Original Intent

Antonin Scalia, lately departed Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, will likely be best-remembered for his advocacy of the “doctrine of original intent”.  Under this doctrine, Justice Scalia asserted that modern Americans should be guided by the ideas of the Founding Fathers, as revealed in the precise words of the Constitution of 1789 (as amended).

I mostly agree.  Where I differ with Justice Scalia is in his belief that the Founders – most of whom had legal training and/or significant judicial or legislative experience – would have drawn up the Constitution without reference to the tradition of the English Common Law, under which judges had, for many centuries, “found” new law by applying existing laws to new situations.

 

But that’s an argument for another time.

Today, I want to note that the Republican leadership of the United States Senate, and particularly, the eight Republican Senators on the Judiciary Committee, have announced that they will not consider any nominee to replace Justice Scalia offered by President Obama.

And I’d like to suggest the application of the logic of “original intent”, as enunciated by Justice Scalia, to their refusal.

Now, let’s be clear about this.  There is absolutely nothing in the Constitution which suggests that a President in his last year in office cannot nominate a Justice to the Supreme Court.  

While most of the Founders were still very much alive, President John Adams – who had been defeated for re-election by Thomas Jefferson (and Aaron Burr) – appointed his Secretary of State, John Marshall, to serve as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.   This appointment is generally considered the best, and most consequential, judicial appointment in American history.

Adams appointed Marshall on January 20, 1801 – months after he had been defeated for re-election and just six weeks before his “lame duck” presidency was due to expire.  The “lame duck” Senate confirmed Marshall one week later, and Marshall officially assumed his duties on March 4 – the day on which his cousin, Thomas Jefferson, was sworn in as Adams’ successor.

So let’s not kid ourselves.  If the Founders had anything like an “original intent” about late-term presidents not appointing justices, no one told John Adams - or John Marshall, for that matter.

But let’s go a step further and discuss the Senate leadership’s refusal to consider any nominee Mr. Obama names. 

Not consider, and then reject that nominee. 

Refuse to consider him.

I’d like to suggest that you take a break here and find a copy of the Declaration of Independence – the original expression of the Founders’ “original intent”.  

Read it carefully.  Not just the familiar parts at the beginning and end, but the long list of grievances which the Founders believed justified them in taking up arms against King George III.

Note the first three grievances, which accuse King George of failing to do his job, by refusing to pass necessary laws, and by interfering with the ability of colonial governments to pass necessary laws.

Note the sixth grievance, complaining of the King’s refusal to permit the elections of colonial legislatures, thus making it impossible for the colonies do necessary legislative work.

Pretty clearly, our nation’s Founders thought a ruler who refused to do his job had forfeited his right to govern, and justified them in rebelling against him.  Four of their first six grievances concerned precisely this – the royal neglect of duty.

Now, ask yourself this:  What do you suppose the Founders would have said about a handful of legislators who announced their refusal to do their job – for the next eleven months – thus leaving the highest court in the land understaffed?

I suggest that, in terms of their “original intent”, the Founders would have considered that the American people are entirely justified in removing those legislators from office.

And since there is no legal mechanism for doing so, I suggest that the Founders would have considered us justified in exercising what they called the "right of rebellion", i.e., removing them by extralegal means.

If necessary.

In the years leading up to the American Revolution, Patriot activists in Boston and other cities often expressed their displeasure with oppressive Royal officers by tarring and feathering them, then riding them out of town on a fence rail.

If the Senate Republican leadership continues to refuse to do its job – by considering President Obama’s forthcoming nominee to replace Justice Scalia – perhaps we should take a page from the late Justice’s book.

Apply the Founder’s “original intent”.

With a bucket of tar and a brush.

Learn from This

This is to the young Americans who have rallied in such numbers – and with such passion – to the banner of Bernie Sanders. 

First, I’ve been with you all along - and I still am.  In the wake of the April 26 primaries, which nearly closed the door on winning the nomination - I've just sent Bernie another contribution.   

And you would have been with me four decades ago, when the Establishment was Richard Nixon, on the Republican side, and Lyndon Johnson, on the Democratic side.  And when that Establishment supported the Vietnam War.

As we sang in those days, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

I’m writing this now because we have been fighting an uphill battle, and it now seems certain we will not win.   That doesn’t mean we should give up.  We should re-double our efforts. 

But if we don’t make it – if Bernie doesn’t overcome staggering odds and win the Democratic nomination and the White House – it’s important that younger American learn from this experience.

And the lesson to be learned is this:  Don’t give in.  Don’t lose heart.  And above all, don’t join the Establishment.

No doubt, in the course of this campaign, you’ve encountered people my age – or your parents’ age – whose argument is along these lines:  “I’d love to vote for Bernie, but I’m afraid he can’t win.  So I’m voting for Hillary.”

It’s a fool’s argument, but for several generations, millions of Americans have bought it.  And as long as people continue to buy it, nothing much will change.

The problem with this argument is that it’s based on a fundamental misreading of History.  We don’t do a very good job of teaching History in this country – as you no doubt know.  That’s why, whenever the media wants some academic type to comment on elections, they reach out to a Political Science type.

But Political Science is all about winning this election, which – ultimately – comes down to playing by today’s rules.  History deals with longer, slower processes, of changing the rules - which starts with changing hearts and minds.

Not winning elections.

If you look back at History, it usually worked that way.  Gandhi didn’t free India by referendum.  Martin Luther King, Jr., never ran for office.  Nelson Mandela did run, but his revolution had succeeded before his candidacy became possible.

Revolution is a political process, but it doesn't usually begin as an electoral process.

The Party of Lincoln – the Republican Party – started as a third party with no shot at winning the White House.  That was in 1854.  Six years later, they put Abe Lincoln in the White House, and three years later, he signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

But the Republican Party's founders took a yuge risk when they quit the two major parties - the Whigs and the Democrats - to start a third party opposed to slavery.

And a third party is exactly what we need right now.

Let's go back to the words we’ve all heard this year:  “I’d love to vote for Bernie, but I’m afraid he can’t win.  So I’m voting for Hillary.”

Those words are a trap.  The argument makes sense in the short run.  Conventional candidates always have a better chance of winning this year.

But the problem is, it’s always “this year”. 

And we never get to someday.

So this is how it plays out.  Assume Hillary is the nominee.  For the past few months, she’s been saying a lot of the same things Bernie is saying.  But she hasn’t always said these things.  She’s changed her position on almost every issue she’s running on, because – precisely because – she’s a “pragmatist”.

But let's say she wins the Democratic nomination.  As a conventional politician – a pragmatist – she’ll spend a month or so making nice with Bernie’s supporters, and saying the things we want to hear, to “unify the party”. 

But by September, she’ll be running toward the middle - to get the "undecided" voters.

And, if she wins, and becomes the first woman president in American history, she’ll immediately start running to become the first two-term woman president.

She won’t take big risks.  She won’t do the things she’s talking about now.

She'll run for re-election.

She's a pragmatist, remember?

She’ll promise, quietly, to do all the big things in her second term.

The only problem is, no one – at least, no one not named Teddy Roosevelt – has ever accomplished big things in his second term.

That’s History, too.  You can check.

If Hillary wins the nomination, a lot of us will – reluctantly – decide to support her.  And some younger voters will start thinking of themselves as Democrats.

And that’s where the trap springs shut. 

The two-party system has survived, all this time, on the notion of “the lesser of two evils”.

You start off wanting change, and hoping to force one of the major parties to change.  And then, when it doesn’t, you either drop out - or you sign on with that major party.

You work to change it from within.

Except that it doesn't change.

You do.

Slowly, inexorably, you become one of those people who say things like, “I’d love to vote for Bernie, but I’m afraid he can’t win.  So I’m voting for Hillary.”

Except the names change, of course.  And when you say it, it’s four decades later.

And not much has changed.

So here's what I'm saying.  Don’t change.

Fight hard, now, for Bernie.  But if we don’t win this time, don’t join the Establishment.

That hasn't worked for my generation, or your parents' generation.  It won't work for you.

Instead, keep fighting – even if, like Abraham Lincoln – you have to start a third party.  Or join one.

There's only one way out of the "lesser of two evils" trap.  And that's to refuse to play.

And to build something that's not evil.

There’s One Born Every Minute

In this country, liberal and center-left citizens like to imagine that they are smarter than those who identify as conservatives.  After all, they believe in evolution, not creationism.  They accept, even if they don’t exactly understand, the science behind global climate change.  They listen to NPR, instead of watching FOX News.

It is, of course, gratifying to think oneself as being on the side of the well-informed, high-minded, and sophisticated.  To say nothing of being able to pass along the occasional “can-you-believe-those-people?” post on social media.

The problem is this.  In terms of real-world politics, American liberals are – hands down – the dumbest people in the country. 

Liberals have - in almost every controversy - history, science, economics, sociology, and fundamental logic on their side.  They live in one of the most-educated – if not exactly best-educated – societies in human history.  They have at their disposal unprecedented avenues of communication.  And, on the whole, they are wealthier than their less-sophisticated fellow-citizens who vote for conservative candidates.

Yet, with all these advantages, liberals have – since 1968 – been in steady retreat before the forces of the Right in American politics.  Since the election of Richard Nixon – and with ever-increasing faiblesse since the election of Ronald Reagan – the American Left has alternated between rear-guard actions and ignominious surrender all along the battle-front.

The reason is, partly, that the American Left lacks vision.  It also lacks leadership, organization, and a political party which expresses its agenda.

But the fundamental problem with the American Left is that it is unbelievably dumb.

Aaron Sorkin said it perfectly, in the opening speech he wrote for Jeff Daniels on The Newsroom:  “If liberals are so f**king smart, how come they lose so god-damn always?”

The answer is, because they aren’t nearly as smart as they think they are.

There are a great many ways in which I could illustrate this point.  There’s the fact that American liberals – especially the younger ones – don’t bother voting in off-year elections.  Conservatives show up to vote for school boards, local governing bodies, state legislatures, and – in mid-term years – Congress.

Liberals, not so much.

As a result, the Republican Party has gradually gotten control of the re-districting process in over 30 states, a fact which allows it to draw the voting districts for state legislatures – and for the House of Representatives.

For years, in congressional elections, more Americans have voted for Democrats than have voted for Republicans – yet the House of Representatives remains solidly Republican, because the state legislatures draw districts which guarantee that outcome.

You’d think smart people would understand this, but the evidence is, they’re clueless.

Another instance of intellectual failure on the part of American liberals is their addiction to running candidates for high office who don’t actually have the experience and vision to lead the country. 

Since I was old enough to vote, the Democratic Party has managed to elect three Presidents:  Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama.  Each of these men was very attractive and appealing.  Each had a great “story” to tell.

None turned out to be very effective. 

Now, personally, I love Jimmy Carter .  I believe he is the greatest ex-President since John Quincy Adams.  But there’s no question that his presidency was a flop, nor it there any doubt that it made possible the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 - which turned out to be a disaster of historic proportions.

Bill Clinton was more successful, if you set aside the fact that his administration was largely dedicated to dismantling the great legacy of past Democrats – FDR, Truman, JFK and LBJ – if on a slower timetable than a Republican would have preferred. 

But Clinton did one truly unforgivable things.  After he lied to us all about Monica Lewinsky, he refused to step down.  And this is another instance of liberals being unbelievably dumb.  After Lewinsky, Clinton was damaged goods.  In the middle of his second term, he was a lame as any lame-duck could be.

But liberals went to battle to keep him on, instead of urging him to resign and make Al Gore President.  

In 2000, despite the stench of the Clinton scandals, Al Gore lost the White House by five electoral votes.  Flip any state – even the smallest – and he wins.  Change 600 votes in Florida, and he is President, not George W. Bush.

Now, call me crazy, but I don’t see any way an incumbent President Al Gore – with two years to establish himself as President, and put the Clinton sleaze behind him – doesn’t handily defeat a goofball like George W. Bush.

Any reasonably intelligent, half-way sophisticated political mind would have seen the advantages of dumping Clinton and making Gore president in 1998, with a head-start toward the Election of 2000. 

But not America’s liberals.  They dug in to fight for Clinton – and look what it cost us!

Which brings me to the strongest illustration of American liberals being dumb.  For decades, they have repeatedly allowed themselves to be suckered by the Democratic Party’s insistence on nominating candidates who aren’t really liberal at all – and voting for them because they’re “the lesser of two evils”.

Which means, of course, that the Democratic Party – which never has to pay a price for nominating middle-of-the-road, pro-establishment candidates – keeps right on doing it, and then frightening liberal voters with the boogey-man of a Republican victory.

And here's the funny thing.  Those knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing, low-brow troglodytes in the TEA Party have proved to be a whole lot smarter.   They refuse to vote for Republican candidates who aren’t conservative enough to suit them – and they've used that threat to gain control of the party and move it ever further to the right.

Which argues that maybe this country’s conservatives aren’t so dumb, after all.

And maybe its liberals aren’t nearly as smart as they’d like to think.

Meeting Objections #2: Bernie Won't Get Anything Done

Continuing my humble offerings to Bernie supporters who don't want to let the usual Establishment objections go by, here is the longer form of a short case for why he would do better than Hillary or, for that matter, President Obama.

The suggestion that a hostile Congress would prevent Bernie from passing any of the legislation he proposes is plausible, in the short term, but it ignores history.

Beyond the exercise of executive powers, which are available to any chief executive, a President has two basic ways of dealing with a hostile Congress.

First, the President can negotiate with the leaders of the House and Senate.

Second, the President can rouse a might wave of public opinion to persuade, or frighten, Congress to do the right thing – however reluctantly.  

Let’s take these one at a time:

Option A:  Negotiating with Congress

Negotiating with Congress is mainly a matter of experience.  You have to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away … you know the song. 

If you want the best candidate to negotiate with Congress, you might be thinking Trump, but I assume no one reading this blog will long entertain that thought.  Assuming you want someone who’ll negotiate for the right sort of policies, it’s either Hillary or Bernie.

So let's examine their backgrounds.

Hillary Clinton has impressive experience dealing with Congress.  As First Lady, she led her husband’s negotiations with Congress for a major reform of our health care laws.  She failed, but without doubt she learned a lot in the process.  Then, for eight years – from 2001 to 2009 – she was a member of the Senate.  No doubt she learned a lot there, too.

And there’s no question that, as Secretary of State, she did a lot of high-level negotiating – though mostly with foreign leaders, not with Congress.

But – and no one seems to remember this – Bernie Sanders has been a member of the Senate for slightly longer than Hillary – nine years.

And before that, he spent sixteen years in the House.

And before that, he served four terms as Mayor of Burlington, Vermont.

That’s a ton of negotiating experience.  So why does everyone insist that Hillary has the edge in this area?  And why are we willing to let this go, without an argument?

Option B:  Rallying Public Opinion

The big difference between the candidates lies in their ability to rouse massive public opinion to support their agendas.

Teddy Roosevelt called this presidential power “the bully pulpit” – in those days, the adjective “bully” meant “excellent” – and he used it fully.  So did his cousin, Franklin Roosevelt.

A President who can connect with the people, and who takes the time to rally them to support his policies, can often force the powers-that-be to back down.

That’s why the Establishment fears Bernie (and Trump, for that matter), but seems comfortable with Hillary.

If a future President Clinton sits down at a table with the leaders of the Congress, she will walk in with a half-dozen aides.  She’ll speak their language and drive a hard bargain.  She’s very smart, and incredibly well-informed.  She’s a policy wonk – like President Obama.  She'll have all the details at her mental fingertips.

But when President Sanders sits down, he will, figuratively speaking, walk in with more than a few aides.  He’ll also bring millions of people with him. 

For the past seven years, many who voted for President Obama have been frustrated by his reluctance to use his best gifts – his ability to speak and educate – to rally support behind good causes.

This failure will probably go down in history as his legacy.  He’s a great public speaker, a natural teacher – but he has dealt with those who oppose him in isolation.

When he sat down at the negotiating table, he was alone.  He never really invited the people to come with him.

And that's where Bernie comes in.  He not only has the ability to rally the people, he's made that the core of his message.  It's not just about him.  It's about us.  

There’s no question Bernie has the experience and ability – and, more important, the will – to rally ordinary people to put pressure on Congress (and even the Supreme Court) to fix a corrupt system.  

So it comes down to whom you’d prefer to negotiate for you – Hillary, more or less on her own, flanked by a half-dozen aides - or Bernie, backed by millions of aroused Americans.

My thinking is, we've tried the very-smart-detail-oriented-president-flanked-by-aides approach for seven years.  I think it's time we tried the tribune-of-the-people approach for a while.

Hillary vs. Bernie: Answering Objection #1

Supporters of Bernie Sanders have a lot going for them – passion, fellowship, anger, and deep admiration and affection for a candidate who has spent a lifetime laboring for the causes he believes in.

All of that is essential.

But from here on, the battle will turn on our ability to persuade people who do not yet “Feel the Bern”.  We’ll be dealing with the skeptical, the timid, and the unconvinced.  We’ll be talking with earnest people who have heard some journalist or political scientist pontificating on “the real world”.

And addressing those skeptical, timid, unconvinced or earnest citizens will require more than youthful – or I-used-to-be-youthful – enthusiasm.

In the next few posts, I will offer suggestions for handling some common objections by those who aren’t yet convinced.

Objection #1:  Bernie Can’t Win.

Answer A:  How Do You Know?

Assuming you, or your interlocutor, doesn’t want to get into complex, strategic considerations of caucuses and primaries, delegates and super-delegates, swing states and electoral math, the simplest answer is, “How do you know?”

Once the nomination process is over, a presidential election always comes down to a choice between two living, breathing, flawed human beings.

Loyalists on both sides will vote for their parties’ nominees, and the people in the middle – the people who decide nearly every election – will make the final choice.

And they will make it based on the two people who are still running.

So it’s always a match-up issue.  Who wins always depends almost as much on the opponent as on your own candidate.

We don’t know who the match-up will be, so how can we predict?  Some opponents will match up better against Bernie; others will match up better against Hillary.

Our job is to pick the best Democratic candidate we can, and let the Republicans pick theirs.

Answer B:  Bernie Is Pretty Good at Campaigning.

Bernie Sanders has been persuading people to vote for him for a long time.  He started running for office in the early 1970s – losing for both governor and senator before being elected Mayor of Burlington in 1981.

He served four terms as Mayor, then eight terms in the House of Representatives, before being elected to the Senate in 2006.  He was re-elected in 2012.

That’s a lot of campaign experience – and a lot of wins:  four for mayor, eight for Congress, two for the Senate.  And this from a Jewish guy with a Brooklyn accent, an avowed socialist, running in Vermont.

Hillary Clinton has run for office three times.  She was elected Senator from New York in 2000, and re-elected in 2006.  She ran for President in 2008, and lost.

If experience counts, Bernie has run in more than five times as many elections as Hillary, and won seven times as many.

And after the New Hampshire primary, Hillary's campaign seems - as it was in 2008 - to be having problems.

If experience is a factor in this campaign, running for office – and getting elected – are an enormous skill set to have mastered. 

Who's the master here?

Imagine

There are times when it’s pleasant to imagine how things might have been different.

Because I’ve always been interested in history and politics, I sometimes imagine what might have happened had one or two things shifted just a tiny bit.

My favorite alternate reality begins by imagining that Teddy Roosevelt had never made that silly, unconsidered promise not to seek a third term in 1908.

By 1912, Teddy had his party’s conservative establishment on the run.  Given his popularity and the enormous support he could rally by means of the “bully pulpit”, the possibilities would have been stunning.

 

Had TR run for a third term, he might well have taken the United States decisively – even irreversibly – in the direction of a social democracy, anticipating Europe by decades. 

And that’s not even to discuss how much early American intervention into World War I would have altered the tragic outcome of that war.

I spend less time imagining that someone had stopped Sirhan Sirhan from assassinating Bobby Kennedy on the night Bobby won the 1968 California primary.

I’m not sure RFK would have won the Democratic nomination that year – given the immense control LBJ wielded over the Democratic Party.  But it’s hard to imagine that RFK wouldn’t have made it to the Oval Office in 1972, or 1976.  And from there, it’s not hard to imagine him leading us toward a far more progressive future.

But my most tragic “what if” involves the Election of 2000  - and it has nothing to do with recounts or “hanging chads”.

I imagine what would have happened if Bill Clinton had resigned from office after being impeached by the House of Representatives in December, 1998.

And on this, my feeling are heightened, because - at the time - I publicly called for Clinton’s resignation at precisely that time.  I had not influence, and no one really noticed.  But I'm on the record.

Please understand.  I had voted for Mr. Clinton twice.  And I tend to think a public man’s private life has nothing to do with his fitness to serve – though I do bar lying, baldly and directly, to the American people.

But what I was mainly thinking about was America’s future.  I imagined then, and I imagine now, what might have happened if Al Gore had taken office in late 1998, or even better, on January 21, 1999 (which would have allowed him to run for two additional terms).

I imagine President Al Gore taking office, and gradually getting past the damage inflicted upon the nation by Clinton’s misconduct and subsequent efforts to avoid the consequences of his actions.

I imagine an incumbent President Gore running for election in his own right in 2000 – with all the advantages of the incumbency, and with the stain of the Clinton era a year and more behind him.

I imagine a President Gore in office during the 9/11 crisis – dealing forcefully with the Afghan Taliban, but not getting drawn into a foolish invasion of Iraq.

I imagine no Iraq War; no No Child Left Behind; and a far more competent – or less incompetent – handling of Hurricane Katrina.

Most of all, I imagine the United States, led by President Gore, moving into a place of world leadership in dealing with Global Climate Change.

The world would be a very different place, if Al Gore had been president instead of George W. Bush.

And, as the incumbent, there’s almost no way Gore would have lost to George W. Bush, or any other Republican who ran in 2000.

And here’s the point:

When friends question why I have problems with Hillary Clinton, there are many things I could mention.  But my problem with her is really a problem with them.  And it comes down to – not something they did – but something they didn’t do. 

When they had a chance to do the honorable thing – to have Bill resign in favor of his Vice-President – they opted to cling to power.

Not for the country.

Not even for the party.

For themselves.

And the cost to the rest of us, to the world, and to the future, has been measureless.

Again, take a few minutes to imagine a United States in which the George W. Bush years had been, instead, the Al Gore years. 

Really think about that.

Then ask yourself whether, in the supreme crisis of their political lives, either of the Clintons demonstrated an instinct to put their country, or its people, ahead of their own interests.

To me, they simply didn't.

And this, I think, is the ultimate disqualifier.

Why Insurgent Candidates Fail

Please forgive me for beginning this with a personal note, but I feel it’s important.  It looks like I'm going to be doing a lot of this, and it's time I established my personal bona fides.

 

I’m supporting Bernie Sanders this year, and I hope he wins.  But in terms of insurgencies, this isn’t my first rodeo.

I was born into a political family.  My parents were conservative Democrats, though they remembered FDR with affection and opposed to the racism of Harry Byrd's political machine.

My father served an interim term as Attorney General of Virginia, and then eighteen years in its General Assembly.   I myself, just three years out of law school, was appointed Secretary of the Commonwealth by John Dalton, Virginia’s second Republican governor of the modern age.

This was part of my migration from the party of my birth to the Republican Party, which seemed to me a better home.   But I was a progressive Republican – in the tradition of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, and farther back, proto-Republicans such as Henry Clay and Alexander Hamilton.

Shortly after joining the GOP, I backed John Warner for an open Senate seat – against a moderate former governor and a Reaganite conservative.  Warner was a long-shot candidate, an insurgent.  He lost at the state convention, and only the death of his conservative rival – in a plane crash just weeks after the convention – gave him that Senate seat.

Warner was the first insurgent I backed – and, so far, the only Republican insurgent.  My efforts and convention skills took me to the inner circle of his campaign, but I had only two years to go as a Republican.

The nomination of Ronald Reagan, a decent man whose followers made – and still make – me cringe, led me to leave the party.  A year later, I lost my job for refusing to fly while Reagan was jailing striking air traffic controllers.

From that point on, politics was not my principal concern, but I got involved in several insurgencies.  In 1984, I became a player in Gary Hart’s Virginia campaign – even chairing his caucus at the state convention, holding it together until it became viable.

In 2004, during winter break – I was teaching high school then – I flew to Manchester, New Hampshire, to knock on doors for Howard Dean.

All in all, then, it’s not surprising that I’m in Bernie Sanders’ camp.  I love insurgents, because they speak to my understanding that our political system is – and has been, at least since 1980 – broken.

But, having grown up in politics and achieved a degree of influence in the campaigns of both parties, I also know that insurgencies usually fail.  And I think I understand why.

It’s not about “pragmatism”, or money, or any of the other things the journalists and political scientists pontificate about.

It’s about professionalism.

If you’re a liberal, a progressive, or even a serious moderate (not just a moderate because you can’t make up your mind), you’re bound to have a fondness for The West Wing.  And if you remember that show, you’ll remember that there were several flashback episodes about how Bartlet’s insurgent campaign overcame the well-oiled machinery of Senator John Hoynes to grab the Democratic nomination.

It was a great fantasy, but it wasn’t entirely unbelievable, for one reason.  Bartlet might have been an underdog, but his campaign was run by three serious professionals – Leo McGarry, Josh Lyman, and Toby Ziegler – and some rising stars, Sam Seaborn and C. J. Cregg.  These were people who knew how campaigns work.  They had experience. 

The fantasy wasn’t that such a team could make an insurgent candidate President.  The fantasy was that an insurgent would ever be able to assemble such a team.

Which brings me to my point.  Candidates like Gary Hart, Howard Dean, and Bernie Sanders don’t lose because of the things the pundits talk about.  They lose because their campaigns have to re-invent the wheel, every single time.  The Party Establishment has hundreds of skilled operatives from whom to build an organization.  The insurgents always have to start from scratch.

Because that extra staffing effort takes so much energy, it diverts from the actual business of campaigning. 

And because it’s so easy for the Peter Principal to kick in:  Some loyalist who has been with you from Day One, but who is not really up to the challenge of a national campaign, stays too long in a job he or she can’t do – and makes a fatal mistake.

You see, unlike the Establishment operatives, the insurgent types don’t have a home between insurgencies.  Most of them are one-and-done.  How many old Deanites have key positions in the Sanders campaign?

Those who do stay in politics, as a rule, eventually migrate into the Establishment.  They promise themselves they won’t compromise their principles, that they won’t go along to get along.

But that’s not realistic. 

I'd guess that the people who are running Hillary Clinton’s campaign – probably including the candidate herself – were once genuine reformers, even revolutionaries.  But that was a long, long time ago.

The Bottom Line:  I really hope Bernie makes it.  It’s a strange year, and he has a chance.

But if this country is very to develop a permanent drive for reform – what I hesitate to call, “a permanent revolution” – it will need to find a way for the insurgents of one campaign, and one generation, to stay together – and stay in practice.

And that isn't going to happen within the current, two-party system.  More than likely, it's going to require a whole new entity - a new party, or something like it - with a long-term mission of changing this country in the ways that count.

Until then, it's always gonna take a miracle.  And America might just have used up its quota of miracles.

Clinton or Warren? (You Can’t Have Both!)

We’re entering the silly season of American politics, when well-intentioned, liberal and progressive Americans who have not studied History begin tossing nuggets of Conventional Wisdom back and forth, and reaching the wrong conclusions.

This Conventional Wisdom comes, by and large, from journalists and the political scientists they love to interview.  And the problem is that neither journalists nor political scientists know much about politics.

Seriously.

They know about elections, to be sure.  Journalists love elections, because they’re dramatic.  They have a clear beginning, a clear ending, and lots of excitement in between.

And political scientists love elections, because they have measurable outcomes, which allows them to compile all sorts of data and run statistical correlations.

But elections are not the whole of politics – not by a long shot.  Politics includes the  whole business of governing.  It also includes – and this is something journalists and political scientists entirely ignore – the longer narrative of how a society defines itself.  And such things are the subject of History.

You might say elections are to politics as sex is to life.  Elections begin a new political cycle, as sex begins a new life.  But elections (or sex) will make up only a relatively modest part of that cycle (or life), once begun. 

Which means that asking a journalist or a political scientist about politics is like asking, say, a sex therapist about the meaning of life.  You’ll get an answer – and probably a fairly interesting one.  But it won’t be the whole story.

Far from it.

All this is by way of a preface to what follows.  Liberals and progressives are now being assaulted by two bits of Conventional Wisdom.  The first is that Bernie Sanders could never win a general election, whereas Hillary Clinton could.  The second is that, if Bernie did win, he could not govern, whereas Hillary could.

These bits of CW have already persuaded some well-intentioned souls that, despite their preference for Senator Sanders, they should do the “pragmatic” thing and vote for Secretary Clinton.

Which, of course, would not be pragmatic at all.

Let’s examine both parts of the Conventional Wisdom, and then look at a very important consideration the journalists and political scientists won’t be discussing.  Because it would never occur to them.

CW Claim 1:  Bernie Can’t Win, But Hillary Can.

The simple fact is, in our current system, a Presidential election always comes down to two individuals.  You really can’t know how it will come out, based on only one candidate.  You have to look at the match-up. 

A second simple fact is that the people who make the choice between the two candidates will mostly be white, middle-class Americans who are not particularly ideological, particularly evangelical, particularly sensitive to race and gender politics, or particularly confident in the competence of the governing class.

That’s because all the other groups are more or less in the bag for one party or the other. The Democrat will get most of the black and brown vote, and the votes of white people who are strongly inclined to think of racial justice as a priority, compared with, say, economic equality or global climate change.  

Democrats will also get most of the feminist vote, most of the truly poor, and most of those who believe that more government is a good thing.

The Republican will get the votes of most of the wealthy, nearly all of the evangelicals, and most people who are openly or secretly racist.  They’ll also get the votes of those who distrust government and dislike paying taxes, including all but the hard-core of the libertarians.

And that leaves the people in between - white, middle-class, and with priorities other than religion, race, or abortion.

Now, given that this group decides most elections, how do the potential Democratic candidates match up?

It’s impossible to say.  Hillary Clinton has trust issues, but a great resume.  Bernie Sanders has more extreme policy positions, but a proven ability to persuade ordinary people that he’s actually on their side.

It all depends upon whom the Republicans nominate.

Here’s my guess:  If they nominate Trump or Cruz, either Democrat – or, for that matter, your crazy Uncle Henry – would probably win.

If they nominate Rubio, who – extreme as he is – is a right-wing Obama, I think your only chance is Sanders.  Hillary might be competent, but she’s not exciting.  Compared to Rubio, Hillary is a frump.

But I’ll stop here and let you play.  Pick a Republican, and ask yourself which Democrat does better in November.  

The simple fact is, you can’t pick the better Democratic candidate until you know whom the Republicans will nominate.

And the Republicans won't decide that for months.

CW Claim 2:  Bernie Can’t Govern, But Hillary Can.

I find this argument naive and incredibly silly.  If by governing, you mean leading, then I can almost guarantee you that Hillary will not lead.

The lady is very smart, and very experienced.  But she is also the most conventional sort of politician, and conventional politicians who get elected President always – always ­– start running for re-election as soon as their opponent concedes.

If not before.

But running for re-election means moving to the center.  It means not making anyone angry.  It means putting all your big agenda items on hold for that hoped-for second term.

And it means dreaming of doing something that no one not named Roosevelt has ever done in American history – i.e., accomplishing big things in a second term.

(In making this statement, I’m obviously leaving out Lincoln, who served only six weeks of his second term, long enough for Lee to surrender.  But the Civil War was effectively won before Lincoln gave his Second Inaugural.)

Which means this:  If Hillary is elected – even if she is re-elected – she won’t be leading a revolution, any more than Barack Obama or her husband did.  She’ll govern cautiously, from the center, in order to win a second term.  And if she gets that second term, she'll find out that it's very difficult to turn into a dynamo when you've spent your first four years playing it safe.

And the liberal and progressive agendas will be put off into the indefinite future.

Which brings us to the thing the Conventional Wisdom crowd will never tell you.

If Hillary Clinton is nominated, and wins, in 2016, it is very unlikely that Elizabeth Warren will ever be President.

Think it through.  If Hillary is elected, she will certainly not choose Elizabeth Warren for her running mate.  She’ll most likely choose a young, Hispanic man – especially if her opponent is Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio.  And that young, Hispanic man will be the odds-on candidate in 2024, as incumbent Vice-President - or in 2020, as the running mate of a defeated Hillary Clinton.  

Nominating Hillary, even if she loses, basically closes the door to a Warren presidency. 

But if Hillary is going to lose, why nominate her at all?  Where's the pragmatism in that?

If Bernie Sanders becomes the Democratic nominee, by defeating Hillary, he’d be a fool to nominate anyone but Elizabeth Warren as his Vice-President.  Putting Warren on the ticket would be a way of atoning for preventing a woman from reaching the Oval Office in 2017.

It would also be a fine way of assuring that, if anything happened to Bernie - who will be 75 on January 20, 2017 – his successor would share his program and his values.

If Bernie is the nominee, and Elizabeth Warren is his running-mate, then – win or lose – Warren becomes the odds-on favorite to be the Democratic candidate in either 2020 or 2024. 

Which, of course, means looking down the road a piece – but that’s what historians are inclined to do.

Anyway, here’s the bottom line:

If the Democratic Party nominates Bernie Sanders, there’s a good chance the election of 2016 will become an historic turning-point.  And an excellent chance that Elizabeth Warren will wind up in the Oval Office, someday.

If the Democratic Party nominates Hillary Clinton, there’s a good chance she will win, but that she will prove yet another safe, middle-of-the-road President, seeking a second term by avoiding anything like a real, political risk.

And Elizabeth Warren, who is just two years and four months younger than Hillary, will be consigned to the ranks of historical might-have-beens.

Find fault with my logic if you can, but here’s how I see it.

This year, Democrats have to decide whether they want Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren to be President someday.

And they must choose, because they can’t have it both ways.