Bernie campaigns on the past in Iowa. But once again, a Clinton can't stop thinking about tomorrow
Well worth the read.
Monday, Oct 26, 2015 05:01 AM CST
Bernie Sanders just declared war: But is he running against Bill Clinton or Hillary?
Bernie campaigns on the past in Iowa. But once again, a Clinton can't stop thinking about tomorrow
Amanda Marcotte
Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks to the Democratic National Committee 22nd Annual Women's Leadership Forum National Issues Conference in Washington, Friday, Oct. 23, 2015. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)(Credit: AP)
DES MOINES — Going into this weekend’s Jefferson-Jackson Dinner,...........
Under the circumstances, it’s no surprise that Bernie Sanders pulled out all stops at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, hoping to regain momentum, by comparing himself to Barack Obama .......................
It was a bold pronouncement and probably the wrong move,............................
.....................................but his campaign felt tired and he sometimes seemed more interested in litigating the past than looking to the future.
...................... Sanders spent much of his speech castigating not just Hillary, but Bill Clinton, though always being careful never to name either one of them directly. ...................
Going after Clinton’s husband as much as after her, even under the guise of talking about his history of making hard political choices, is an understandable move. ........
Still, it’s a choice that has potential to backfire, not just because it’s backwards-looking instead of forward-looking, but because it opens Sanders up to accusations of sexism for assuming that a woman follows lockstep after her husband. Clinton is not afraid to insinuate that assumption is sexist, either. .....................
Clinton, who entered the stage to Katy Perry’s “Roar,” was far less interested in the past than the future, which is an easy choice for the frontrunner to make, but makes her campaign feel much more like Obama’s than Sanders’s campaign does.........
Seeing as how Sanders spoke before Clinton (with a buffer of Martin O’Malley, who literally put some teen girls I sat next to asleep), it ended up feeling like he was there to introduce the problems and she was there to offer solutions. Which is fine if you believe that Sanders’s purpose in this campaign is more to push Clinton to the left than it is to actually win the White House. Unfortunately, however, the vast majority of Sanders supporters left during Clinton’s speech. They were probably just tired, but it left the indelible impression that the Sanders campaign is more interested in the past than in the future
On social issues, the same contrast between the past and the future emerged. .................
The contrast between the future orientation of the Clinton campaign and the nostalgia of the Sanders campaign came across in the pre-dinner rallies. Mostly country-western music played over the speakers during the warm-up for the Sanders rally, but at the Clinton rally, it was almost exclusively pop and R&B. Katy Perry, in a hilariously glam outfit, rallied the kids by singing her hits at the Clinton rally. In fact, there were so many kids there that Perry addressed herself directly to the high schoolers, telling them if they turn 18 before November, to be sure to register to vote.
When I left the Sanders rally, a folk singer with a guitar was on stage. When I returned to the Sanders rally in time for their march across the Women of Achievement bridge, Sanders was comparing the march to civil rights marches from the ’60s. Seeing Sanders and his supporters come across the bridge made a nice picture, for sure.
But after watching Katy Perry swirl around in a white dress with an American flag cape, it all felt a teeny bit grim and humorless compared to the good cheer of the Clinton campaign.
It seemed, at the end of the day, that it was Clinton and not Sanders who learned the lessons of the Obama campaign. It’s easy to scoff that things like telling jokes (which Clinton did and Sanders did not) and surrounding yourself with pop stars is just aesthetics. But Obama showed, in 2008, that aesthetics matter. Obama successfully portrayed his campaign as young, hip, and fun compared to staid old Clinton’s campaign. People joined up not just because they wanted to be in the cool kid’s club, but because this air of youthfulness and optimism gave them hope. Sanders is right about everything ailing our country, but he never conveyed that sense of hope, so much as a continued outrage over the failures of the past.
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