The Case for telling Hillary to GO
The New Republic just recently featured an article by Jonathan Chait entitled, “No Really, You Should Go: Wretched rationalizations for Hillary Clinton’s kamikaze campaign.” This article was surprising not only due to its refreshing bluntness, but also due to it coming from The New Republic, which could arguably be called the DLC’s mouthpiece or, at least, the mouthpiece for proponents of socio-economic policy like The Third Way.
For The New Republic to be calling on Hillary to get out of the race should sound the alarm.
Here’s some of Chait’s analysis, which I found to be quite on target:
Last week, Senator Pat Leahy suggested that Hillary Clinton ought to quit the presidential race. How insensitive! How boorish! Pundits gasped, Clinton took umbrage, and even Barack Obama was forced to concede that Clinton has the right to run for as long as she desires.
The persistent weakness of American liberalism is its fixation with rights and procedures at any cost to efficiency and common sense. Democrats’ reluctance to push Clinton out of the race is the perfect expression of that delicate sensibility.
There is some point at which a candidate’s chance of winning becomes so low that her right to continue is outweighed by the party’s interest in preparing for the general election. Does Clinton have a chance to become president? Sure. So does Ralph Nader. Clinton’s chances are far closer to Nader’s than to either Obama’s or John McCain’s.
Chait’s comparison of Hillary to Nader continues,
Anyone who tried to talk sense into a Ralph Nader supporter in 2000 probably heard some version of this rationale. Giving the voters more candidates is democracy, man. The decision to run is an act of civic virtue that may not be analyzed for its real-world effects. Nader himself dismissed Leahy’s call for Clinton to withdraw as “political bigotry.” He urged, “Listen to your own inner citizen First Amendment voice. This is America. Just like every other citizen, you have a right to run.”
The fact is that all sincere and practical analysis gives Hillary little to no chance of winning this election. So, she’s just running for democracy now, right? What follows is what I found to be Chait’s most piercing criticism of the “pro-Clinton should keep running” camp.
Some have gamely insisted that a long campaign actually helps the Democrats, as evidenced by high primary turnout and new voter registration in states like Pennsylvania. But, to believe this argument, you’d have to believe that many of the voters flocking to the primaries would otherwise not have voted in the general election–an absurdity, given that even the high Democratic primary turnout is a fraction of normal general election turnout. You’d have to ignore Obama’s foregone opportunities to start organizing nationally and making his general election pitch. And you’d have to explain away the fact that, in recent weeks, Obama has gone from leading McCain in the polls to trailing. (Clinton has trailed McCain for months; now her deficit is growing.)
Hillary is the member of a party for a reason – parties work together for a greater good, not to self-destruct. This is a call for practicality over misplaced idealism.
