This is spot on. Contrary to popular mythology, Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign was rooted in populist rhetoric. Universal health care. Pro-labor. Pro-middle class. He had some new rhetoric which contrasted with LBJ liberalism - but, at heart he was running a populist campaign. And he won. Its when he became the big cheerleader for NAFTA and Big Money in 1993, that labor punished him. They stayed home in 1994. That and the GOP tidal wave in 1994, doomed the Dems to minority status for a decade.
Edwards, Obama & Labor: Will the Populist Moment Become A Long-Term Movement?
by David Sirota
In the last two weeks, something profound started happening out on the 2008 campaign trail - a momentum has started building like I haven’t seen in my lifetime. Two out of the top three best-polling Democratic candidates are starting to engage in a battle for the populist mantle. How this battle plays out and how organized labor asserts itself in the next few months could very well set the stage for - or kill in its infancy - the rise of a broader populist movement in America.
The Edwards Factor
For the last year or so, former North Carolina Senator John Edwards has laid claim to a brand of bare-knuckled economic populism the Democratic Party hasn’t seen in a major candidate for president since at least Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, and more likely Dick Gephardt’s out-of-nowhere Iowa primary victory in 1988 (Clinton may have governed as a center-right corporate appeaser, but for those who buy the Washington media’s historical revisionism of Clinton originally RUNNING as an anti-populist technocrat, please see here* and here*). If all politicians are at some level opportunists and weathervanes, then we have to look at who they see their opportunities with and which way they perceive the wind blowing to get a sense of who they would rely on and how they would govern in the offices they seek.
Edwards, as In These Times’ latest cover story shows, clearly sees his opportunity with the labor movement and more specifically with a message attacking economic inequality, abuses of corporate power and rampant bipartisan corruption in Washington. After the 2006 elections where populists all over America were victorious, he sees the political advantages of this posture. And fortunately for Edwards, a populist message is 100 percent consistent with his previous career challenging Big Money interests as a trial attorney.
Now, in the last two weeks, Edwards has ratcheted up his People Party vs. Money Party campaign to a place that truly suggests his candidacy could be transformative. He’s moved away from merely the traditional checklisting of positions that we’ve gotten used to from candidates to start articulating a broader critique of the fundamental problem facing America in a way that few - if any - politicians really ever articulate. As an example, take a look at these two statements from him at last week’s debate. Though they received almost no coverage from a power-worshiping Washington media, it is astounding that a presidential candidate has the guts to say this:
Edwards has continued this drumbeat this week, telling a Nashua audience that Big Money interests now “run this country” and that “I think you’ve got to take them on and beat them, I don’t think you can sit at a table and negotiate with them.” And he has poignantly lashed out at the media, saying that their refusal to cover this root message of his campaign is an attempt to “talk about silly frivolous nothing stuff so that America won’t pay attention” to the very real economic challenges we face - challenges that many of the media’s parent companies and corporate advertisers are making ever harder to overcome.
Obama’s Encouraging Populist Streak
Now, here comes Barack Obama (D). About a week and a half ago, the Washington Post reported that “Obama’s campaign is doing some retooling: He is focusing more on the economy.” This story appeared on the same day the New York Times quoted Obama not-so-subtly lashing out at the Rubin wing of the Democratic Party, specifically indicting free traders for selling out American workers. And just yesterday, Obama ratcheted it up again, decrying a “second Gilded Age” and parroting Edwards almost word-for-word:
This is a very different and much better Obama than the one I interviewed back in 2005 for a major profile for The Nation magazine. Back then, he presented a more deferential, Third Way-ish attitude - a non-confrontational belief that if you just bring all powerful interests to the negotiating table, you can thread a needle to solve major economic problems in a way that makes everyone happy. Fortunately, what he’s saying now is the opposite: That power must be confronted, and that many of these issues are binary. There are those who want to preserve the status quo, and you have to force them to change.
A Battle for the Populist Mantle
For a while now, I’ve told reporters, political operatives and friends that I talk politics with that the most interesting fault line in the Democratic presidential primary will be between Edwards and Obama. The former has created a gravitational pull in the race to become the change candidate juxtaposed against the Establishment candidacy of Hillary Clinton and her Washington machine. Back in December, he gave a pointed speech in New Hampshire saying “identifying the problem and talking about hope is waiting for tomorrow” - a clear dig at Obama’s then-nebulous platitudes. A few months later, Obama tried to dismiss Edwards with right-wing-ish Beltway media memes, at one point saying Iowa voters would look at Edwards merely as “good-looking” or “cute.”
But now, Obama is taking Edwards more seriously, trying to match - if not one-up - Edwards in the race for the populist mantle. It really doesn’t matter whether you think Obama’s moves are principled or whether you think he is just politically calculating and can’t really be a populist because his campaign is overrun with Wall Street cash and Washington insiders. The point here is that there is clearly a competition going on - and that’s a good thing not just for the candidates in question, but for a political debate sorely lacking in any real discussion of the major economic forces that shape - and hurt - America.
continued
*http://www.davidsirota.com/
Edwards, Obama & Labor: Will the Populist Moment Become A Long-Term Movement?
by David Sirota
In the last two weeks, something profound started happening out on the 2008 campaign trail - a momentum has started building like I haven’t seen in my lifetime. Two out of the top three best-polling Democratic candidates are starting to engage in a battle for the populist mantle. How this battle plays out and how organized labor asserts itself in the next few months could very well set the stage for - or kill in its infancy - the rise of a broader populist movement in America.
The Edwards Factor
For the last year or so, former North Carolina Senator John Edwards has laid claim to a brand of bare-knuckled economic populism the Democratic Party hasn’t seen in a major candidate for president since at least Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, and more likely Dick Gephardt’s out-of-nowhere Iowa primary victory in 1988 (Clinton may have governed as a center-right corporate appeaser, but for those who buy the Washington media’s historical revisionism of Clinton originally RUNNING as an anti-populist technocrat, please see here* and here*). If all politicians are at some level opportunists and weathervanes, then we have to look at who they see their opportunities with and which way they perceive the wind blowing to get a sense of who they would rely on and how they would govern in the offices they seek.
Edwards, as In These Times’ latest cover story shows, clearly sees his opportunity with the labor movement and more specifically with a message attacking economic inequality, abuses of corporate power and rampant bipartisan corruption in Washington. After the 2006 elections where populists all over America were victorious, he sees the political advantages of this posture. And fortunately for Edwards, a populist message is 100 percent consistent with his previous career challenging Big Money interests as a trial attorney.
Now, in the last two weeks, Edwards has ratcheted up his People Party vs. Money Party campaign to a place that truly suggests his candidacy could be transformative. He’s moved away from merely the traditional checklisting of positions that we’ve gotten used to from candidates to start articulating a broader critique of the fundamental problem facing America in a way that few - if any - politicians really ever articulate. As an example, take a look at these two statements from him at last week’s debate. Though they received almost no coverage from a power-worshiping Washington media, it is astounding that a presidential candidate has the guts to say this:
Edwards has continued this drumbeat this week, telling a Nashua audience that Big Money interests now “run this country” and that “I think you’ve got to take them on and beat them, I don’t think you can sit at a table and negotiate with them.” And he has poignantly lashed out at the media, saying that their refusal to cover this root message of his campaign is an attempt to “talk about silly frivolous nothing stuff so that America won’t pay attention” to the very real economic challenges we face - challenges that many of the media’s parent companies and corporate advertisers are making ever harder to overcome.
Obama’s Encouraging Populist Streak
Now, here comes Barack Obama (D). About a week and a half ago, the Washington Post reported that “Obama’s campaign is doing some retooling: He is focusing more on the economy.” This story appeared on the same day the New York Times quoted Obama not-so-subtly lashing out at the Rubin wing of the Democratic Party, specifically indicting free traders for selling out American workers. And just yesterday, Obama ratcheted it up again, decrying a “second Gilded Age” and parroting Edwards almost word-for-word:
This is a very different and much better Obama than the one I interviewed back in 2005 for a major profile for The Nation magazine. Back then, he presented a more deferential, Third Way-ish attitude - a non-confrontational belief that if you just bring all powerful interests to the negotiating table, you can thread a needle to solve major economic problems in a way that makes everyone happy. Fortunately, what he’s saying now is the opposite: That power must be confronted, and that many of these issues are binary. There are those who want to preserve the status quo, and you have to force them to change.
A Battle for the Populist Mantle
For a while now, I’ve told reporters, political operatives and friends that I talk politics with that the most interesting fault line in the Democratic presidential primary will be between Edwards and Obama. The former has created a gravitational pull in the race to become the change candidate juxtaposed against the Establishment candidacy of Hillary Clinton and her Washington machine. Back in December, he gave a pointed speech in New Hampshire saying “identifying the problem and talking about hope is waiting for tomorrow” - a clear dig at Obama’s then-nebulous platitudes. A few months later, Obama tried to dismiss Edwards with right-wing-ish Beltway media memes, at one point saying Iowa voters would look at Edwards merely as “good-looking” or “cute.”
But now, Obama is taking Edwards more seriously, trying to match - if not one-up - Edwards in the race for the populist mantle. It really doesn’t matter whether you think Obama’s moves are principled or whether you think he is just politically calculating and can’t really be a populist because his campaign is overrun with Wall Street cash and Washington insiders. The point here is that there is clearly a competition going on - and that’s a good thing not just for the candidates in question, but for a political debate sorely lacking in any real discussion of the major economic forces that shape - and hurt - America.
continued
*http://www.davidsirota.com/
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