Politics and Policy

Scott Lemieux gets speculative:

Admittedly, this is the kind of counterfactual that's impossible to prove, but my guess is that if she had voted against the war Clinton would be the Democratic candidate. Given the closeness of the race, her inherent advantages going in, and that the war had to be a liability it's hard to imagine that she wouldn't have prevailed without the Iraq albatross. Whether or not Clinton's support was sincere -- I don't think it really matters -- sometimes getting big policies wrong really is politically damaging. (See also the 2006 midterms.) This is evidently a good thing.

I think that's right. To take the notion that good policy is good politics out of the realm of pure idealism, I'd say the point is that policy that can be seen to have turned out poorly is bad politics. With some bad policies, the costs are either hidden or deferred to the future (or both, as with excessive carbon emissions) in which case bad policy can be excellent politics. But with something like a war that's going to have a lot of very obvious short-run consequences, it's genuinely quite helpful politically to have sound substantive judgment.

Comments

I think she could have won even if she had voted for the war and decided sometime before EXACTLY the moment she started trying to win democratic primaries that it was a piss poor idea.

Posted by Ed Marshall | May 10, 2008 12:17 PM

Ed picks up part of what i was going to say - actually, you could have defended the "war" vote as such, since it did lead to the inspectors going back and disproving he case for "war," if you actually took that position in spring, 2003.

that said, it remains to be seen whether being "anti-war" actually is good politics: winning the democratic nomination is not the same as winning the election, and being "anti-war" certainly wouldn't have won in 2004....

Posted by howard | May 10, 2008 12:27 PM

On a related note, it looks like there's a pretty good chance RSH will win his longstanding bet, and much sooner than I'd expected:

Iran Attack Imminent?

Wonder what our speechifyin' Saint Barack will decide to say about this...

Wonder what Matt will say as well...

Posted by RKU | May 10, 2008 12:51 PM

It wasn't just the vote for the war, it was also her lies about why she voted for it -- she claimed she thought she was voting for inspections -- and her non-apology apologies. The combination was very effective at reminding voters what made them uneasy about the Clintons in the first place.

Posted by TKD | May 10, 2008 1:26 PM

It's more of a chicken/egg question, in my mind. Because she is politically calculating, she HAD to vote for the war to appear tough.

The lack of integrity in the positions she chose to support led to her loss in the primaries. In my opinion, if she had voted against the war for purely calculating reasons, she still would have been exposed down the road for her lack of judgment and conviction.

Posted by texasdem | May 10, 2008 1:35 PM

I think Scott's wrong.

Karen Tumulty lays it out nicely:
1. She misjudged the mood
That was probably her biggest blunder. In a cycle that has been all about change, Clinton chose an incumbent's strategy, running on experience, preparedness, inevitability — and the power of the strongest brand name in Democratic politics.
...
2. She didn't master the rules
Clinton picked people for her team primarily for their loyalty to her, instead of their mastery of the game. That became abundantly clear in a strategy session last year, according to two people who were there. As aides looked over the campaign calendar, chief strategist Mark Penn confidently predicted that an early win in California would put her over the top because she would pick up all the state's 370 delegates. It sounded smart, but as every high school civics student now knows, Penn was wrong: Democrats, unlike the Republicans, apportion their delegates according to vote totals, rather than allowing any state to award them winner-take-all.
...
3. She underestimated the caucus states
While Clinton based her strategy on the big contests, she seemed to virtually overlook states like Minnesota, Nebraska and Kansas, which choose their delegates through caucuses. She had a reason: the Clintons decided, says an adviser, that "caucus states were not really their thing."
...
4. She relied on old money
For a decade or more, the Clintons set the standard for political fund raising in the Democratic Party, and nearly all Bill's old donors had re-upped for Hillary's bid. Her 2006 Senate campaign had raised an astonishing $51.6 million against token opposition, in what everyone assumed was merely a dry run for a far bigger contest. But something had happened to fund raising that Team Clinton didn't fully grasp: the Internet.
...
5. She never counted on a long haul
Clinton's strategy had been premised on delivering a knockout blow early. If she could win Iowa, she believed, the race would be over. Clinton spent lavishly there yet finished a disappointing third.
....
-------------------
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1738331,00.html

Maybe Iraq had something to do with Iowa, an isolationist state, but who wants a nominee so wrong so often?

Posted by Peter K. | May 10, 2008 1:37 PM

texasdem,
i think you are mostly right.
i do think, however, that she probably would have been able to muddle her way through, even with those questions swirling.
the war vote is a given, something that is there and she always has to work around it.
everything else involves stuff that she can dispute and muddy and move off the board with a strong enough rebuttal.
she can never do that with her war vote.
kerry was in the exact same position.
he could fudge on lots of different stuff, but it always came back to kerry having to explain how he voted for the war and was then against it.
he was always on the defensive on an issue that should have been or could have been a clear winner.

Posted by frankie d | May 10, 2008 2:05 PM

I agree with Ed and howard (posts #1 and #2). It's not so much that she voted for it, it's how she defended it.

Here's what Senator Clinton should have said:

"My fellow Americans,

I represent the citizens of the great state of New York. Words like "security" and "terrorism" are not abstract concepts for us. We've been attacked by Al Qaeda 3 times. Twice on September 11 and once before that.

So, yes, when the time came to decide whether or not to expand the war on terror I erred on the side of caution and voted yes.

There's something that I learned when I was in the White House with Bill and it's something I'd like to share with you. When you are CIC and authorize the use of military force you go all the way or not at all. It's not as if you are ordering a steak and can send it back if it's not the way you want it. You have to give our soldiers time to achieve their objectives even if the going gets tough. So, yes, early on I was one of the most hawkish Democrats on the hill.

But, I can't tell you how disappointed I was when I found out President Bush had lied to us about WMDs.

And, I can't tell you how horrified I was when I saw the pictures of torture from Abu Ghraib.

And, I can't tell you how angered and infuriated I was when I saw that our soldiers weren't getting the body armor they needed in Iraq or the medical care they so rightly reserved after coming home.

Albeit indirectly, I voted for all that. Words cannot express how sorry I am for it. I'm going to have to live with that and it's not going to be easy.

But that's also why I'm running for President. I'm asking you to let me make things right with our soldiers and with you the American people..."

Posted by MarcInSeattle | May 10, 2008 2:14 PM

I agree with the post, but what's with the term "counterfactual"?

Couldn't the introductory clause just as easily be, "Admittedly, this is the kind of IDEA that's impossible to prove,"? Or, thesis, or proposition, or theory, but no, "counterfactual"?

Posted by Doug | May 10, 2008 2:24 PM

Chalk me up as believing this hypothesis may very well be right. For me personally, Clinton's vote on authorization was the deal-breaker. And not only that, I would have been much more willing to support her if she had been able to acknowledge that the vote was wrong. John Edwards was always my favorite candidate, and actually still is, even though he also voted for authorization, because he convinced me that he realized that he made a mistake, and that he is able to do better. Hell, I'm even able to forgive Matthew Yglesias, sadly unlike some other denizens of the blogosphere who will go unmentioned.

When a member of Congress votes on the authorization for war, it gives us a unique opportunity to see the kind of judgment they would exercise as President making essentially the same decision. The motives for Clinton's vote have been and probably will be debated for a long time. Did she feel the need to demonstrate "strength" because she believed it she had to as a Democrat and as a woman? Or did she sincerely believe it was the right decision? But in the end, we can't get into a candidate's head; we can only go on what they do and say. Hillary Clinton voted for the war and would not acknowledge that it was a mistake. That means that she is not qualified to be President, end of story.

Posted by Buckeye Hamburger | May 10, 2008 2:51 PM

"Hillary Clinton voted for the war and would not acknowledge that it was a mistake. That means that she is not qualified to be President, end of story.

Posted by Buckeye Hamburger | May 10, 2008 2:51 PM"

Unless you believe Erica Jong in The New Republic and think the only reason she couldn't get away with the war vote was that she didn't have a penis, which has to be the dumbest thing ever written to support a candidate. Seriously, if she hadn't spent the campaign running against DFH's, she probably would have won, but she seemed determined to piss people off.

Posted by Reality Man | May 10, 2008 3:08 PM

oh, absolutely. a Clinton who was a 'real Democrat', didn't support Iraq, didn't buy the hype about Iran, would have totally steamrolled all of her competition. no doubt. but you can't really pick through things that way. the vote is part and parcel of who she is. of course she wasn't going to stand up against a war that a popular (at the time) president wanted. that's not something one would look to Hillary Clinton for leadership on. and not only that, but publicly declaring that anyone who didn't like her war vote should "find another candidate"!!! just to emphasize how arrogant, unresponsive, tone-deaf and churlish she could be. that is the kind of thing Bush would say, and frankly, she's been acting a lot like the guy for quite a while now.

Posted by onceler | May 10, 2008 4:04 PM

Bill Clinton made a well-covered statement after the 2002 midterms, that "The American people will vote for someone who's strong and wrong over someone who's weak and right." To the extent that political calculation played a role in Senator Clinton's vote, I think that was the basic rationale. Even if the war turned out badly, it's still better politically to err on the side of using force than it is to oppose using force and say, "I told you so."

It's a position which seemed to hold up with the 2004 election results, both in the primaries and in the general, and through much of 2007, where polls showed that Hillary Clinton had a pretty big edge among Democratic voters who listed ending the Iraq War as a priority. In the New Hampshire primary exit poll, voters who said they wanted to withdraw troops from Iraq "as quickly as possible" voted for Clinton 41%-34% over Obama.

Personally, I don't think her vote on the war made that much difference in her political fortunes. A lot of Americans supported the war at first and then came to favor getting out, after all. And frankly, I think that even if she had voted against the war, the liberal activists in the party would have found some other reason to oppose her. There's clearly a personal animus towards her that goes beyond one vote.

Posted by Another Chris | May 10, 2008 4:15 PM

i certainly agree the reason she lost the netroots and the left was her refusal to admit the error of her iraq war vote.

in general, other reasons she lost included her inability to win over white professionals, young white voters and black voters of all ages, and her inability to match obama's internet fundraising.

Posted by dj spellchecka | May 10, 2008 4:22 PM

RKU has it right: "On a related note, it looks like there's a pretty good chance RSH will win his longstanding bet, and much sooner than I'd expected:"

Yes, I was wrong when I thought they would do it in 2006. But back then there was a downside - the Republicans could lose the 2008 elections if the war went badly between 2006 and 2008 - and it would have.

But there is no downside to doing it now. The Republicans will get a "war bounce" from the Bush attack on Iran, Obama will be unable to distinguish his position on Iran - that "Iran is a threat" - from McCain the "war hero", and thus "the Dems will lose over Iran", exactly as Josh Bolton said in 2006.

And by 2012, when the Republicans are up for election again, who knows what the situation will be? The Dems were unable to do anything about the Iraq war for the last five years. Who thinks they will be able to do anything about the Iran war in the next four? The next election could be held under almost the same circumstances as today - except the wars will be worse, the economy will be worse, more people will be dead - and the Dems STILL won't be able to promote a rational foreign policy. Because they can't - because they're part of the "War Party" just as much as the Republicans.

And neither Matt nor any other Democrat will say a word about this. NOT ONE SINGLE Democratic leader or pundit has ever said anything about what the impact of a war on Iran would be on the elections - not in 2006 and not in 2008.

They don't have the nerve.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 10, 2008 7:29 PM

that said, it remains to be seen whether being "anti-war" actually is good politics: winning the democratic nomination is not the same as winning the election, and being "anti-war" certainly wouldn't have won in 2004....

That's totally wrong. John Kerry's loss was attributable to, among other things, being unable to take a coherent position against the war because he voted for it. (Remember "I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it"?)

If the party had listened to its anti-war base, Howard Dean may have very well been elected President.

Posted by Dilan Esper | May 11, 2008 2:53 AM

She would probably have won, but she would have been primaried very aggressively, including by Obama, because too many people hate her for stupid and at least somewhat misogynistic reasons.

Posted by Rich | May 11, 2008 11:07 AM

If she had just apologized for the war vote more forthrightly, she would have won a resounding plurality in Iowa and this race would have been over in January. It's true that there are many other mistakes she's made before and after this election, but no single mistake was large enough to deny her the nomination. It took every ounce of mistake-making power Senator Clinton could muster to deny herself the nomination, only her poor judgment that saved us from her poor judgment. We thank her for the glorious failure that overshadows every past success.

Posted by Consumatopia | May 11, 2008 3:43 PM

We are in hypothetical land here, so can't we ask, would Clinton have opposed the war while doing everything else exactly the same way? Wouldn't she also have had to be a politician who chooses sound policy over going along to get along? Someone who didn't believe that a woman Senator has to be extra-special-hawky in order to be perceived as "credible" on national security? Etc. In other words, I think for Clinton to have taken a different position on the war, she would have to have been Barack Obama.

Posted by bobbo | May 11, 2008 8:20 PM