State of the Democratic Race: How We Got Here & Brooklyn Debate Analysis

State of the Democratic Race: How We Got Here & Brooklyn Debate Analysis

A brief examination of the Democratic race thus far, with a detailed look at the Brooklyn debate and a few thoughts going forward.

By Brian E. Frydenborg

CNN/NBC News

AMMAN — Now is a critical time for the Democratic Party.  There are two candidates vying for the presidential nomination of the Party.  One is Hillary Clinton, very active in Democratic politics for almost half a century since her rejection of Republican ideology in 1968, coming after her days as a “Goldwater Girl” and being raised by a very conservative father, a political transformation she underwent during her days as an undergraduate at Wellesley College.

The other is Bernie Sanders.

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How We Came to This Point

The official Senate page listing all the senators of the 114th Congress does not list Bernie Sanders as a (D) for Democrat, but as an (I), displaying his status as an independent.  Bernie’s own Senate website still proudly states that he is “the longest serving independent member of Congress in American history,” in his “About” section. As a non-Democratic who, in twenty-five years serving in the House and Senate combined, refused to declare himself as (or officially become a member of) the Democratic Party, and who proudly maintained his independence as a democratic socialist, he has clearly, beyond any reasonable doubt, failed to take over the Democratic Party as a shining outsider white knight he had hoped to be, an outsider that would have forced the Party hard and far to the left.  And it was a Democratic Party that he only just joined (apparently) in time for this election season, but one for which for he so long clearly harbored disdain.

Listening to his rhetoric on the campaign trail, he clearly still harbors this disdain, playing a delicate balancing act of repeatedly decrying “The Political Establishment” that favors Clinton while simultaneously seeking its approval and endorsement (even to the degree of trying to get Superdelegates to switch their support from Clinton to him), a contradiction that increasingly has not gone unnoticed. 

Despite his surprising early success (a near-tie in Iowa and a resounding, crushing victory in New Hampshire), it has been clear to those willing to look at the hard numbers of electorate beliefs and trends, supported by masses of polling and social science research, from quite early in the race that Sanders’ ability to win the diverse type of constituency necessary to clinch the Democratic nomination was practically nonexistent.  As I noted before, this precise moment came in Nevada, when Hillary Clinton won by staggeringly dominant support from African Americans and Latinos.  Prior to this win, the polling data already heavily confirmed that Sanders’ core of support consisted of white liberals and young people, a core nowhere near large enough win the majority of the overall national Democratic constituency.  The main question was as to if Sanders’ very strong performances in Iowa and New Hampshire would give African Americans and Latinos pause enough to consider, and then vote for, Sanders in large enough numbers for him to win the nomination.  The Nevada contest on February 20th, coming just a week before South Carolina’s heavily black Democratic base would vote in its contest, and that coming just a few days before (the first) Super Tuesday contests that would award the most delegates in any single day and that would include most of South, with its heavily black Democratic constituency and with Texas and its huge Latino constituency, was Bernie’s one chance to show he could win over a diverse coalition of support before the South Carolina and the rest of the South would create a reality of, votes, delegates, numbers, and probabilities that would effectively end his candidacy in all practical terms if he failed to do so. 

After all, the laws of human behavior show that if a certain demographic of people favor one candidate generally by more than 4 to 1 (African Americans) or more than 2 to 1 (Latinos), those ratios will not switch in a matter days and weeks in the absence of some sort of remarkable event.

Such an event never happened in the run up to Nevada, and it has not since.  Clinton was not indicted by the FBI in relation to her e-mail scandal, a probability that might have even been lower than Sanders’ miniscule chances of winning the nominations, nor did she suffer a dramatic collapse or series of gaffes.  On Sanders’ side, he stubbornly failed to tailor or alter his message in any significant way to appeal to new groups who had thus far not bought into it.  Aggressively trying to court African Americans on his terms, not theirs, was never a sound strategy.

Thus, Sanders entered the period leading up to the New York primary at a significant disadvantage.

 

Decoding the Debate

Contempt was on full display in the last Democratic debate, but has hardly been limited to just that stage.

AP Photo/Seth Wenig

Without doubt, that latest Democratic debate in the Brooklyn Navy Yard (you can watch the full debate here) was the most spirited, eventful debate on the Democratic side yet: nasty, full of contrasts, and even with a few big surprises.  But like all the other debates, in which Hillary Clinton had commanding leads in some sort of combination of delegates, votes, and polls, this debate once again featured a Bernie Sanders that needed to do something dramatic to alter the dynamics of the race to have even a prayer of a chance of winning the nomination, and, once again, that he failed to do.

It wasn’t for trying or lack of trying, but, as has often been the case with Sanders, the level of effort and level of strategic and tactical planning did not match each other.  Both candidates were claiming that New York state was their home turf: Sanders, with his thick Brooklyn accent and his youth spent growing up in Brooklyn, and Clinton, with her service as a New York’s Senator from 2001-2009 and living in the state since those days up through the present day.  Sanders made the calculation that perhaps he could afford to be, by far, his most aggressive and condescending yet to Clinton, perhaps feeling that NY would, in the end, prove to be more his home state than hers.  He was snide, dismissive, and sarcastic; he laughed at her, mocked her, repeatedly used sarcasm; his body language and motions all evening were hostile, with him contorting his face constantly in expressions of derision and amusement while Clinton was talking (she, conversely, was often calm and stoic while he spoke) and literally pointing his finger at her incessantly, wagging and waving it at her invasively, raising it often while she was still talking, interrupting her, too (not that she did not interrupt him a few times as well).  He was hypocritical in his modes of attack (her tiny amounts of fossil fuel industry contributions that her campaign and PACs received are, apparently, fair game, but not the small amount of high per-capita guns coming from Vermont into New York City; her votes should be viewed in black and white, his with respect to his environment and details).  He even questioned her motives, again—what has been a staple of the Sanders campaign—implying that Clinton is a corrupt hack, bought and sold by her special interest donors, without actually directly leveling the accusation.  Apart from interrupting Sanders, Clinton did none of these things.  She stuck to a more elevated tone and to the issues, and did not question his motives for voting on gun issues the way he did with her even though he did not return the favor on other issues. 

Some would say because Bernie did not attack Hillary on the e-mail and Benghazi issues that this is somehow him taking the high road, an example of his being exceptionally civil.  I find that to be wholly unconvincing; unlike Republicans, Democrats do not see these issues as either terribly substantive or evidence that Clinton did something seriously wrong.  Like most politicians, Sanders decided to attack Clinton where he could gain points for doing so; in a Democratic nomination contest with mainly Democrats voting, that was on issues of campaign contributions and super PACS, not on what Republicans were throwing at her.  If anything, Bernie holding back on the e-mails and Benghazi is a just sign that Democratic voters would not have responded well to such attacks.  Had he gone down that road, Bernie would have looked and sounded just like the desperate Republicans have if he had attacked her on those issues; it would have hurt Brand Bernie.  So no, Bernie didn’t avoid those lines of attack out of charity and kindness; it was in his interests not to come off sounding like Republicans.  When the topic resounds with the Democratic base, he has been happy to attack Clinton.

Conversely, I have not heard Clinton attack Bernie Sanders for broadcasting Sandinista propaganda in Burlington, for how he campaigned during the Vietnam War to reduce the American military to “local citizen militias and Coast Guard,” for how in 1980 he served as an elector in an obscure Trotskyist political party that called for “solidarity” with the Iranian Revolution even as its regime held Americans hostage, among other gems from Sanders’ past.  And yet, you never hear Clinton being given credit for playing nice with Sanders, even though she clearly is, overall.  The general approach for both seems to be that they attack each other from the left, not the right or with other tabloidy-stuff.  And, as nasty as this race has gotten, the tone is astronomically more mature, substantive, and polite than the race on the Republican side.  

Of course, as the frontrunner, it makes sense that Clinton would not come out swinging the way Bernie did, who was far behind and had to make up a huge gap.  That is politics, and Sanders, lest we forget, is still a politician, much like Clinton.  Neither has been a saint, but Sanders campaigns on being one while Clinton never has.  So attack her, he does, and often not fairly, often by insinuation, often indirectly, and often letting his surrogates and supporters do the dirty work, whom he often fails to restrain.  That has not been much of a high road for those who have been playing close attention, although this has largely escaped scrutiny because of the outlandish conduct on the Republican side that has made it seem tame in comparison.

And in the debate, happy to attack her he was; Bernie clearly felt comfortable not holding back much against her. 

This calculation, in the end, would prove to be disastrously wrong.

In Bernie’s opening statement, he noted how far behind Clinton he was at the beginning of the race, and attributed how close it was to what claimed was the “radical” move of “telling the American people the truth” (the clear implication is the Clinton is not).

As usual, Sanders attacked Clinton for the support that she and organizations that support her received from special interests, including Wall St.

Sanders’ first big stumble was in saying he didn’t think the government should break up the banks, that the banks should break themselves up, a thoroughly unconvincing response from a man who has made the big banks one of America’s great public enemies in his campaign.   The second came right after, when he could not name a single instance of when Clinton’s money she received from Wall St. influenced a specific decision of hers when she was in power in the Senate.  He followed up with his inability to do this with a salvo of nasty sarcasm belittling her speaking out against the big banks, noticing mockingly and acerbically that the bankers “must have been crushed by this.”

One line of attack that I thought was particularly unfair was Sanders’ minimum wage cheap shot swipe against Clinton.  The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.  I will point out that from 1998, when I had my first job one summer while I was in high school, through mid-2013, the vast majority of the jobs I had and the vast majority of the hours I worked were at or near the minimum wage ($7.25-$8.25).  Much of this was in the retail industry while I was in school or trying to transition to something better suited to my background and skills.  So I know what it’s like to work a minimum wage job more than many Americans, and I care about this issue a lot.  Hillary Clinton wants to raise the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour, a huge increase of over 65%.  She further thinks that in many localities, like New York City, $15 makes more sense, and she has supported such efforts at the state and local levels to make the minimum wage $15.  The thing is, Clinton and many experts recognize that a one-size-fits-all minimum wage is not a good solution for the country as a whole; the cost of living in Northern Virginia, New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston, among other places, is dramatically higher than in most other parts of the country, particularly rural areas and small towns.  A $15 minimum wage in the near future would be very difficult for many small businesses outside of major U.S. metropolitcan areas to handle or afford.  Clinton’s nuanced approach is very-much called for, Sanders’ oversimplistic approach (as is often his type of approach to many issues) is not and would harm the economy in many parts of America.  For Sanders to try to portray Clinton as if she is somehow against American workers, as if she has not fought for a $15 minimum wage in important instances, and to attack her so strongly on this issue, to me does not seem fair.  Sanders’ calling for a nearly 107%, unrealistic increase in the minimum wage across-the-board, period, and to attack Clinton’s over 65% increase—still a major, historic increase—is attacking someone who is still fighting hard on an important issue to most Democrats, just in a different way than Sanders, and seems to be splitting hairs on an issue where they are far closer than they are apart.  I would also add that it is telling that Sanders wants to discuss who wants the higher federal minimum wage instead of actually discussing the actual policy itself and the differences between $12 in a rural area and $15 in NYC, between federal efforts and state and local efforts.  Sanders should, if his mantras are to be believed, be better than hyperinflating such differences. 

One could be tempted to say the same for Clinton on Sanders with, say, guns, except that she is generally responding to attacks from Team Sanders that have been going on for months.  If he is going have some major attacks that focus on minor differences, it is entirely reasonable that Clinton respond in kind.  Further, I would argue that their differences in guns are more substantive than their differences on the minimum wage

Bernie, as was his usual response to the issue of gun violence, noted that he had a rating grade of a D- from the NRA.  Hillary was very effective in attacking his votes that were in line with the interests of the NRA (for these he had a nuanced explanation, but for all the issues with Clinton where her votes are questionable, it’s black and white to him!), but she should have mentioned that her grade is an F, and while that might not seem like a big deal to some, Sanders voting against the Brady Bill five times and for shielding gun manufacturers from liability are not insignificant differences; they are differences that may very well account for lives lost and lives saved, and certainly account for the different grades they have received from the NRA and for why Clinton’s grade was lower than Sanders; even in the NRA’s view, Sanders did not do everything he could to restrict guns; in its view, Clinton did; otherwise, both candidates would have received and F.  And, while only a tiny number of the overall traced guns from crime scenes in New York came from Vermont, Clinton is still absolutely right that Vermont had more guns per capita showing up in New York crime scenes than any other state, so using that statistic to point out that that laxer gun laws in Vermont have had negative consequences for New York—an effect outsized for its tiny population—is fair game when discussing gun policy in general before the New York state primary, since both Sanders and Vermont have been less tough on guns than Clinton and New York.

The one moment where I was by far the most impressed by Sanders was when he was bold in speaking out on the plight of the Palestinian people.  I have written numerous pieces in which I have been extremely critical of Israel’s policies towards Palestinians, of its tactics and strategy, of its occupation, of Netanyahu.   I agree with Sanders 100% that, overall, the military intervention in Gaza in the summer of 2014 was disproportionate.  A part of me was disappointed that Clinton did not express some of the same sentiments time in her recent AIPAC speech that Sanders has expressed, but at the same time, Sanders did not make the comments in question to AIPAC, which he skipped and which would certainly have been hostile to his message, and made the comments instead in an interview with the New York Daily News.  Rather, Hillary (understandably if not admirably) tailored her message in a close race with Sanders, where even some polls in NY had them close, and, while not denying Sanders’ points, certainly avoided discussing them at all in favor winning over America’s Jewish political establishment in what has been a difficult primary (with NY state voting soon after this speech, NY being home to a huge portion of America’s Jews and, therefore, the world’s) and looks to be a difficult general election, one in which Republicans will try to make Democrats and Clinton look weak in terms of support for Israel.  Sanders, as an American Jew and as many Jews do, may feel freer to criticize Israel than Americans who are non-Jews.  Sanders also made the aforementioned comments to the New York Daily News as someone whose chances of ever being president were very slim; months from now, when Sanders is not the nominee or the president, he will face little scrutiny, and pay few penalties, for uttering them.  Yet, if Hillary Clinton had said these things the way Sanders had said them, she could very well pay a price in November in a close race with Trump, or even once in the White House as she seeks to engage Israel and win reelection.

I can’t fault Hillary for not taking a big political risk on publicly speaking out for Palestinians the way Sanders has, though I would have preferred that her AIPAC address contained more lines addressing the plight of the Palestinians.  Playing her cards closer to her chest is more than warranted in this instance, and I take far more comfort in Clinton’s actions over her long career rather than ascribe much to her statements made on the campaign trail when it comes to demonstrating fairness to both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  She came out for a Palestinian state as First Lady, before her husband, and when she was Secretary of State, she repeatedly criticized Israel and Netanyahu for their treatment of Palestinians and settlement expansion, both privately and publicly.

As admirable, then, as Sanders’ speaking on the plight of the Palestinians was, it also demonstrated how politically unsavvy he is.   And political savviness is a crucial trait that one trying to run the American political system and run one of its two major political parties must possess.  Sanders was even forced to suspend his Jewish outreach coordinator after it was discovered just days before the NY primary that she had posted some very pointed criticism of Netanyahu, utilizing offensive language, on social media.  It is entirely possible, even probable, that Sanders comments and the story of his outreach staffer may have cost him some Jewish support in NY; Clinton did, after all, outperform the final polling that was conducted in the state, and Sanders underperformed.  If she campaigned strongly right now during the election for Palestinians rights, it might cost her votes in a crucial state like Florida, and if she lost the election, she would also lose her ability to push for those very rights even as she spoke for them on the campaign trail.  Sure, she slyly dodged the issue at AIPAC and the debate, but doing so was simply smart if not admirable politics (the former often more effective than the latter in terms of public discourse), and her record shows that there is little reason to believe she won’t stick up for Palestinians while still vigorously defending Israel’s right to defend itself.

So Sanders’ was right in terms of saying what he said about Israel and the Palestinians, and outshone Clinton, who took the politically safe road.  But in a tight contest, the object is to win, and in terms of his campaign’s success, speaking to New Yorkers, and therefore a good number of Jews, about the plight of Palestinians might have been brave but it also did not help him win any more votes, and may have even cost him some; in was not the best move for him to make in a real world where politics can be brutal.

 

Going Forward?

In any event, between New York and the five subsequent “Acela” primary contests, Clinton won five out of the last six contests, including in delegate-rich NY and PA, effectively ending the race in a competitive sense.  Sanders and his wife Jane have signaled and begun to demonstrate over the last few days that the campaign will be toning down its attacks on Clinton and that they have no plans to play a “spoiler” role or run as a third party.  This is both a welcome and a necessary step, if overdue.  If this is indeed what they are doing, this is great news for all of us.  Sanders should continue to fire up new voters and highlight his chosen issues, just in a way that allows the party to unite soon, ready to take on Big Bad Trump and Republicans that seem more and more likely to reluctantly rally behind him.  At this point, liberal hopes of a wrecked Republican Party and a civil war at the GOP convention, while conventional wisdom, are more wishful thinking than anything else, so the time for Democrats to begin to unite is now.

 

 

 

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