Sunday, February 10, 2008

Nixonland

Krugman on what matters:

In 1956 Adlai Stevenson, running against Dwight Eisenhower, tried to make the political style of his opponent’s vice president, a man by the name of Richard Nixon, an issue. The nation, he warned, was in danger of becoming “a land of slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, the anonymous phone call and hustling, pushing, shoving; the land of smash and grab and anything to win. This is Nixonland.”

The quote comes from “Nixonland,” a soon-to-be-published political history of the years from 1964 to 1972 written by Rick Perlstein, the author of “Before the Storm.” As Mr. Perlstein shows, Stevenson warned in vain: during those years America did indeed become the land of slander and scare, of the politics of hatred.

And it still is. In fact, these days even the Democratic Party seems to be turning into Nixonland.

The bitterness of the fight for the Democratic nomination is, on the face of it, bizarre. Both candidates still standing are smart and appealing. Both have progressive agendas (although I believe that Hillary Clinton is more serious about achieving universal health care, and that Barack Obama has staked out positions that will undermine his own efforts). Both have broad support among the party’s grass roots and are favorably viewed by Democratic voters.


Supporters of each candidate should have no trouble rallying behind the other if he or she gets the nod.

Why, then, is there so much venom out there?

I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality. We’ve already had that from the Bush administration — remember Operation Flight Suit? We really don’t want to go there again.

What’s particularly saddening is the way many Obama supporters seem happy with the application of “Clinton rules” — the term a number of observers use for the way pundits and some news organizations treat any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent.

....

For now, Clinton rules are working in Mr. Obama’s favor. But his supporters should not take comfort in that fact.

For one thing, Mrs. Clinton may yet be the nominee — and if Obama supporters care about anything beyond hero worship, they should want to see her win in November.

For another, if history is any guide, if Mr. Obama wins the nomination, he will quickly find himself being subjected to Clinton rules. Democrats always do.

But most of all, progressives should realize that Nixonland is not the country we want to be. Racism, misogyny and character assassination are all ways of distracting voters from the issues, and people who care about the issues have a shared interest in making the politics of hatred unacceptable.

One of the most hopeful moments of this presidential campaign came last month, when a number of Jewish leaders signed a letter condemning the smear campaign claiming that Mr. Obama was a secret Muslim. It’s a good guess that some of those leaders would prefer that Mr. Obama not become president; nonetheless, they understood that there are principles that matter more than short-term political advantage.

I’d like to see more moments like that, perhaps starting with strong assurances from both Democratic candidates that they respect their opponents and would support them in the general election.

Hate Springs Eternal

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

See.

This is exactly what I'm Talking about.

You cannot sit there and wax above the fray about the dangers of pouring water on a grease fire and then Pour out your Gin and Tonic on it. (not you, Im talking about Krugman, but if the Shoe looks comfy, feel free to try it on)

The biggest problem from where I stand is that BOTH sides got enough blood on their hands, whether its from the candidates themselves, their surrogates, their spouses or the fans (cause this has really denigrated into some bizarro version of USC/UCLA, OU/Texas or some other irrational college rivalry) We (yes, WE...everyone has to wear this one) have really screwed this up.



It only makes matters worse to qualify your apologies by pointing fingers to the other side saying that THEY are much more guilty of this

Anonymous said...

The Obama side is of course much more guilty of it. Go to any progressive blog, go to any news paper blog, what you see is a bunch of Obama supporters trashing Hillary.

Well, if their candidate wins the nomination it will be a pyrrhic victory. A lot of us Hillary supporters will sit this one out.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Anonymous. MSNBC, CNN, Huffington Post, TPM, even most of the NYTimes columnists are anti-Hillary. Usually when I read criticisms from the Hillary side they are well-reasoned and backed up by evidence and examples of why they dislike Obama. For Hillary haters they talk specifically about character flaws that are mostly sexist and misogynistic.
Krugman has never attacked Obama the way Maureen Dowd or Frank Rich have. He doesn't attack Obama's personality flaws but rather his policies which I think are fair game.
I also find it amusing that Hillary haters love to visit pro-Hillary sites to complain and attack. I have never once visited an Obama site to argue with his supporters.