For all we see in the media, especially television, you would think that the campaign for the Democratic nomination is all about the identity politics of race, gender and style. But that’s just what’s visible on the surface. When you consider history, voting trends and technological advances, what we’re seeing in Obama vs. Clinton is more the inevitable conflict that occurs during a major generational transition.
We see two distinct coalitions of Democratic voters lining up behind Obama and Clinton respectively. Obama: young people, the more educated, African-Americans, independents and disaffected Republicans. Clinton: older people — especially women, the less educated, Hispanics, and low-income whites. With the exception of Hispanics, a more recent demographic in America, Clinton has the old Franklin Roosevelt coalition and Obama has a coalition of people who have been slowly leaving the Republican party since Teddy Roosevelt. Clinton’s coalition has been responsible for every major Democratic win since 1960. It has also failed to produce a majority in a presidential race since 1976. In the last eight years, Obama’s coalition has been the difference-maker in just about every victory the party has won. Notable examples: Sen. Jim Webb’s 2006 defeat of George Allen in Virgina. Jon Tester in Montana. This guy Bill Foster who just won a Republican Congressional district in Illinois during a recent special election. (Note: Illinois 14 is not only the district of former Speaker Dennis Hastert, it’s where my wife was born and where many of her family still live). Take Minnesota in 2006. Amy Klobuchar united these coalitions to win a landslide victory in the Senate race. Mike Hatch could only hold the Franklin Roosevelt DFLers and lost the governor’s race to Tim Pawlenty.
So if the question is which coalition will defeat John McCain, the answer must be both. And the numbers in the primaries seem to indicate that these coalitions are roughly the same size and hold roughly the same amount of power. But it seems to me that when you look at trends regarding union membership, population growth, and the core values of what is a surprisingly huge generation of people under 30 right now, you see that Obama’s coalition will probably continue to grow while Clinton’s will continue to shrink. I base that on the last two presidential years.
In 2000, we saw Al Gore and Bill Bradley emerge as the two contenders in the Democratic primary season. Gore was then the quasi-incumbent front runner with the backing of labor and most traditional Democratic constituencies. Bradley was the oratorical “change” candidate who was running on the need for a new kind of politics. Bradley came close in New Hampshire, but never caught fire nationally. Gore won the nomination easily. Today, perhaps ironically, Gore has adopted a mantra of change, especially in his most recent books, that sounds much more like Bradley 2000 than Gore 2000. I don’t know, of course, but I infer that this might have something to do with Gore’s experiences of watching the nation divide before his eyes after the experiences of the 2000 election. Gore’s a smart guy. I think he sees how the nation and the Democratic party are changing.
In 2004, Howard Dean was at one point the presumptive nominee. Of course, that was before there was any voting. But in that moment, when Dean was leading the field by huge margins and raising what was then record-breaking amounts of money online, we saw the potential of this new independent-minded, younger, modern coalition. But it wasn’t quite time yet. Dean was saying the right things, but didn’t quite close the sale in Iowa. In the end, people went for the comfort and war hero credentials of Sen. John Kerry, then running with the traditional Democratic coalition. Kerry won Iowa and New Hampshire and, though facing a tough challenge from John Edwards after the Dean implosion, largely swept his way to the nomination. Then, like Gore, he lost to the Bush by a nose in the general.
Here we are in 2008. Obama was not the presumptive nominee before Iowa, but seized that title through impressive modern political organization and commanding victories in key states. Clinton, who has held a strong grip on traditional Democratic constituencies throughout this process, has yet to crack the code in stopping Obama. And while she still has an outside chance of snatching the nomination by way of superdelegate revolt, Obama has already shown that this coalition that started with Bradley and Dean and now rests with Obama has grown both in size and in sophistication. In short, this coalition — once and if it absorbs the traditional Democratic groups now loyal to Clinton — could represent a new majority for the next generation of American politics.
That is, if Democrats don’t throw it all away. Following these trend lines, I see two truths emerging.
1) If Clinton is the nominee she faces the same problems that Gore and Kerry did — the alienation of the new coalition, a close election, and possible defeat — perhaps more so because of how she’d have to win that nomination.
2) No matter what, the coalition of young, educated, technologically savvy, racially mixed, global minded folks that supported Bradley, Dean and now Obama will be back in 2012, and 2016, and beyond. And they’ll probably win next time if they don’t win this time. It’s interesting that Al Gore, Howard Dean, Bill Bradley, John Kerry, John Edwards — who once fought one another — are all now saying something similar to Barack Obama’s central message, even though Dean, Gore and Edwards remain neutral in this year’s race. America’s problems can’t be solved the same old way, but only by building a new, better organized and more transparent majority.
It’s not a matter of if change will occur, but when. The Democratic Party and the United States of America are changing. Barack Obama is the change candidate; Hillary Clinton is the traditional candidate.
Which way are we going to go here?
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