The fact that Hillary Clinton continues to fight on, despite practical hurdles that appear insurmountable, has led some to argue that she’s intentionally trying to undermine Barack Obama’s general-election prospects, possibly to improve her own chances in 2012, or to maintain the Clintons’ collective role as the leaders of the Democratic Party. Either way, the argument goes, if Clinton can’t be the nominee, she intends to make sure Obama can’t be president.
Matt Yglesias has made the case for this argument, at least twice, over the last couple of weeks. Kevin Drum entered the fray over the weekend, calling the argument “crazy,” adding, “Hillary has a long, long history as a partisan animal. She’d no more root for a McCain victory than she would for another attack by al-Qaeda…. And if she gave even a hint of not supporting Obama wholeheartedly during the fall campaign? Not only would she have no future presidential prospects, she’d be lucky to escape being tarred, feathered, and ridden out of town on a rail.”
Jonathan Chait weighed in today and changed the question a bit.
An easier question to answer is, How much does Clinton value her own interests versus those of the Democratic Party? And here the answer is very clear: Clinton is acting as if she doesn’t care about the Democratic Party’s interests at all, except insofar as they coincide with her own. Her continued campaign is significantly damaging Obama’s general election prospects, and this would perhaps be defensible if she had a strong chance at the nomination, but she doesn’t. As Politico recently reported, “One important Clinton adviser estimated to Politico privately that she has no more than a 10 percent chance of winning her race against Barack Obama, an appraisal that was echoed by other operatives.”
To inflict serious damage on the likely nominee in order to pursue a one-in-ten chance of securing the nomination is, ipso facto, an act of extreme selfishness. Whether she sees the damage to Obama’s prospects as a feature or a bug is interesting but beside the point.
Let’s take a minute to unwrap this a bit.
On the first question, I think Kevin’s right and Matt’s wrong. I was deeply frustrated when Clinton started praising John McCain’s experience and commander-in-chief qualifications a couple of weeks ago, but it’s a stretch to look at those unhelpful and counter-productive remarks as evidence of her actually wanting a Republican president in 2009.
As far as I can tell, based on all available evidence, Clinton loves her country and loves her party. She’s been playing hardball for a few months against Obama, and has engaged in some campaign tactics I found more than a little troublesome, but I consider this more evidence of her willingness to do what it takes to get the nomination, not evidence of her trying to sabotage U.S. interests by helping McCain’s candidacy.
As for Chait, I think he may be assuming certain motivations that may or may not exist. He argues, “Clinton is acting as if she doesn’t care about the Democratic Party’s interests at all, except insofar as they coincide with her own.” That very well may be — I’m not in a position to say for sure — but here’s a different angle to consider: isn’t it at least possible that Clinton is acting in such a way to help the Democratic Party as she sees it?
In other words, at Clinton HQ right now, a team of advisors are likely thinking, “If Obama’s the nominee, Democrats lose. We may be the only ones who realize it, and we may only have a 10% shot, but we need to keep fighting, keep tearing Obama down, and keep this damaging process going in order to save the party and protect the party’s interests.”
This isn’t to say this perspective is right — indeed, I’m pretty sure it’s ridiculous — but it’s also likely a mistake to assume nefarious motives. Clinton thinks she’s the only candidate standing between us and a third term of Bush policies. From her perspective, her interests and the party’s interests are one and the same.
Given the landscape, I’m fairly certain she’s mistaken. But if there’s solid evidence that she’s actively working towards helping Republicans, I haven’t seen it. The Clinton campaign is probably working under faulty assumptions, not disloyal ones.