In response to my “Torricelli Solution” column on Hillary Clinton’s imploding candidacy, Jonah makes a strong case that the scenario I envision (as John Fund did last week) would be tough to pull off “without throwing the Sandersnistas into open revolt.” I don’t part company with Jonah often, and I don’t think I’m straying far here because I agree with a lot of his analysis, but let me push back a little bit.
My read on the Democratic primary electorate may be different from that of many others on our side. I do not mean to minimize the impressive Bernie phenomenon, but I want to put it in context.
Long before there was a Bernie campaign, before this 2016 campaign got rolling with an expectation of Hillary’s coronation, I was one of several on our side saying, “Not so fast.” The point I made repeatedly in interviews and columns was that she is a very weak candidate – not just for the White House, but for the nomination. That didn’t mean she would not get the nomination. After all, it was rigged for her. But it was rigged for herbecause it had to be.
My basic contention was that Mrs. Clinton would already be president today (or at least would have been from 2009 through 2012) if she had merely been able to get over 40 percent with the Democratic electorate at the crucial time of the 2008 primary, which – we will recall – was also supposed to be a coronation. She could not do it because she is unlikable, dishonest and dull, even in the eyes of many Democrats. Her popularity has always been a media and Beltway myth.
Barack Obama turned out to be a charismatic political force, but we shouldn’t overrate that either. He got his opening mainly because Hillary was not popular enough to close the deal; the media downplayed Obama’s radical background and presented him as a pragmatic moderate; and Bush, the Republicans, the financial meltdown (with Bush at the helm), and Iraq were so unpopular that it is highly unlikely any Republican could have won.
To me, there were only two differences between Hillary 2008 and Hillary 2016: (1) in 2016, the already unpopular Hillary now added to her woes Benghazi and a generally shoddy tenure as secretary of state with no discernible accomplishments (at this point, we knew nothing about the emails, but there were already stirrings of corruption at the Clinton Foundation); and (2) the Clinton machine seemed to have to cleared the field of plausible competition for the 2016 run – there was no young, exciting, party-crashing Barack Obama type; this race was choreographed for her to play the seasoned prize-fighter who just has to knock out a few tomato cans before getting a title shot in November.
Whether Hillary would claim the nomination (again, rigged for her by super-delegates) would depend on whether difference number 1 got so bad that it changed the dynamic of difference number 2. Turns out it did. Indeed, difference number 1 turned out to be even worse than I anticipated (which is saying a lot).
That is a long way around the bend to posit my main argument. I would not overrate the Sandersnistas as strictly a Bernie phenomenon. Hillary would have won months ago had there not been an intense, pre-existing resistance to Clinton, who is simply a terrible candidate. I don’t mean to suggest that the Bernie intensity is not real, especially among the young (many of whom won’t vote in November). But I still would not exaggerate it. A meaningful amount of the fervor behind Bernie would flag if Hillary were taken out of the equation.
This brings me to a second aspect of the Torricelli Solution. I did not just suggest that Joe Biden could be slid in as the nominee (because, to pull the Torricelli Solution off nationally, you have to have someone who can instantly mount a national campaign, with the help of the Obama campaign infrastructure which would be put to work for him in a way it would never be put in service of the Clintons). I also suggested that Elizabeth Warren has to be the Veep nominee, with at least a vague understanding that she runs at the top of the ticket in 2020.
Here, I was trying to address exactly the problem Jonah rightly emphasizes: The Dems cannot afford a revolt by the Sandersnistas. I may not think they are as big a force as Jonah suggests, but he’s undoubtedly right that they are a big enough force to break a lot of china, maybe enough to wreck everything, if they are not mollified. The thing is: I don’t think it would require giving Bernie the nomination in order to satisfy them. They just need someone to hang their ideological hat on, and that’s Warren (plus the extent that they can rationalize a vote for Biden as a vote for Obama’s third term). Beyond that, they just need Bernie to be on the team even if he’s not on the ticket. That is something the Dems can easily figure out how to do.
One last point. The scenario I anticipate requires neither an indictment nor the Clintons to put party interest over self-interest.
Torricelli was never indicted. He came close to being indicted and part of staving that off involved seeing that his self-interest lay in bowing out: politically, he looked like a sure loser in the imminent 2002 election; legally, stepping aside made him look contrite, which always helps in settlement negotiations. I see Hillary’s analogous scenario as a situation in which she (a) increasingly looks like a loser politically, (b) increasingly looks indictable legally, (c) would face the likelihood of prosecution if she is nominated and loses the general election, but (d) currently has leverage to pressure Obama to pardon her now, in exchange for stepping aside and giving Dems a better chance to win.
Not to be underrated in this calculus: The Clinton Foundation. If the foundation has become part of the FBI’s investigation (as many reports indicate), an eventual prosecution could entail major forfeiture consequences. On the other hand, if Obama pardons her/them, the next Justice Department is not going to bother pursuing a civil asset forfeiture case that is leaps and bounds more difficult without criminal convictions on the underlying conduct that makes assets forfeitable. In other words: there’s a lot of money on the table, and a pardon would mean the Clintons get to keep it … and to keep operating that lucrative family business.
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