All of our candidates come from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party
February 11, 2007
Barack Obama’s terrific announcement speech yesterday got me thinking.
This is the strongest, most exciting Democratic field in my lifetime. All three of the frontrunners (and Al Gore, if he runs) would be good presidents, and all of them have the potential to be great presidents. I’m leaning strongly towards Obama, because alone among today’s politicians he can reshape our politics along more liberal lines, but I’ll be very happy with any of our candidates.
Compare the situation now to the situation four years ago. The 2004 field was crowded, and there were plenty of candidates who would have been good presidents. There were also candidates who would not have made good presidents, and none of them impressed me with the potential for greatness.
So what’s changed? (Yes, I know that Edwards ran in 2004.) It’s not just the Democratic Congress, although that opens up a whole realm of possibilities, for tax reform, for health care, for fiscal responsibility, for conservation, for environmental protection, that would not have been available to President Kerry.
It’s that something has changed for the better within the Democratic Party. Five years ago, we were talking about prescription drugs and a patient’s bill of rights. Now we’re talking about universal health care. Three years ago, we were throwing around warmongering rhetoric about North Korea and Iran designed to make us look more hawkish than the far right (as if to open up ground in which to criticize the inept way the Iraq War has been run). Now, we’re in a position to fashion a new liberal internationalism, that can not only fight terrorism, but that can also address global warming, and poverty, and global pandemics, and labor standards.
Politicians hold positions that are partly theirs, and that are partly determined by their environment. No Republican is going to run as a pro-choice candidate, and similarly, no Democrat is going to be pro-war. Even Hillary, who has the unique and totally unfair challenge of proving her national security credentials while being a woman (and so is understandably cautious about admitting that she made a grave mistake in voting for the war), is running as a full-throated opponent of the war and promising to bring our troops home if elected.
The rejuvenation of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party — and the new Congress that our renewed strength won — has dramatically changed the ground on which our nomination will be fought. And that fact, as much as our candidates themselves, is making this election such an exciting one.