http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/davidcorn/2008/02/hillary-clintons-lastminute-po.htmlHillary Clinton's Last-Minute Populism: A Hail-Mary Pass?
By David Corn | February 25, 2008
What's wrong with the following headline from the front page of Monday's Washington Post?
Clinton Test Out Populist Approach
Answer: A true populist doesn't have to test out a populist approach. But this is what so often happens in the Democratic Party. A candidate finds himself or herself in the rough and they reach for the populist nine iron. Let me see if I can get out of trouble with this club. Al Gore got all populist in the closing days of the 2000 presidential contest, noting he would fight for us against them--the drug companies, health insurance companies, and the like. (You know, all the folks who bought superboxes at the Democratic convention that year in the Staples Center.) Michael Dukakis veered similarly toward the end of his campaign against George H.W. Bush in 1988. Neither ended up in the White House.
It's not that populism is bad politics; it's that phony (or halfhearted or last-minute) populism is no guarantee of success. For Hillary Clinton to don the mantle of heavy-breathing populism at this stage is not all that convincing. She and her husband never were full-fledged members of that Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. In 1992, Bill, a leader of the conservative-leaning, pro-business Democratic Leadership Council, did run with a quasi-populist agenda of "Putting People First"--which he jettisoned after entering the White House in favor of a Fed-friendly close-the-deficit governing policy. With Hillary by his side, he pushed for Nafta--which was passionately opposed by populists within the party. (These days, Hillary Clinton tries disingenuously to distance herself from the treaty, maintaining it was negotiated by President George H.W. Bush--and not acknowledging that her husband led a major drive to get it passed in Congress over objections from labor unions and Democrats.) And when Hillary Clinton put together her health care reform package, she tried at first to co-opt or appease the health care industry, while other Dems advocated a more confrontational strategy. Her record as a populist is a slight bit thin.
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She wants to bash those special interests. Yet her campaign strategy has been crafted by Mark Penn, whose day job is to assist corporations so they can game the system in Washington and elsewhere. Much more so than Barack Obama, Clinton has made use of lobbyists as fundraisers and staffers. Her aversion to corporate special interests was not that strong when she was organizing her campaign and looking forward to a front-runner's trot to victory in the Democratic contest.
Hillary Clinton clearly wants to regain the support of blue-collar Dems. In recent weeks, exit polls have showed that Obama has made dramatic inroads into this bloc, which did seem to be on Clinton's side earlier in the race. And, no doubt, she is still hoping to get a thumb's up from John Edwards, who has not endorsed either Clinton or Obama. (As I previously noted, Edwards will have a tough time awarding his seal of approval to Clinton over Obama after referring to her as a "corporate Democrat" and a force for the status quo.)
If Clinton wants to prove she's a populist, she could ask Penn and the corporate lobbyists who work for her to vacate the premises. But it's difficult to take her late conversion to populism seriously when the guy behind it is making millions of dollars working for the special interests she decries.
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