My Vote, Reluctantly

"I can tell you, comrades, with all the brainwork we have to do nowadays, You would not rob us of our repose, would you, comrades? You would not have us too tired to carry out our duties? Surely none of you wishes to see Jones back."

-"Squealer" in Animal Farm, chapter 6
George Orwell
1944

And so it goes, that the events of the past week in the Democratic presidential race reminded me of the great World War II-era novel in which the animals, who take over the farm from the oppressive human beings, come to forget that Farmer Jones was in fact no worse than their current regime.

It is in that context that I read this past week the eloquent commentary on the Op-Ed pages by Caroline Kennedy, daughter of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Caroline wrote "I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans."

This fits nicely with the soaring, inspirational rhetoric of the Obama campaign, infused with a post-partisan appeal. Perhaps his campaign theme was best summarized when on December 2, 2007 the Illinois Senator said at a fund-raiser in Boston “I don’t want to spend the next four years re-arguing the same partisan arguments that we had all through the 1990s. I don’t want to pit red America against blue America."

And Obama has been drawing huge, rancorous crowds for months, drawing comparisons to a youthful, energetic JFK and largely avoiding detailed descriptions of policy proposals. But his rhetoric criticizing "the same partisan arguments" of the 1990s and the urge to "build a bridge back to the 1990s" has touched a chord with millions of Americans, disproprotionately (understandably) the youth whom it appears Caroline Kennedy has been talking to.

I find it a curious, disturbing argument, though no more curious than the remarks of Senator Kennedy reported in a 1/28/08 article in the New York Times. Obama, he said, "will be a president who refuses to be trapped in the patterns of the past,”whose campaign will help the nation "rise above the old politics that parses us into separate groups and puts us at odds with one another." Then, we read, the Massachusetts senator headed west with Obama, "helping him firm up support from unions and Hispanics, as well as the party base." So much, I guess, for avoiding "pars(ing) us into separate groups."

At least Ted appears to be avoiding the naivete infecting Caroline and many of the Obama supporters. The latter, could, of course, question the Clinton campaign's embrace of huge campaign funds from the pharmaceutical and energy industries. But, alas, widening the rift between generations, between young and old, has been more enticing to the Obama contingent. It is ironic that the first black candidate with a serious chance at the presidency, who has assiduously avoided a race-based campaign, has been supported by multitudes embracing distinctions predicated on age.

Obama himself should not escape criticism here. Typically, in November, 2007 he told Fox News "I have no doubt that we represent the kind of change Senator Clinton can't deliver on.... and part of it is generational." A candidate who wants to bridge the divide between black and white and increase it between old and young cannot apply a salve to the nation's wounds. He has, as in this interview with the National Journal, referred to Social Security as a "crisis," which New York Times columnist Paul Krugman noted is "in large part.... the result of decades of scare-mongering about Social Security’s future from conservative ideologues, whose ultimate goal is to undermine the program."

It is an appeal to the young voter, who has, throughout, his life, been told by Republicans and the corporate media that Social Security is facing a crisis which it demonstrably has not. Further, it is an element of Obama's post-partisan appeal. Krugman quotes Obama as claiming "“we can’t tackle the big problems that demand solutions” because “politics has become so bitter and partisan.”

The Illinois senator and I have been living in different worlds. A Democratic Congress was elected to end the war; instead, Democrats have made only half-hearted attempts to end it and generally have acquiesced in President Bush's effort to continue it. A recession looms- and Speaker Pelosi and President Bush come together in mere days to forge a stimulus package- not including extended unemployment benefits, home heating assistance, a minimum wage increase, or a public works program, all items one might expect Democrats, and liberals, to promote. (Even conservative Republican Mike Huckabee has recommended a program to give the unemployed jobs building highways!) Bill Clinton was impeached (though acquitted) for lying to a grand jury about sexual activity- sex!- and barely a peep has been heard from this Democratic congress about impeachment- and oversight of the Executive has been grievously insufficient. Partisanship? Hardly. As Gary Younge has written in The Nation, "the terrible truth about the past seven years is not that the country has been divided but that the wrong side has been winning. The right has fought for its agenda and has never been in doubt about who its enemy is." (Even John McCain, whom many Republicans excoriate for "sticking his finger in the eye of" conservatives, has taken to attacking some Democrats for waving "the white flag in surrender in Iraq.")


The obsession among some Democrats with bipartisanship has serious practical implications. The New York Times, in an article dated February 3, 2008, tells of residents of Illinois complaining to Senator Obama about radioactive leaks tolerated by the Exelon Corporation.


Mr. Obama scolded Exelon and federal regulators for inaction and introduced a bill to require all plant owners to notify state and local authorities immediately of even small leaks. He has boasted of it on the campaign trail, telling a crowd in Iowa in December that it was “the only nuclear legislation that I’ve passed.”

“I just did that last year,” he said, to murmurs of approval.

A close look at the path his legislation took tells a very different story. While he initially fought to advance his bill, even holding up a presidential nomination to try to force a hearing on it, Mr. Obama eventually rewrote it to reflect changes sought by Senate Republicans, Exelon and nuclear regulators. The new bill removed language mandating prompt reporting and simply offered guidance to regulators, whom it charged with addressing the issue of unreported leaks.

The bill eventually died, but nevertheless is testimony to bi-partisan politics as usual. And while Democrats pursue the moral high ground of bipartisan purity, Republicans invariably are at work pursuing conservative legislation that continues to drag the middle class ground.

Senator Clinton is not the perfect progressive candidate, as demonstrated by her arguable coziness with special interests and regrettable vote in 2002 authorizing force in Iraq, indicate. And Barack Obama deserves credit for wise judgement in opposing that authorization, though he was able to do so from a cozy, liberal legislative district in a nominally Democratic state. Many Democrats who voted with the President no doubt feared that otherwise they would be accused by the GOP of a lack of patiotism and a desire not to "support the troops." (Over the past year, one of John McCain's most aggressive supporters, Independent Senator Joe Lieberman, has nearly accused Democrts who opposed the surge as treason- even as he has, not coincidentally, maintained the admiration of the mainstream media, who describe him favorably as a "maverick" or "centrist" man of integrity.) The confidence that a Senator Obama would have voted against authorization of military force is belied by two related factors: State Senator Obama apparently on six occasions availed himself of a rule quirk in Illinois that permits a legislator to vote one way on a bill- and then make a public statement supporting the opposite point of view (Obama says that he mistakenly hit the wrong button each time); and his unfortunate tendency to miss controversial votes in the U.S. Senate, such as the condemnation of moveon.org for its Petraeus ad and the declaration of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a "foreign terrorist organization."

This suggests a man who has the right perspective and positions, but may lack the fortitude or persistence ideal in a progressive president. The positions held by Mrs. Clinton, generally like Mr. Obama and unlike the Republican field, are sound and sensible, whether on health care (where she unquestionably supports universal coverage), taxation, energy independence, or education. And I have no doubt that Mrs. Clinton possesses the knowledge, industriousness, and determination which would help advance the progressive agenda. Thus, in an imperfect field, one lacking a candidate who would make poverty and the slow decline of the middle class his focus, or one who would make environmental degradation his focus (and who, presciently, supported Gulf War I and opposed Gulf War II), I'll cast my vote for the candidate who is more likely to effect the change we Democrats know is necessary. That is Hillary Clinton.

(And what of Farmer Jones? Really, he was no worse than Napoleon and the crowd of dictatorial animals which succeeded him, though the rhetorical question "surely none of you wishes to see Jones back," helped convince the animals otherwise. And surely, President Kennedy must have been better than Presidents Johnson and Clinton? Right? Right?)