One Utah

Two interesting articles - one in the WaPo about Barack Obama and one at the American Prospect about Hillary Clinton - have me thinking about the idea of “the code” and how you can crack it.

First:
At WaPo, they have an analysis of Obama’s primary strategy. Obama’s strategy was pretty basic - look at the rules and figure out a way to win the nomination while losing what would normally be a number of key primaries. Obama’s strategy was so basic, it defeated the vaunted Clinton machine:

Senior advisers, including Plouffe and delegate specialist Jeffrey Berman, diced the country into 435 congressional districts, the basis for pledged-delegate allocations. They examined each district under different scenarios — for instance, before and after former senator John Edwards left the race. And they identified quirks that Obama could exploit — such as the fact that in districts that awarded an even number of delegates, the take was generally split evenly, if the winning margin was kept reasonable . . .
With Clinton’s name recognition and traditional strengths obvious in big states, such as California, New York and New Jersey, Hildebrand, Carson and Berman decided it would be more effective to deploy one volunteer to Idaho or Delaware than to send that same volunteer to Los Angeles or Yonkers, N.Y.

In short, Team Obama would make a virtue of necessity.

“It’s very hard to gain a big advantage in small states,” a senior Clinton staffer asserted shortly before the Super Tuesday contests, which were supposed to seal Clinton’s victory.

He was wrong. The small states did matter. Between Idaho, Nebraska, Vermont, Maine, Mississippi, North Dakota, the District of Columbia, Hawaii and Alaska, Obama would amass 118 delegates to Clinton’s 57.

Even early in the contest, the Obama delegate strategy was showing signs of success. But while Clinton’s win in New Hampshire on Jan. 8 revived her candidacy, the victory was so narrow that she wound up with the same number of pledged delegates — nine — as Obama. In Nevada 11 days later, Clinton won the caucuses by a six-point spread, but Obama won more delegates, 13 to her 12, because his support was more evenly distributed around the state.

When the Obama campaign announced its delegate count within hours after the Nevada caucuses ended, the Clinton campaign, state party officials and local reporters quickly shot down the calculation as a loser’s wishful thinking. Berman explained on a campaign conference call how the math added up: Obama had prevailed in districts with an odd number of delegates, so he was awarded the extra delegate, whereas Clinton’s strongest regions were districts with even numbers of delegates, and Obama had kept the margin close enough to result in an even split.

The Obama campaign, IOW, did something so basic it escaped the Clinton campaign which was relying on some big, early wins to claim the nomination. The Obama campaign nailed down the details - looking at rules, at the division of delegates and unravelled the code to winning - you can lose the big states and if you keep your losses small, you can break even there. Win the small states (i.e. Utah and Idaho) and you end up ahead. Obama’s strategy, grounded so firmly in the boring details and basics, was almost guaranteed to lead to a long primary season.

The Clinton strategy was based on the idea of a quick knock-out; had it worked, had Clinton won an overwhelming early victory, there’s othing anyone coud have done. Once that did not happen, the Obama strategy worked. Obama was playing a kind of chess strategy - don’t worry about getting to check mate, just keep your opponent from check mating you. The strategy works against an opponent dedicated to the big win - you come in under their radar. Hillary could win a big state like Indiana but not make any progress toward the nomination. The Obama campaign effectively changed the playing field. To borrow a phrase, they cracked the code on the nomination in a way that utterly stymied the best the Clinton campaign couldhrow at them.

However that brings me to the second article.

Mark Schmitt writes:

The tragedy of Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the presidency is that only after she had effectively lost the Democratic nomination did she find a language and message that gave people a reason to vote for her beyond the claim that her nomination was inevitable. By that point, though, the day-to-day proxy war with Barack Obama was so relentless that even her supporters may have missed the subtle argument and language that could be her lasting contribution to progressive politics.

Schmitt’s article is an interesting and lengthy deconstruction of the economic populism that Hillary finally mastered in the waning days of the campaign. I like his take on it:

I . . . asked “What was distinctive about her economic message?”

I found two salient features: balance and modest aspirations. “I still have faith in [the American] dream. It’s just been neglected a bit,” Clinton said in a Pennsylvania TV ad. “They’re not asking for anything special,” she said of working-class voters in Zanesville, Ohio. “They’re just asking for a fair shake. They’re asking for a president who cares about them.”

Her language created a sense of order in the world, which she described in terms of mutual responsibility, symmetry, and a return to a better past: “We’re going to say, ‘Wait a minute Wall Street; you’ve had your president. Now we need a president for Main Street,’” she said on April 14 in Pittsburgh.

As Schmitt explains, much of what Hillary was evoking was a sense of the dignity of labor - we don’t just work for a paycheck, we work because the work itself is rewarding. The other part of it is the notion of personal responsibility married to larger societal responsiblity. Robert Reich, former Clinton cabinet member, talks about the idea of public morality as the honoring of the trust between elected official and voters, between large businesses and their workers, between managers and employees. Clinton invokved this effecrtively.

Clinton’s language navigates successfully around three related rhetorical problems that have been tormenting progressives over the last several years. The first, which Edwards tripped over, is the question of whether we’re talking about the actual middle class, or the poor who aspire to be part of the middle class. Edwards’ “Two Americas” was at first linked to his focus on poverty, but later he declared that the two Americas were really the very rich and everyone else. Clinton avoids this framework entirely.

The second dilemma is the question of whether to take an optimistic or pessimistic tone about economic opportunity. A quiet battle of ideas has been brewing in Washington. On one side, analysts at Third Way, a “strategy center for progressives” and home of the “Middle Class Project,” argue that the median household has it pretty good and won’t react well to gloomy rhetoric. The other side, led by the Economic Policy Institute, argues that the Middle Class is very far from all right and notes stagnating wages, increasing household insecurity, and high inequality. Neither is wrong, and yet finding a message that speaks to the optimism of those who are doing well, while hearing the frustration of those who aren’t and the confusion of many others, is a challenge. Clinton’s nostalgia pitch balances the two well.

Finally, Clinton’s approach recognizes that “economic issues” are not a well-defined box that excludes the nonmaterial interests and conditions of life. Her speeches and ads make clear that rewarding work and a rich family life are as central to her economic vision as rising median wages. The normal order of life that she invokes has a moral dimension as well as an economic one.

Had Clinton invoked this language, these metaphors, earlier in the campaign, she would very well be the candidate saying, “I’ve got 2118 delegates” not Barack Obama.

Clinton’s rhetoric speaks to the desire of working persons for a relatively modest security. I think of my own grandparents - both born in Salt Lake City who were working class and who worked hard; they saved money every paycheck, sometimes only a few dollars, but every paycheck. They were the model of fiscal probity. By the time they retired, their thriftiness was rewarded and to the end of her life, my grandmother was financially stable. I think many Americans do not so much aspire to wealth as simple financial security, the knowledge that they are safely in their home, they can afford food and a bit of travel. Certainly, Americans of all races and genders are not afraid to work hard for long days if they feel confident they will not face utter destitution at the end of it.

I think at the end of the day, Hillary Clinton may have unlocked the secret of speaking to working class Americans - not the promise of wealth but, to borrow a phrase, the promise that if you are willing to work hard, and play by the rules, and exercise some financial discipline, society will meet you half way. I hope we remember it in the future.

This entry was posted Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 at 12:15 pm and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Economy, Hillary Clinton, This Blog. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.