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.