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Hillary Clinton and the Perils of Inevitability
To those who say that it is inevitable that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic Party nominee, I have a two word rebuttal: Paul Martin. My American readers will respond “Who?” My Canadian readers will immediately know what I am talking about.
To understand my allusion one must look back 10 to 15 years in Canadian history. In the late 90’s, Paul Martin was Canada’s finance minister. He became a national hero for balancing the budget and was the most popular Liberal politician in Canada. His boss, the wily Jean Chretien hated, him. In the early 2000’s, when it was clear that Chretien’s time was coming to an end, the Canadian news media played-up Paul Martin the way the US media played up Barack Obama in 2008.
As the press told it, Paul Martin was the colossus that bestrode the Canadian body politic. He is fiscally conservative and socially liberal, just the way we like our politicians. In a word, Paul Martin was inevitable.
Just one little problem with that analysis: when Martin took over the Liberal Party from Chretien, he fizzled. Completely. He became the party leader (and therefore Prime Minister) in December 2003. When he led the Liberals into a Federal Election in June 2004, he lost Chretien’s majority. He hung on for a year-and-a-half with a minority but the new Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper defeated him in 2006. On election night, the now-former Prime Minister Paul Martin resigned, a broken man.
So what happened? How did he fall so far from so high? Why did the colossus of Canadian politics barely hold on to power for 2 years, while his predecessor, the hyper-ineloquent Jean Chretien, won three back-to-back majorities?
The answer, I think, is that Paul Martin didn’t stand for anything besides himself. He didn’t champion anything. Everybody supported him – the Liberal leadership race of 2003 was the closest thing to a coronation that Canada ever had – because he was inevitable. The problem with inevitability is that you are inevitable until you are not. And then, if you have nothing else to fall back on, you are nothing. For this reason, the inevitable candidate is vulnerable everywhere, all the time. One misstep, one stubbed toe, and you are ruined for the simple reason that you are no longer perfect.
This is Hillary’s problem. In a CNN/Opinion Research poll taken between March 13 and 15, Clinton has the support of 62% of Democrats; 47% higher than the next highest potential candidate. So far, she is riding high. I think a lot of that is because people currently perceive her to be the inevitable nominee. Her problem is that the Clinton scandals of the 90’s are back, and with a vengeance. How long before Hillary is no longer perceived to be inevitable? When that happens, fresher candidates who stand for something substantial — Warren (progressivism), Webb (blue-collar populism), and O’Malley (middle-aged, wanna-be rockers) — can move up in the polls. Perhaps quickly. Right now, the polls just reflect name recognition – and perceived inevitability.
On second thought, instead of invoking a Canadian example to illustrate the perils of inevitability, I could have chosen something more recent from US history: Hillary Clinton’s own campaign for the 2008 Democratic nomination, where she played the role of the colossus that bestrode the Democratic Party until she was humbled by a former Illinois State Senator and community organizer.
Image Credit: “Paul Martin in 2006” by Kate Gottli on Flickr – Flickr. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Published in Politics
I remember reading about Martin. I remember because his collapse so completely predicted Gordon Brown’s.
If you’ve never heard of Gordon Brown, he was the would-be Labour Party leader who ended up serving as Tony Blair’s Chancellor of the Exchequer and heir-apparent for much longer than he would have wished. Blair hung on until things were beginning to go downhill for Labour, and thus partly things simply didn’t go Brown’s way. Partly, he just fizzled.
He managed to become the most unpopular Prime Minister since polling began.
There is a difficulty in comparison, though. Hillary Clinton isn’t seeking the leadership of a small group of parliamentarians but of an incredibly large and scattered group of activists. She has some key things other than an aura of invincibility: she has name recognition, massive amounts of money, and organization. (I haven’t read up on her actual ground game, but I assume she has in the works whatever one needs to win a primary campaign — at least several steps ahead of anyone else.)
But yes, Obama 2008 proves all we need to know about her actual invincibility.
Mr. Dithers. Poor fella’
This is exactly what I think will happen to Hil. I read an article today arguing that 2008 was her year, and since it didn’t happen then, it’s over now. The Bush and Clinton names are so 90’s. It’s time to move on and I’m betting the country sees that. Blech on Warren, but I think the country will see that too–a finger-shaking faux- Indian school marm, that’s Warren. She and Hil are the national scolds. Anyway, the mess in the Middle East will work to Republicans’ advantage, perhaps especially to Marco Rubio’s. He’s so articulate on foreign policy. The Canadian and British analogies sound about right.
I remember Blair, Brown, and Cameron (though I can’t remember why I remember Cameron). And I remember Chretien and Harper. Somehow Paul Martin didn’t stick in my brain at all. I could have sworn Harper succeeded Chretien.
God bless the Canadian members of Ricochet. I learn more about the history and current events of the Land of My Youth on this site than I do anywhere else.
When I vote, it’s to express how I want the country to be governed. My vote is a reflection of me, and the country’s vote is an expression of how the majority wants the country to be run. A vote is supposed to be about the voters.
So many politicians, however, stray from that simple premise. They view the election as an affirmation of them personally, as if the election was a method of paying them homage for their sheer wonderfulness.
I’m currently leaning toward Scott Walker for president, not for his sake, but for mine. I’m leaning toward him because he’s shown competence in executive office, and I want that, and a vote for him expresses that. He’s shown a willingness to fight back against the standard interest groups who hold America hostage, and I want that. He’s shown a number of qualities that advertise how he would govern, and those are qualities I want. I’m leaning for Scott Walker for my own sake, to express how I think the country should be governed. It actually has little to do with Scott Walker personally. I don’t know Scott Walker personally. For all I know he could be a jerk.
What does Hillary Clinton represent? Is there anything about her that would make me think, yeah, she represents something that would express something I want?
No. The only thing she represents is being a manipulative, scheming, privileged woman. She’s running because she thinks she deserves it, nothing more.
What happened was that when he was Finance Minister the Liberals had a majority in Parliament, but when he became Prime Minister they were reduced to a minority.
As such, he was “forced” to solicit support in Parliament from the socialist NDP.
When the Liberals had a majority, Martin gained a reputation as a fiscal conservative, but once they were reduced to a minority he wasted all that political capital on ridiculous spending boondoggles, like Universal Daycare and billions in new
bribesfunding for First Nations.But, historically-speaking, how much money a Canadian government wastes is far less dependent on which party is in power and far more dependent on whether they have a majority or not.
Ever since at least Lester Pearson, every single majority government reduced the amount of federal debt, and every single minority government increased the amount of federal debt, regardless of the party in power.
On the other hand, I have a slight soft-spot for Paul Martin because his bachelor’s degree is in philosophy. Gotta respect a philosophy grad rising so high in society!
That observation reveals a deep truth about consensual government in this brief age of plenty.
Thhppt. A bachelor’s degree in philosophy is a mark of an education wasted on callow youth. No wonder Martin was lionized by the press, and such a failure when he rose to a position of high authority.
I join you, my brother Mulville: Walker and either Fiorina or Rubio! And, it makes me happy to know that Walker has built a successful life as a college “dropout”, bereft if the ticket that the liberal gatekeepers consider essential to admission to the governing class.