False Hopes

I suppose that in pure campaigning terms, Kevin Drum's right and Hillary Clinton's complaints about Barack Obama and John Edwards raising "false hopes" was a gaffe. But I think it's an interesting theme, and sort of wish she would explore it in a more rigorous and thorough way.

The trouble is that as is, she's raising essentially the same hopes as her competitors -- hopes of fundamental change in health care and energy policy. It often does seem to me that all three Democrats are overpromising here, and I think it would be interesting to hear Clinton try to specifically make the argument that her rivals are promising too much and that doing so is dangerous. The trouble is that while I'm open to the idea that either Obama or Edwards is engaged in a certain amount of magical thinking about their ability to implement their agenda, she then just turns around and does the same thing. It's true that high aspirations and inspiring rhetoric won't produce fundamental policy shifts. It's also true that getting really outraged won't produce fundamental policy shifts. But neither will Clinton's years of experience -- you can see it in her own list of legislative accomplishments as Senator and First Lady, there's just nothing in there of remotely the sort of scale that she's now promising.

So if it's true that Edwards and Obama are raising false hopes, then show is she. Ultimately, I think whether or not those hopes prove false will mostly turn not on who the president is, but on what the outcome of the congressional elections are. Still, it would be interesting to see veteran centrist Hillary Clinton run as veteran centrist Hillary Clinton and make the case on the merits for the kind of legislative approach that she and Bill adopted for the bulk of their time in the White House. Instead, though, she's campaigning on an agenda that's every bit as ambitious as her rivals' and then asking us to believe that her experience being married to someone who governed successfully as a cautious centrist makes her uniquely capable of producing dramatic change. It doesn't really make sense.

Comments

Candidates almost always over-promise, don't they? It's kind of hard to generate any enthusiasm by telling voters that it will be really difficult to make any meaningful changes, that a lot depends on who controls Congress, that they shouldn't get their hopes up, that progressive goals are a pipe dream, etc.

Posted by blah | January 7, 2008 3:46 PM

show is she = so is she

Posted by joejoejoe | January 7, 2008 3:47 PM

"It's also true that getting really outraged won't produce fundamental policy shifts."

But creating a populist/progressive electoral majority will produce fundamental policy shifts.

Posted by Petey | January 7, 2008 3:49 PM

I understood her as saying that the "false hope" is that Obama will not enact the policies he is proposing, not that the proposed policies are out of reach.

Posted by Tim | January 7, 2008 3:51 PM

, then show is she.

Magnificent. Seriously, there ought to be a "Best Of" feature for these things.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | January 7, 2008 3:57 PM

"Magnificent. Seriously, there ought to be a "Best Of" feature for these things."

We'd use up all the bandwidth in the internets keeping track.

Posted by Petey | January 7, 2008 4:00 PM

from some of these typos, i sometimes think that MY is using some kind of voice recognition dictation software. is that possible? if so, that's weird.

Posted by klint | January 7, 2008 4:08 PM

This hope thingamajig has shown itself to be a key to Obama's success. On the flipside it also shows the limitation to Hillary's strategy of experience.

Because the way Obama is positioning his message of hope is as something apart from him as an individual (lots of "we can" and "you did" in his rhetoric).

Without getting into all the marketing blather, liking and believing in his candidacy gets intertwined with your own identity, which in my world of brand management is the holy grail. It's a feedback loop of you hoping and Obama telling you that you can achieve those hopes, and you liking him more for validating said hopes, and so on, until he becomes that thing called a movement candidate.

But Hillary has to position experience as something she herself embodies. She is the thing she is selling. So she is also her own key limitation -- believe and/or like her and maybe you're sold. Don't and you're not.

That's also why her attacks on Obama the person miss the target. She actually has to attack the movement he's fomenting based on hope. So she gets to "false hope" pretty fast. But that has its own obvious downside.

My bet? After her NH loss and a shakeup, however real or cosmetic, watch for a message of Hope from the wife of the man from there.

Posted by cvcobb01 | January 7, 2008 4:09 PM

I'm pretty sure she thinks that they're "false hopes" when Obama raises them because she thinks he has no idea on how to deliver them, whereas she does. "Vague hopes" might have captured her point better. Either way, I don't think it was the smartest thing to say.

Posted by mrsaturdaypants | January 7, 2008 4:16 PM

Matt,
The difference between Obama and Clinton is that Obama is promising a "new" politics and she isn't.

The false hope is that the Republicans would just love to reach a compromise on universal health care with a Democratic president.

Remember: Obama's appeal has very little to do with his actual policies. WTF do him and Andrew Sullivan agree about on domestic policy????

Posted by SenatorSmith85 | January 7, 2008 4:22 PM

The amount of change either Clinton, Obama, or Edwards is going to deliver is dependent on getting 60 votes in the Senate much more than than on who the Democratic nominee (hopefully President) is.
Sweet talking Sen. Mitch McConnell is not going to work, no matter who tries.

So the Senate '08 races are the key change issue (as well as the electability of the Democratic nominee).

Posted by Bryan C. Kennedy | January 7, 2008 4:23 PM

Whether false hopes or vague hopes, they're all overpromising until they explain just how they'll deal with those 41+ GOP Senators that block cloture on their entire legislative agenda.

Posted by low-tech cyclist | January 7, 2008 4:26 PM

Matt is exactly right. On the other hand, if Obama wins a commanding victory in November and sweeps larger Democratic majorities especially in the Senate in with him, then there's a fair chance that his hopes could become reality. Certainly there's much more of a chance of major change happening in that scenario than if Clinton narrowly wins then spends the next 4 years being as cautious as possible so as not to upset her chances of winning re-election. Obama's chances of enacting major legislation depend on Congress but the way he inspires the electorate and turns out voters could facilitate that change by increasing the numbers of Representatives and Senators willing to pass health care reform and do something bold about global warming.

Posted by Ron | January 7, 2008 4:30 PM

Seriously, there ought to be a "Best Of" feature for these things.
sho 'nough!

Posted by Bragan | January 7, 2008 4:32 PM

No, she wasn't complaining about about Barack Obama and John Edwards raising "false hopes"; she said *WE* don't need to raise false hopes, which seems to mean that she thinks some of the promises being made by all of them won't really get done.

Oops.

Posted by GreenVTster | January 7, 2008 4:34 PM

She's running with the malaise built-in!

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | January 7, 2008 4:45 PM

I hate false optimism as much as the next dour northeastern intellectual, but "Don't Get Your Hopes Up!" (as someone coined elsewhere) is hardly a winning campaign slogan.

Posted by Tyro | January 7, 2008 5:00 PM

I'm no expert on "political capital", but my understanding is that politicians act as if it's a real thing. As best I can make out, you earn political capital by getting yourself elected on a clear message -- single-payer health insurance, to take a purely hypothetical example. You then torment your opponents with the prospect that obstructing you on the specific thing that got YOU elected may well cost THEM re-election. You won't get anywhere without that implicit threat. The bigger your win, the more plausible the threat can seem. Making the threat "costs you political capital" whether you prevail or not. If you prevail, you have used it up; if you don't, you have devalued it.

My only reservation about Obama's approach so far is that neither "hope" nor "change" are messages that translate into political capital. They may be exactly what's needed to elect one man to one office, but they are too vague to bludgeon obstructionists with. If your voters were clear about nothing except their desire to see you in office, it's harder to push any PARTICULAR policy once you ARE in office.

-- TP

Posted by Tony P. | January 7, 2008 5:13 PM

She's taking a just a little further. If she's the nominee, she can kiss my vote goodbye.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0108/Clinton_and_Obama_Johnson_and_King.html

Posted by Keith | January 7, 2008 5:20 PM

Wow, there's a lot of defeatism on this side of the debate. I thought progressives were supposed to be fired up about the prospect of winning everything next November.

It's only an "over-promise" if the candidate has no intention of actually fighting for an issue. We all know we aren't electing a dictator here (well except for the Rudy contingent) change takes work and dedication.

The problem on the Democratic side is that party leaders have lately been willing to throw in the towel even before the game begins. They start every fight having conceded half the field, then give up the other half when the Republicans refuse to play by the same rules.

(From Kevin's post and the comments I see here, it isn't just a problem with the leadership either).

Candidates are supposed to get our hopes up, they're supposed to paint a picture of a better country and they're supposed to convince us to back them all the way. If Kennedy could promise the moon and pull it off, I don't see what's so impossible about getting universal health care.

Posted by Jinchi | January 7, 2008 5:24 PM

Regarding the needing 60 Senators thing: I don't think this is true.

Obviously, it depends on the methods of the actual leader (go Dodd!), but it is a much different story when you have a Democratic President with 55 or so seats in the Senate than the current configuration. Basically, even if you get past the filibuster right now, you still have Bush's veto.

But if 41 Republican Senators are blocking any legislation from passing, that's a different story. First, they will be under a lot of pressure to let Congress operate or their seats will be in danger - and it only takes one at that point. Conversely, if they refuse to co-operate- look at how that turned out for Gingrich. Basically, I think the Dems could invoke the nuclear option, get rid of the filibuster rules and wouldn't face any political repurcussions for it. Americans won't buy the claim that 41 Republican Senators have the right to shut down the government.

Posted by mpowell | January 7, 2008 5:25 PM

Regarding the needing 60 Senators thing: I don't think this is true.

Nobody thought 41 Senators could stop virtually everything they wanted to when the Democrats were in the minority. Strangely now everybody seems to believe it's some magic number. Filibusters only work when the majority party isn't willing to extract a price for opposition. Even Bill Frist understood this simple fact and he was arguably the worst Senate majority leader in American history.

Republicans have succeeded in blocking the Democrats because the Democrats have forgotten how to use the levers of power not to mention the bully pulpit. If you want things to change, quit dreaming about a Democratic supermajority and tell your current Senators to start doing their jobs.

Posted by Jinchi | January 7, 2008 5:33 PM

Well, at least, "don't get your hopes up" before you've bothered to identify and overcome the problem that is keeping those hopes from becoming reality.

Yes, definitely, a larger (corporate-power-confronting) Senate majority is key to the implementation of those hopes into reality, which is why buying into the media myth that our federal government is almost entirely about the presidency and one man (or woman) is so dangerous. As, of course, is ignoring the stranglehold on both the Congress and most candidates for president that immense amounts of corporate cash and influence now maintain, and will until elections are no longer beholden to corporate tv rates and narratives, as John Edwards is clearly pointing out, while being rewarded for his candor with a national media blackout implemented by those same corporate influence-peddlers.

Edwards is pointing straight at the problem and its solution (though not mentioning Congress's critical role in it much at this point). Obama is pointing at the potential or "hope" for future progress, while glossing over the hard, hard, "epic" fight that it's going to take - to push back on corporate control and slash the influence of the corporate-funded think tanks and their shadow government pressure on Congress, aided by accessory national media outlets - to unleash that future potential and realize those hopes for progress.

In that scenario "false hope" is indeed a danger. Except to Obama's personal ambitions, of course, because he will be president for at least 4 years by the time the chickens come home to roost and his backers realize what he was recklessly selling without concern or appetite for that "epic battle," needed to overcome the blockade of the status quo, that Edwards is promising and prepared for.

Yes, things can change - that is, priorities can change - if the people are able to directly influence our government again. But that's what it will take - replacing bribe-laden corporate constituents with ordinary, opinion-laden American constituents as the most powerful force of leverage on Congress, able to force it to change its priorities, with a president backing those ordinary people up. As the Constitution intended.

Vague, hopeful promises of progress that ignore the most important, ongoing corporate cause of the stifling of that progress (from Obama) vs. specific identification of the most important reason progress has long been stifled and what to do about it (from Edwards), is the difference I see at this point between the messages Obama and Edwards are offering.

Edwards is probably going too lightly on selling the promise and potential that he would unleash (namely, the unified power of the American people that Obama is emphasizing) if he solves the problem with the help of Congress, but first things first. [Though, as I indicate in a comment below, Edwards may be missing the boat by not addressing the demonization of the "other" that certain supporters of Obama may be rejecting and instinctively reading into Obama's appearance, whether or not Obama himself would concretely realize their rejection of the hateful slander of whole groups of Arabs or Hispanics, say, any more than Condi Rice or Colin Powell have meaningfully spoken up for the hated "other" or persecuted minorities, as NSA and Secretary of State, respectively.]

Clinton seems to be as likely as Obama to achieve future progress, because as unlikely as Obama to demand and insist and "fight" to see that Washington tears down the corporate blockade to such progress, in the face of her many corporate backer 'constituents.'

Posted by pow wow | January 7, 2008 6:09 PM

I thought Chris Hayes had an interesting point here: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?pid=266584

". . .It crystallized one of my most nagging doubts I have about the Obama phenomenon. It's clear what people are voting for when the vote for John Edwards, with Obama not so much. So if John Edwards is elected president he will have a mandate to take on the monied interests and revive economic democracy. If Barack Obama gets elected he'll have a mandate to be Barack Obama."

Whatever the composition of Congress will be, Edwards in particular is increasing the odds of getting something closer to what he campaigned on, by seeking a clear mandate from the voters.

Posted by roublen | January 7, 2008 7:29 PM

Also, there 2 are ways of getting universal health care without needing 60 votes: 1) packaging it as part of the non-filibusterable budet bills (I think this requires the approval of the the CBO director) 2) the nuclear option, disallowing the filibuster for universal health care.

That would be an interesting question to ask each of the candidates: which of you is willing to pursue option 1 (which may require firing the CBO director, if he doesn't play ball) or option 2 (disallowing the filibuster)?

Posted by roublen | January 7, 2008 7:36 PM

See shells shea sells by the she sore.

Posted by gerontion | January 7, 2008 8:46 PM

The reason HRC's 'falsehope' comment was such a gaffe is because the hopes that Obama is raising are about what Americans can achieve if they believe in the ideals which are the foundation of our country.

Hillary essentially labelled...'we hold these truths to be self evident' as false hopes, she labelled 'all the ideals and promise of America' a false hope she labelled 'the American spirit to come together and rise up to meet the challenges of our nation' as false hopes.

That is what she did wrong. Obama is not raising false hopes about what HE can do, he is raising the hopes of Americans about what THEY can do! What they can do as Americans if they love their country, how they can work and take their government back and how they as Americans who love their country can achieve all the promise that America has to offer.

If Hillary thinks that believe in those hopes and dreams as an American is 'false hope' well, she is just plain unAmerican and doesn't get what is in the hearts of the electorate after enduring waterboarding, torture, constraints on their civil liberties, wiretapping and Gitmo.

Hillary simply doesn't get it. Truth is that she and Bill are the falsehopemongers thinking they can reprise the 90s and all the GOP fighting divisiveness and bickering that got us nothing.

Like Obama said we want fundamental change not incremental change which Bill Clinton was good at ...this is the new millenium and Americans who beleive in their country know that we can and will have more if we simply WORK to take back our country.

Hillary lacks faith in the American people to change this country which is why she views all this as 'false hope'.

What Barack is doing is LEADING Americans and showing them their government is theirs and they only have to become active citizens and engage in the political process to change the politics of fear.

Go home Hillary you just don't get that it is you who represents false hope with all your experience and all that change you worked for that never came to fruition.
t

Posted by vicissitudes | January 7, 2008 10:14 PM

vicissitudes hits on a great point. Obama is running on American values, an American can-do attitude, American optimism: basically the vision of America that we want to have of ourselves and our country.

"Because the way Obama is positioning his message of hope is as something apart from him as an individual (lots of "we can" and "you did" in his rhetoric).

Without getting into all the marketing blather, liking and believing in his candidacy gets intertwined with your own identity, which in my world of brand management is the holy grail. It's a feedback loop of you hoping and Obama telling you that you can achieve those hopes, and you liking him more for validating said hopes, and so on, until he becomes that thing called a movement candidate."

It gets down to the point that Obama and, to a lesser extent, Edwards are saying that they will lead us in fighting for certain things. Clinton is saying elect me and I'll handle the mean Republicans while you go about your business. Don't question me!

Posted by Reality Man | January 8, 2008 12:36 AM

vicissitudes and Reality Man got it right...

To sum up...listen to Obama. Listen to his words. He talks of the work involved that WE can do together.

It's empowering. We can UNELECT the fools if they don't believe us. And the fools know that above all else.

It's similar to the discussion on MLK, LBJ...those two were instruments of the process but the people were the driver.

Apparently, it's so simple it's hard.

Posted by G Davis | January 8, 2008 2:16 AM

Hillary was part of Bill's success from the beginning - she'd already worked on 4 national campaigns by the time he was elected Governor, she shared work and strategy (not all) in the White House, and her time in the Senate has let her mend some of the tensions from the Clinton years. Bill was mostly working with a Republican Congress, and it was impossible to go for idealistic goals. 2009 should bring in a much stronger Democratic Congress to work with. But as the health care fiasco showed, even good Democratic causes can be ground up by your own side with turf wars and petty squabbles. There's also been no opportunity under Bush for Democrats to get creative at all. But if a Democrat gains the White House, the new legislation isn't assured either. At least Hillary has tried once and knows better what she's getting into.

Posted by Desider | January 8, 2008 2:55 AM

Just ask yourself a question if you are a politician. Don't ask who you want as President or who you support; ask yourself who you would want campaigning with you and who you would fear campaigning against you. Campaigning is about persuading people and Obama's making the sale. That is part of being a good President.

Another thing is that offering "false hope" doesn't kill a presidency or did I miss how Bill Clinton became a bad President when he failed to get gays in the military, failed to reform healthcare, failed to close a Israeli/Palestinian peace deal.

Posted by elliottg | January 8, 2008 4:08 AM

"At least Hillary has tried once and knows better what she's getting into.

Posted by Desider | January 8, 2008 2:55 AM"

I'm not sure, "I failed once and now know better" is a winning campaign slogan. A record of failure is not a great resume, especially when you're running on your resume. You don't get rewarded for lacking follow-through. By that logic, we should re-elect bad presidents because they have supposedly learned from their mistakes.

Posted by Reality Man | January 8, 2008 4:22 AM

"Bill was mostly working with a Republican Congress, and it was impossible to go for idealistic goals."

The Republican Congress came about largely as a result of Hillary hatred and IIRC the collapse of the Clinton healthcare plan. Republicans don't just pop out of nowhere in Congress. They weren't a product of some deux ex machina. The Clintons left themselves vulnerable electorally and were never able to fully shake off their baggage.

Posted by Reality Man | January 8, 2008 4:29 AM

Actually Drum said it WASN'T a gaffe, and that's what made it freakier:

"But what's surprising isn't just that the way she put it was horribly off-putting, but that it wasn't just a momentary gaffe. Back in December, when Obama's poll numbers first started turning up, she said the same thing:

Clinton's response has been to turn aggressive. For the second day in a row, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination in national polls sharply attacked her leading rival, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, using some of the harshest language of the campaign. Arguing that her campaign is in a "very strong position," Clinton hammered Obama for offering "false hopes" rather than action. She predicted that voters will want, in her words, "a doer, not a talker."

This language backfired back then, so why would she deliberately resurrect it in front of a national audience? I thought she was doing fine up until that moment, but I'll bet that "false hopes" line stuck in a lot of craws. After all, I'm pretty sympathetic toward her, and it stuck in mine."

Posted by Phoebe | January 8, 2008 5:28 AM