Milwaukee, Wis. PBS Democratic debate: analysis and commentary
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Sanders Tugs at Democrats’ Heartstrings
February 12, 2016
By Karlyn Bowman
Karlyn Bowman, a widely respected analyst of public opinion, is a senior fellow and research coordinator at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C.
The 2016 Democratic primary contest is being fought on Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ turf. Even as former Secretary of state Hillary Clinton tried to challenge Bernie Sanders’ plans for free health care and free college as unrealistic, it was clear from last night’s PBS debate in Milwaukee that he has pulled her to the left.
The primary process tends to pull both parties to their extremes. Then the candidates scramble for the all-important center ground in politics. The role, scope and size of government will be a general election issue in 2016—it usually is. And while the discussion of a larger role for government last night clearly excited Democrats, it is an open question whether crucial independent voters are in the same place as the Democratic candidates are.
Moderator Judy Woodruff was smart to raise the issue of how much government is enough to Bernie Sanders early in the debate, and it kept coming back throughout the evening. Clinton’s hammered away at the cost of his policies, saying they don’t add up and would raise the cost of government by 40 percent. Her policies, however, by her own admission last night have a $100 billion price tag. That’s expensive, and while Democrats cheer, independents will have doubts.
The debate last night was also about the minority vote in Nevada (minorities may account for 35 percent of the Democratic electorate there) and [South Carolina]] (African Americans could be 55 percent of the voters in the primary) and upcoming other Southern states as well. For this reason, Hillary Clinton clung to Barack Obama who remains popular among minorities. To this, Bernie Sanders reminded her that she had run against him in 2008. The discussion of criminal justice reform, an issue on which there appears to be growing bipartisan support, is especially important in the black community. Clinton is a master debater and her skills were evident again last night, but Bernie Sanders clearly pulls on many Democrats’ heartstrings.
Clinton’s Complexity, Sanders’ Simplicity and a Mansnapping Moment
February 12, 2016
By David Kusnet
David Kusnet is a former chief speechwriter for former President Bill Clinton. He is the senior writer and a principal at the Podesta Group, a government relations and public relations firm in Washington, D.C.
Bernie Sanders is a simple sentence: He’ll lead a “political revolution” against “a rigged economy and a corrupt political system.” In a year when Americans are angry about the economy and cynical about politicians, Sanders’ sentence is a surefire applause line.
Of necessity, Hillary Clinton’s appeal is a complex sentence, whose elements she has mixed and matched over two presidential campaigns, two administrations and almost 25 years on the national stage during, which the Democratic Party has shifted from self-conscious centrism to full-throated progressivism.
If she has a “relationship status” with Democratic primary voters and the wider electorate, “it’s complicated.” Simplicity clarifies a candidate’s appeal but sometimes narrows it. Complexity can confuse voters but also allows a candidate to cultivate different constituencies with differing concerns.
In last night’s debate, as she began to do in her concession speech in New Hampshire, Clinton made the most of her complexity to appeal to the diverse Democratic voters in Nevada and South Carolina, while presenting herself as a potential president who could get results in domestic policy and function effectively in foreign policy.
When I worked for Bill Clinton, he would use the word “plus” to describe how he would encompass and transcend narrow concerns. (For instance, “populism-plus” meant embracing economic equality and economic growth.)
Last night, beginning with her opening statement, Hillary Clinton presented herself as “Sanders-plus” in two ways: First, she shares her rival’s concerns about economic inequality, stagnant wages and campaign financing and can “make progress” on all these fronts. And, second, she wants to “go further” by knocking down the barriers of discrimination by race, gender, and immigration status.
In her closing statement, she made the most effective case for her campaign: “I am not a single-issue candidate, and I do not believe we live in a single-issue country.” Linking her pragmatism with her inclusiveness, she suggested that, even if Sanders’ economic populism prevailed, there would still be discrimination against African Americans, women and LGBT people.
In previous Democratic primary campaigns, faltering frontrunners from Walter Mondale to Al Gore have used similar arguments, embracing Democratic constituencies and deconstructing visionary but vague proposals, to bring high-flying insurgents from Gary Hart to Bill Bradley back down to earth.
For his part, Sanders closed not with a roadmap for what he would do as president but with a vision of what “tens of millions of people” could do to “demand that we have a government that represents all of us and not just the one percent, who today have so much economic and political power.”
Listening to Sanders, Clinton and her advisers should have noticed that presidential candidates are better served by talking about what “we” can do together, as John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan did, than concentrating on what “I” have done or will do in the White House, as countless defeated political insiders have done.
But, when Clinton spoke about closing tax loopholes “once I’m in the White House,” Sanders didn’t respond with an argument that presidents need popular movements behind them. Instead, he quickly quipped, “You’re not in the White House yet.”
That simple moment – a man snapping at a woman -- may end up defining the debate to Clinton’s advantage. Some of her social media supporters just might accuse Sanders not of “mansplaining” but “mansnapping.”
Some things are even easier to remember than simple declarative sentences.
See also
- Presidential candidates, 2016
- Presidential debates (2015-2016)
- Durham, N.H., MSNBC Democratic debate (February 4, 2016)
- Presidential election, 2016/Polls
- 2016 presidential candidate ratings and scorecards
- Presidential election, 2016/Straw polls
