archived: 6 - 12 Jan, 2008         Back                 Next

UPDATED:  JAN 9, 2008 

"PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS: SUBSTANCE AND PROCESS” 

 Huckabee wins Iowa for the Republicans, Obama for the Democrats.  “Change” is in the air.  The Commentators, TV and print (even Frank Rich, with whom I seldom disagree) tell us that what is going on is all about “change,” for that is what the American people want.  Well, for one thing, assuming that there is no successful CheneyBush coup beforehand, change is what they are going to get in the White House at noon on January 20, 2009, regardless of who wins the election.  They are surely going to get a change in the personage.  They may get a change in policy too.  That is not so sure.  However, if there are going to be changes in policy, only a few of the candidates on either side talk much about them in any detail (except when Hillary Clinton, suddenly trying to be relevant, gets bogged down in way too much detail).  But the Commentators are all focused much more on the personages, on how they deliver speeches, on their “freshness” or lack thereof, on whether they are “of the 90s” or “of the New Millennium.” 

And so Huckabee is “so honest,” he’s so funny, he’s so relaxed, he is so “just folks,” he is “all about change,” while Romney is too “processed,” Mc Cain is getting old or at least old hat, and Giuliani is a “bit too tough.”  Obama is “inspirational,” “young,” “vibrant,” “getting his sea-legs,” while Clinton is too processed, Edwards is too angry, and Richardson is just a “nice guy” although the latter two are about “change” too.  “Change,” of course, is a process.  By itself, there is no substance in it.  Elections ought to be about the substance, not the process except as the latter serves meeting the needs encompassed by the former.   

However, since Reagan, and this was a very conscious strategy developed by the Republicans, first under Lee Atwater, then under Rove, American elections have become about process, not substance, to the extent the Republicans could make them that way.  Why?  Because if in any election the real Republican substances were on the table, were part of the agenda for the American people to consider, the Republicans would lose every time.  For example, the real Bush agenda was war for oil, and Permanent War if necessary and possible, cutting taxes for the rich so as to further increase the gap between the rich and everyone else, further facilitate the export of American capital (and with it American jobs), continue crushing the unions, to ensure the profits of the drug and health insurance companies making sure there would be no national health insurance, and so on and so forth.  Did they run on that?  Oh no.  They ran, the first time at least, on Bush’s supposed “really nice” personality as contrasted with Al Gore’s supposed “stiffness.”  The Democrats fell into the let-the-Republicans-set-the-agenda trap, as they always do, and we all know what happened. 

And so, even with one of the least popular Presidents in American history, the Republicans are doing it again and the media for the most part go right along with it.  And so here we have Huckabee talking about “change.”  And since he seems to be a nice guy (who has lost a lot of weight and so far kept it off) the questions he gets are about the process, “how did you do it in Iowa,” “how will you stay close enough in New Hampshire,” “you should do well in South Carolina, shouldn’t you?”  He is a Republican, but nevertheless “we’ve got to change the way things are done in Washington,” which he says all the time, is just left to lay there.  Never mind that “Washington” was controlled very tightly by his party from 2001 to 2007 and only slightly less tightly (because of minority rule in the Senate) since then.  Nothing about the substance of what he would change and how he would go about doing that specifically, especially with the control of the next Congress almost certainly to remain in Democratic hands.  And certainly nothing about what his own agenda is. 

Actually, Huckabee would change things alright.  But the real changes would not be so “sunny,” although you would never know that from the way the media go about things.  This “really nice, funny, down-to-earth” guy would move things sharply to the Right, if you can imagine that.  His principal foreign policy advisors are John Bolton (yes, that John Bolton who moved from leading the physical charged that stopped the Dade County recount in December, 2000 to leading the charge to fictionalize intelligence and make sure the US went to war in Iraq), and Frank Gaffney, who has been strong for attacking Iran both before and since the issuance of the famous Iran-doesn’t-have-a-nuclear-weapons-program NIE.  Huckabee believes that the Ten Commandments would make a fine set of principles for governing America.  Huckabee himself has said that he has fully supported Bush’s Iraq policy since the beginning and would continue the occupation, or whatever you want to call it, indefinitely.  He is for a national abortion ban and against gay rights.  He is for abolishing the progressive income tax entirely and replacing it with the most regressive tax imaginable, a national sales tax. 

He has apparently read just two parts of the Constitution.  First is the Second Amendment which he claims supports unlimited gun ownership rights (when it is actually about militias) up to and including who-knows-what kinds of weapons (tanks, machine guns, SA-7 anti-aircraft rockets?) Second is the Tenth, which in the language of the segregationists he interprets as an all-powerful delegation-to-the-states clause when in fact it begins by clearly referring to the set of powers delegated to the Federal government.  Finally, according to Christopher Hedges, Huckabee has been associated with Dominionism, which calls for Biblical Law to replace Constitutional Law for the United States.  It should come as no surprise that 60% of the Huckabee vote in Iowa came from the bloc that the media kindly refer to as “the evangelicals.”  Since there are all stripes of evangelicals, and many, such as the Latinos, are not Republicans, the name for the Huckabee types should really be “Right-Wing Christian Fundamentalists,” but heaven help us the media should call a spade a spade. 

So Huckabee is for change alright, a change further to the Right.  But you would never know that from the coverage he gets, which just fits right in with the Republican just-focus-on-process-folks-because-if-they-ever-get-to-focus-on-substance-it-will-kill-us election-control system.  So where do the Democrats come into this at this time?  Well, at least until now, the two top candidates have fit right into the same mold.  So Hillary has been running on “experience,” and “leadership abilities,” and “making the tough decisions,” (sometimes not so subtlety) “I’m a woman,” “I’m going to change things in Washington.”  Obama has been running on “youth” and “vigor” and “freshness” and “hope” and “I’m going to change things in Washington.”  (Of the three leading candidates, only Edwards has been running primarily on substance, on jobs, and national health insurance, and (finally) ending the US occupation of Iraq sooner rather than later.  But the primary characterization you see about Edwards is that he is “angry” and once upon a time had a $400.00 haircut.) 

Once again, change is a process not a thing.  What the Democrats need to do is focus much more on why change is necessary and what the changes to be made will be.  (Again, Edwards has done this much more than the other top two, although Obama, as he and his advisors sniff a possible win, is starting to come around [and if he wins New Hampshire, this being written the day before that primary, he will start being more open about the “whats”].)  But that means really running against the Republicans and what they really stand for, both now and in the general election.  It means hanging BushCheney around the neck of every Republican candidate.  It means dealing directly with their fear-mongering, which means attacking on defense, a subject I have written about more than once on the pages. 

Kucinich, Biden and Dodd were indeed about substance.  So is Richardson.  So is Edwards.  So far, Obama has been primarily about process, viz. his “acceptance speech” the night he won the Iowa Caucuses.  This won’t do it, folks.  If the media won’t do it for them, and apparently they won’t (have you heard any commentator ask Huckabee about his comments on the Ten Commandments or his relationship to Dominionism or creationism, for that matter?), the Democrats will have to move beyond process and get the primary focus on substance.  Poll-and-focus-group driven Clinton inherently cannot do this except when she gets bogged down in delivering what sound like working-plan memos.  Edwards has been there all along.  Obama, the primary beneficiary of the process movement on the Democratic side, has, as noted, finally begun moving to substance, for example on the War on Iraq.   

I still think that the Republican ticket will be Giuliani-Huckabee.  While I would like the Democratic ticket to be Edwards-Obama, unless Clinton recovers her traction in time for Super Tuesday, it looks more and more like Obama.  If that’s the case, I would love Edwards to become the first candidate for the Vice-Presidency to run with two different candidates for President.  And what a coup it would be for the ticket to become a first-in-history threesome, with Richardson on it as, well, “running” for Secretary of State.  Now there’s a Trifecta for you.

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