Watching the speakers on the podium on Monday night at the Democratic National Convention, you could get the impression that the Hillary Clinton forces are managing to unify the Democratic Party, in contrast to the ramshackle atmosphere on the afternoon session when Bernie Sanders supporters started booing during the invocation and then threw convention presiding officer Marcia Fudge (standing in for the dismissed but not forgotten by Bernie fans Debbie Wasserman Schultz) off stride.
They didn’t boo or catcall at all during Michelle Obama’s finely crafted speech in which she said “this country is great” — quite a contrast from her February 2008 stump statement that, “For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country.” She had never been proud of her country until her husband started winning presidential primaries.
Her speech made two strong points about Hillary Clinton that other speakers have echoed. She’s the most qualified presidential candidate ever, maybe overqualified, is the line. It’s hyperbole of course, but Clinton has in fact had more experience seeing how things work in and from the perspective of the White House and the State Department, something that few presidential candidates have in our system.
It seems unthinkable that someone with the experience of, say, James Baker is seen as an implausible candidate, much less plausible than the governor of a middle-sized state who has won some elections. That experience is a plus, whatever else you think of Clinton.
The second attribute Michelle Obama and others emphasized was Clinton’s perseverance. She didn’t put it quite the way I would have — that Clinton has rebounded from humiliations ranging from the defeat of Hillycare to the revelation of her husband’s sexual affair with a White House intern.
But the idea is that she overcame circumstances that would cause most of us to want to put our heads in the sand and hide from the world for the rest of our lives. Clinton hasn’t done that, and has continued working toward her goals. Whatever you think of those, the persistence and resilience she has shown is a positive quality for a president.
But it’s also interesting what the Democrats didn’t talk about Monday. Almost nothing about the Bill Clinton administration. And not just because they don’t want to portray Hillary Clinton as a spouse somehow subordinate to her husband. The main reason is that Hillary Clinton and her party have moved way left of her husband’s administration and Monday, with the Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders speeches, was the left-wingers’ night.
In his speech, Sanders lamented “40 years of decline” without mentioning that Democrats held the White House for 20, the Senate for 21.5 and the House of Representatives for 20 of those 40 years.
There was also little mention of the Obama administration, but I think this is standard for a party seeking a third consecutive presidential term. Republicans in 2008 didn’t celebrate the then-unpopular George W. Bush (and were relieved when a hurricane threat gave him an excuse for not showing up). Democrats in 2000 didn’t much celebrate Bill Clinton (Al Gore wanted to create his own separate persona).
I don’t recall much Reagan idolatry by Republicans in 1988 (his job approval had fallen from about 70 percent to about a not bad but not spectacular 50 percent with the Iran-contra revelations in November 1986). Certainly Republicans didn’t spend a lot of time on Richard Nixon in 1976. The presidency is in many ways a personal office, and each candidate seeking a third term for his party wants to emphasize his own persona, not his predecessor’s.
I caught relatively little mention of, and tepid applause for, some issues dear to some Democrats. Climate change: tepid applause for Bernie Sander’s riff on Donald Trump ignoring scientists (one might say, as he ignores so many experts).
Abortion: “Women’s right to choose,” a surefire applause-getter at previous Democratic conventions going back to 1992, got just a handful of claps. My sense is that women under 50 don’t see “choice” as a euphemism for all the personal choices they’ve made in their lives which their parents and the larger society discouraged when they were young.
That’s because it’s been a long time since most parents and most media have said you’re doing something if you leave your children to others and take a job in the workplace.
And then there’s infrastructure, on which Hillary Clinton promises massive spending and which serious liberals like Brookings’s William Galston advocate.
Maybe, just maybe, the Democrats realize that, as Barack Obama learned, there are no shovel-ready projects, and that big projects like California’s High Speed Rail (which is never going to get built) and Washington’s Metro (with lines shut down for days and weeks because of inadequate maintenance) aren’t working out so well.
I heard no mention of Islamic terrorism. Perhaps I missed something, but it was clearly an issue Monday’s speakers did not want to bring before the left-wing audience at the Wells Fargo arena. Presumably there will be some treatment of this subject on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, especially after this morning’s beheading of a priest in France by Islamic State fighters.
There were big cheers for attacks on Donald Trump, with much concentration on his penchants for insults of the handicapped and prisoners of war — a strong point for Democrats and an entirely legitimate one.
There was considerable applause for repeated promises to increase the minimum wage, mandated family leave time and “equal pay for equal work” — policies which test very well in polls but which in practice, I have argued, are not going to expand the economy and which will be of minimal value to most people.
And how will Democrats expand the economy and increase economic growth? Monday’s speeches mostly leave you guessing at the answers. You could argue that finance law changes — like reinstating Glass-Steagall or breaking up big banks — might stimulate growth, but they were presented more as ways to reduce income and wealth inequality, which is not the same thing as increasing growth and arguably retards it.
Finally, Bernie Sanders got big cheers when he denounced the media for paying too much attention to gossip, fundraising and polls — though he didn’t include “damn emails” on his list. So conservatives might take comfort that left-wing Democrats have their complaints about the media too.
The bottom line is Democrats achieved outward unity on the podium if not among all delegations, with ringing Hillary Clinton endorsements from erstwhile critics Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Sarah Silverman.
But they’ve still got some coming together to do, and some strategic thinking. Does their left-wing program repel too many voters? Does it address the top issues on the minds of voters who may be more worried about terrorist attacks than raising the minimum wage?
