status quo." Still, it was Hillary Clinton who, not all that long ago, helped a young, talented, African-American lawyer from Illinois win his campaign for the US Senate. That he would turn on her within such a short period of time is a scenario she likely didn't imagine even in her worst nightmares.

Obama criticizes Bill Clinton for his willingness to compromise -- yet Obama himself has not been above sucking up to the Republicans every now and then. He supported Vice President Dick Cheney's energy bill while most Democrats voted against it. Campaign tactics perhaps. Or opportunism.

In Europe, especially in Germany, the idea has taken hold that Obama is a leftist. What a misconception! Whereas Hillary has come up with a solid health care plan reminiscent of those in Europe -- and has no difficulty elucidating even its most arcane details -- Obama slips away like a bar of soap in the shower as soon as concrete issues are brought up. Should one nevertheless manage to corner him, it becomes all too apparent that when it comes to health care -- an issue that is perhaps more important to ordinary Americans than the troops in Baghdad -- Obama is to the right of Republican candidate Mitt Romney. Health care was the central domestic political issue for the Democrats. Obama looks ready to bury it.

Prince Charming or Sandman

No wonder, then, that Hillary Clinton has tears in her eyes. No matter what she does at the moment, it is wrong. She has been called emotionally "cold" -- a description that would never have been applied to her male predecessors. Now, following her emotional moment on Monday, her emotions are all over the headlines. She sounds anxious during her campaign appearances; Obama sounds full of meaning. She speaks of problems that have to be solved; Obama's events dissolve into orgies of pleasurable optimism. He glows, the women love him. She forces a smile, though most seem uninterested in her deep knowledge of the issues.

She had clearly not anticipated that a candidate without a platform would sail through the primaries as Obama has so far. The Democratic Party didn't either. The most recent political surveys, showing Hillary running second to Barack, give one the impression that God's own country has fallen into a deep, Sleeping Beauty-like slumber and is dreaming of the end of history. But Barack Obama, as pure as his intentions might be, is not playing the role of the Prince Charming -- rather, that of the Sandman.