In case you missed the news, Hillary Clinton has sewn up the Democratic primary and is well on her way back to the White House.
Former president Bill Clinton, as the nation’s first gentleman, will have to balance curtain selections with his job as an unofficial envoy to hot spots abroad. With the 2014 midterms just months away, if political strategists and television pundits can be believed, the race is already over.
They may well be right.
It stands without question that there is no figure on the stage today that can match her political prowess, the ocean-deep resume, or her ability to tap millions in a single fundraiser. The lure of the first woman president is an appealing, not-to-be-missed opportunity in many quarters. Conventional wisdom says there is no “Barack Obama,” no little-known senator with a great American story, big ears and a funny name waiting in the wings.
Senator Elizabeth Warren is thankfully and happily storming committee hearings with corrosive, pointed questions and, although he is enjoying the spotlight for now, a potential White House bid by Vice President Joe Biden has been met with derision at best. Then too, the list of supposed republican front-runners is replete with cultural extremists, do-or-die government kidnappers who have proven that they will “shoot the hostages” without hesitation, and scandal-ridden governors praying against possible indictments.
That being said, the 2016 presidential preference primary will be no cakewalk for the former first lady and Secretary of State. Clinton ’08, and even New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s latest travails, taught me never to bank on coronations—especially those the originate inside the Beltway or on the island of Manhattan. The fact is, we shouldn’t want one. Even if the media doesn’t always agree, a competitive and spirited primary is the linchpin of a strong republic. A heated primary–within reason of course– makes for a stronger nominee.
And speaking of unreasonable, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), whose recent television appearances have been rife with ridiculous attacks on Clinton’s heretofore-unannounced candidacy, has sent a clear signal that everything is on the table. While his vicious, kitchen-sink war is nothing short of despicable, the politically seasoned, erudite Clinton has a few things to worry about and not all of them are her doing—at least not directly.
Her success is highly dependent upon, among other things, her ability to repair fissures in her own left flank, recast the narrative around the fabled Clinton political machine and turn out less-than-enthusiastic black voters.
A powerful force in 2008 and 2012–fueled by a masterful, technologically driven grassroots campaign launched by Obama for America (OFA)– today “Big Left” is locked in a battle for the very soul of the Democratic Party that can be most accurately described as a circular firing squad. There appears to be no end in sight for rancorous fights over foreign policy, healthcare and immigration. On these issues, and others, the line has been drawn in the liberal sand. And, in case you haven’t noticed, somebody doused it in gasoline and set it on fire.
If you’re looking for a “happy medium” on Edward Snowden, drone warfare, and government spying, you will be sorely disappointed. The same is true, if to a lesser degree, for single-payer healthcare advocates. Comprehensive immigration reform, a now-dead-on-arrival package wasting away in the halls of Congress, will be a dish best served hot in 2016—especially for a republican party hell-bent on killing any pathway to citizenship, while reaping the benefits of immigrant labor. Their “let them work our fields, but keep them out of the voting booth” policy proposals are designed to “split the baby” in two.
American business clearly benefits from cheap labor, but handing over amnesty almost certainly means turning some deep red states, like Texas and Georgia, bright blue with 11 million new potential voters. As Ryan Lizza correctly posits, the die may already be cast. While the actual numbers are vigorously debated, the Big Left is up in arms over the record number of deportations exacted by the Obama Administration.
And it isn’t abundantly clear where Hillary Clinton stands on any of it.
In her time away from the State Department, she has deftly evaded any attempt to nail her down on key policy positions. That’s smart politics. But, there will come a time when she will have to answer. How she answers may mean the difference between becoming the first woman Commander-In-Chief and a quiet retirement in that beautiful farmhouse in leafy, bucolic Chappaqua.
If mending left-wing rifts were not enough, the Clintons will have to deal effectively with their own political house. Together, Hillary and Bill have made powerful friends during their decades in public life. But, they’ve also made a fair number of enemies. Whether out of political expediency or a devotion to keeping the White House in democratic hands, the Clintons will have to entice and welcome back into the fold the very people they once chucked onto the roadside. Her political future may well depend on those left-for-dead political carcasses that litter the highways and byways.
What was at first an informal “gatekeeper” list, started in tiny Little Rock, Arkansas when her husband was first elected state attorney general in 1976, has now morphed into a searchable color-coded spreadsheet. Not satisfied with a more traditional slip of paper, cloaked in a breast-coat pocket, the document, secret until now, tracks the names of lawmakers, donors and even journalists who have been deemed “traitors,” and the favors previously done for them. The data project ensured that the acts of the sinners and saints would never be forgotten.
The much-ballyhooed “hit list,” first revealed in “HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton” by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, assigns a numeric value to every person listed based on perceived slights and includes a “special circle of Clinton hell reserved for people who had endorsed Obama or stayed on the fence after Bill and Hillary had raised money for them, appointed them to a political post or written a recommendation to ice their kid’s application to an elite school.”
My political mentor once, rightly, told me, “There are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies.” No one knows this better than Hillary Clinton. If she wins the presidency, or even the primary for that matter, it will be because she re-examined that “black list” and worked hard to stitch together a new alliance of uncommon friends behind a common cause.
That won’t be easy.
Hillary Clinton, it must be said, is not responsible for the full of her husband’s legacy. Senator Paul and RNC chair Reince Priebus recently lobbed head-scratching personal assaults that looked more like fear-induced muscle spasms. Priebus even went on record saying everything—including Monica Lewinsky—is fair game. They seem to believe that reminding the world (or at least the republican base) about the ’90s-era Clinton White House, and specifically Mr. Clinton’s now infamous dalliances, will somehow alienate women voters.
One has to wonder if Priebus has stopped to look at what is happening in Congress and in republican-controlled state legislatures. Since 2010, hundreds of bills aimed at limiting access to healthcare and testing the limits of Roe v. Wade have been introduced in state legislatures across the county. Facts be damned, but according to Paul, the War on Women is over. Has he listened to Rush Limbaugh lately?
But that is not to say that Mrs. Clinton will remain unscathed. After all, she wasn’t exactly baking cookies and hosting teas during her tenure as first lady. She was a surefooted, policy-making partner. Her name wasn’t on the ballot, but in 1992 the American electorate fully embraced the “2-for-1” model embodied and extolled at the time by the Clinton political machine. Hillary Clinton is certainly not her husband, but if she decides to make a second bid for the highest office in the land, she will reasonably be asked where she stood then and stands now on critical issues. It is possible, if not wholly likely, that she will have to artfully rebuke her husband.
Bill Clinton’s two-term presidency, as well as his now infamous behavior on the 2008 campaign trail, may be problematic for at least one voting block: African-Americans. What was then heralded as a victory for bi-partisanship, “triangulation” was rampant in the Clinton era. A governing strategy first articulated by then Clinton advisor Dick Morris, triangulation was not without its victims. Black voters were asked to take it on the chin.
In his book No One Left to Lie To, the late Christopher Hitchens aimed a Klieg light on the Clinton presidency. Once in office, Hitchens wrote Clinton “began enacting welfare reform and anti-crime legislation that surpassed the ambitions of all but the most ideologically loyal Republicans–and routinely plundered the GOP platform for other policy ideas as well.” Hitchens issued a damning indictment on Bill Clinton’s proclivity towards racially divisive politics when it suited his purposes.
The price paid by black America, by its fabled “first black president,” continues to exact a hefty toll on the communities that can least afford it. The social safety net, presumed protected in the hands on a democratic administration, lay tattered and frayed in the wake of so-called “welfare reform” even before the first Bush was sworn in. Giving states more autonomy, effectively localizing the War on Poverty, came with disastrous effects, as the gaps in the safety net grew larger—a fact complicated further when the economy faltered and failed. Income inequality soared, a dividend we are still paying the tax on today.
Fewer people who truly needed help could actually get it. Disproportionate poverty in African-American communities, especially in the wake of the housing market bust when so many middle-class families lost their homes (and the wealth tied up in them), grew. The black middle class, once the pride of a nation and tied principally to home ownership, was eviscerated. Looking back, Clinton-era policies that promoted home ownership, advanced by President George W. Bush, were met with gladness at the time. Though for many, those policies proved to be a ticking time bomb as Wall Street swooped in with the remote trigger device known as credit default swaps. Meanwhile, states were (and still are) slashing cash benefits, reducing time limits and imposing strict work requirements on welfare applicants—in a time when there were no jobs to be had.
What’s more, Clinton-Gore once proudly announced the “lowest crime rates in a generation.” The 1994 anti-crime bill, touted as Clinton’s “top priority,” was met with open arms by republicans of that day. Then-California attorney general Dan Lungren said prisons and police are “the first line of defense” against crime, and “incarceration works,” according to a Los Angeles Times story. “So now, when we hear the [p]resident and many of his colleagues begin voicing eager support for the tough medicine Republicans have advocated for decades, we say: ‘Welcome aboard.’”
Among other elements, like the mythical lure of midnight basketball, the anti-crime legislation pushed for and signed by President Clinton was the new Federal “three strikes” law. “The overwhelming support for the measure touched off a nationwide get-tough-on-crime movement…” Matt Taibbi wrote in a 2013 Rolling Stone article. “…embraced especially by third-way-style Democrats, who seized upon the policy idea as a powerful weapon in their efforts to throw off their party’s bleeding-heart image and recapture the political center.”
The column, entitled “Cruel and Unusual Punishment: The Shame of Three Strikes Laws,” visits the impacts of a law that sends thousands to prison for life over crimes as trivial as stealing socks and is well worth the read. It notes with irony that Wall Street bankers never served a day in jail for their participation in causing the implosion of the housing market. There is ample blame to spread across multiple administrations—including the current one– but as Senator Warren said, nobody went to jail over credit default swaps.
It is also no coincidence that the term “super-predator” was popularized in the early ’90s. “Fear of super-predators and sensationalized media coverage led the federal government to increase its involvement in juvenile crime matters and promote grossly inappropriate sentencing guidelines for youthful offenders,” wrote Steve Drizin, a clinical law professor at Northwestern University School of Law.
Long before the prevalence of “stop-and-frisk” policing policies in urban economic centers, the men and boys incarcerated under “three strikes” and deemed “super-predators” were disproportionately black and brown.
Undaunted by any blowback from those policy decisions and outcomes, the Clintons set out in 2008 to recapture the White House. Importantly, Hillary Clinton fought hard to prove that she was indeed her own woman. Though, even as the scars had largely healed, Bill Clinton seemed to spend every waking moment ripping off the scabs. The unnecessary bloodletting was nothing short of cringe worthy for those of us who had come to respect the post-presidency work he had done in distressed communities around the globe.
From the outset, especially after then-candidate Obama stormed Iowa and solidified his own viability, Mr. Clinton seemed to have a difficult time reconciling the notion that a no-name, less-than-half-term U.S. Senator was winning the hearts of voters. He was pocketing endorsements and donations that once and most assuredly belonged to Hillary Clinton. Once skeptical, African-American voters defied their elected leaders in congress and black clergy who backed Clinton and turned out for Obama in droves in the wake of his Iowa caucus victory. For them, the dream of electing the nation’s first black president suddenly seemed real. For the first time, we could see Dr. King’s “mountaintop.”
The former president was not amused. The Obama campaign was “the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen,” he said.
It was a curious posture for a man who had been universally beloved in the black community. It may not have been so tragic, if he had stopped there. He didn’t.
“It was unbelievable down here in 2007 and 2008,” said Bridget Tripp, a Democratic organizer from Lexington, South Carolina who supported Obama in that year’s primary told CNN. “Bill Clinton was going through downtown Columbia calling Barack Obama a racist.”
Black voters, who once greeted both Clintons with admiration, soured. They accounted for more than half of the South Carolina primary voters. Obama won almost 80% of them.
“The loss was a stinging defeat for the Clintons,” wrote CNN’s Peter Hamby. “[The Clinton’s were] a Southern power couple who viewed their longstanding friendships in the African-American community as crucial bulwark against any Democratic foe.”
Hillary Clinton never recovered and many are still blaming her husband for the loss in South Carolina.
Without a doubt, should she decide to run again, Hillary Clinton will capture the lion’s share of the black vote no matter who her primary (or general election) opponent is. The real question will be enthusiasm and, by extension, turnout. “… There are some lingering questions, if not antipathy, towards them,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton who is among President Obama’s staunchest supporters. Clinton 2016 will have to do more than repair old wounds; they’ll need to all but erase them.
Do I think it possible? Absolutely. Nobody forgives quite like black voters and there is no more skilled political figure than Hillary Clinton.
Her proficiency and leadership on issues, both foreign and domestic, will be tough for any opponent to effectively assail. It will be rough rowing but, in the coming months, a Clinton candidacy means she will begin spelling out key positions in an attempt to cure fractures on the left. Furthermore, no one knows the Clinton narrative better than the Clintons themselves, and no one is better situated to re-write that history.
However, in my estimation, the third challenge is the most crucial and defining. Firing up black voters may prove to be the most difficult to surmount. The ’90s are ancient history for most, and many voters weren’t even born then. By all accounts, the Clintons have rectified fissures with President Obama himself—even if acrimony persists between their respective teams. After all, the president nominated her to lead the State Department and has reportedly even began taking counsel from the former president—who he affectionately called the “Explainer-In-Chief.” Leaving Bill alone at the microphone with the presidential seal behind him is one thing, but that doesn’t mean black America has forgotten. I am betting they haven’t. Somebody, somewhere is collecting videotape from the 2008 campaign trail.
The highlight reel could be damning.
Bill Clinton famously described President Obama as “luckier than a dog with two di**s” in facing a challenger like Mitt Romney in 2012. Hillary will have to be thrice as lucky.
Author and filmmaker Goldie Taylor is a former political consultant and MSNBC contributor. Her column #BreakingBlack appears on theGrio.com every Monday. You can follow Goldie on Twitter @goldietaylor.