There weren’t really any specific questions about electability in last night’s Democratic debate, but John Edwards broached the subject and made an interesting prediction: “[I]t’s becoming increasingly likely, I think, that John McCain is going to be the Republican candidate.”
Now, my hunch is that Edwards is right, though I’m still hoping against hope that Mitt Romney, who happens to enjoy a sizable lead in the delegate count, can persevere.
Regardless, Edwards’ observation actually generated some interesting discussion on what a race against McCain would look like. Edwards, initially, kept things pretty generic, saying he’s best positioned for a 50-state strategy, competing in both urban and rural areas.
Hillary Clinton, to her credit, hammered home a key point.
“If John is right and Senator McCain is the Republican nominee, we know that once again we will have a general election about national security. That is what will happen.
“I believe of any one of us, I am better positioned and better able to take on John McCain or any Republican when it comes to issues about protecting and defending our country and promoting our interest in the world. And if it is indeed the classic Republican campaign, I’ve been there. I’ve done that.”
She was a little short on details — Clinton asserted she’s stronger on national security issues, but didn’t say why — but I think the larger point is right. If McCain’s the nominee, the Dems obviously have to be prepared for a campaign that emphasizes the military, foreign policy, and national security.
I was encouraged to see that the Democratic field has at least been thinking in this direction.
OBAMA: Let me just interject on this…. What I want to really focus on is this issue of national security, because I think you’ve repeated this a number of times. You are the person best prepared on national security issues on day one, and so if you’re running against John McCain, that you can go toe-to-toe.
I fundamentally disagree with that. And I want to tell you why, because I believe that the way we are going to take on somebody like a John McCain on national security is not that we’re sort of — we’ve been sort of like John McCain, but not completely, you know, we voted for the war, but we had reservations.
I think it’s going to be somebody who can serve a strong contrast and say, “We’ve got to overcome the politics of fear in this country.” As commander-in-chief, all of us would have a responsibility to keep the American people safe. That’s our first responsibility. And I would not hesitate to strike against anybody who would do Americans or American interests’ harm.
But what I do believe … is that we have to describe a new foreign policy that says, for example, I will meet not just with our friends, but with our enemies, because I remember what John F. Kennedy said, that we should never negotiate out of fear, but we should never fear to negotiate.
Having that kind of posture is the way I think we effectively debate the Republicans on this issue. Because if we just play into the same fear-mongering that they have been engaged in since 9/11, then we are playing on their battlefield, but, more importantly, we are not doing what’s right in order to rebuild our alliances, repair our relationships around the world, and actually make us more safe in the long term.
EDWARDS: And it requires that — wait, wait. Both of them talked about it. You’ve got to let me say a word. What it requires is having something beyond a short- term foreign policy of convenience. I mean, Bush has done extraordinary damage to us.
But if we have a visionary foreign policy, where we re- establish America as a moral leader in the world, where we do the things that we need to do to combat global poverty, to deal with the spread of HIV/AIDS, the spread of disease at large, economic development, what it does is it takes an entire generation of young people who are sitting on the fence as I speak and on one side is Al Qaeda and Bin Laden, Islamic jihad, and on the other side is the United States of America, which way do they go?
That depends entirely on us. If they continue to see this foreign policy of belligerence, selfishness, only interested in the expansion of American power, we will drive them in the other direction. If, on the other hand, they see America as the light, the source of hope and opportunity, it will pull them to us like a magnet. We need to be that light again.
I don’t have anything especially insightful to add to this; I just thought it was encouraging to see that these candidates aren’t planning to duck national security and change the focus to issues like the economy and healthcare, but instead have clear ideas about how to debate these issues.
It was one of the night’s more heartening moments.