False hopes

Are Obama and Edwards promising ponies? 24

Hillary Clinton is getting in lots of trouble for some recent comments, but I suspect that while her message is politically doomed, there's some truth to it.

Some background: At the debate, Clinton said that candidates shouldn't be creating "false hopes" among the American people. After the debate, Obama commented that that was like MLK, Jr., mounting the steps of the capitol and saying, "sorry guys, false hope. The dream will die." Then, today, in an interview, Clinton responded:

I would, and I would point to the fact that that Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the President before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done. That dream became a reality, the power of that dream became a real in peoples lives because we had a president who said we are going to do it, and actually got it accomplished.

Now, that's politically tin-eared, no doubt a product of exhaustion. MLK's a secular god, and you just don't mess with his legacy. You certainly don't imply that LBJ deserves more credit for civil rights advances!

Here's what I take her intended point to be: Someone like MLK inspires and generates a social movement, social pressure. But it takes a savvy politician like LBJ (not Obama JFK) to twist arms, play the game, and translate the social pressure into legislation. An MLK without an LBJ is just as impotent as an LBJ without an MLK.

That's her electoral message: she'll be LBJ. She's work hard, and work savvy, to accomplish whatever is possible in the current social and political environment. "I'll get what's possible done" is not exactly inspiring, but it's honest in its way.

What Obama and Edwards seem to be promising is to be both MLK Jr. and LBJ -- to use the power of the pulpit (Edwards) and inspiring rhetoric (Obama) to create the social movements to which they would then respond by getting good legislation passed. This is effectively how they promise to overcome special interests, by marshaling a wave of public pressure. "I'll fundamentally change what's possible."

Now, obviously that's a more attractive prospect. But so is a pony. I wonder, do we have any precedent for a president playing a significant role not just in tapping but in creating a social movement that drives politicians to action? Are presidents really social change agents like that, to the extent that they can marshal enough public support to overwhelm special interests? Do we have reason to believe something like that is possible within the current constraints of American politics?

My inclination is to think that its up to civil society groups and individuals to do the movement building. Politicians can work with what they get, but they can't create a social movement just by force of will.

I hardly need to point out how relevant these considerations are to the climate fight. Thoughts?

David Roberts is staff writer for Grist. You can follow his Twitter feed at twitter.com/drgrist.

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  1. Jon Rynn's avatar

    Jon Rynn Posted 5:36 am
    08 Jan 2008

    There's no indication...that Obama is going to create a social movement.  He's vulnerable in comparing himself to MLK, which I just don't see.  Saying we're all purple is not the same as trying to destroy segregation, and it's certainly nowhere near where King was in 1968, trying to do something about poverty, fight the war, and support unions.  I don't see Obama proposing anything that is that different from Clinton that would create a movement for those goals.
    Edwards might be closer, but he still doesn't offer very much that's concrete: he's done a good job in being in front about health care, climate change, etc., but still nothing to create 1960s-style (or 1930s style) social movements.
    On the other hand, JFK's rhetoric was inspiring, which maybe helped kick off the social movements.  So maybe by creating expectations, Obama or Edwards would indirectly help social movements arise.

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  2. uhbkeys Posted 5:42 am
    08 Jan 2008

    actually, you're wrongObama already HAS built a movement.  800,000 donors, mostly giving small amounts of money.  4500 active volunteers in California alone, building an unprecedented organization in the state... the list goes on and on.
    The most important point you're missing: Obama is asking US to make change.  His role is to open the doors, clear some of the obstacles.  
    You seem to be suggesting that because what Obama is trying to do has never been done, that means it can't happen now.  A true testament to the sad state of our society.  

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  3. Jon Rynn's avatar

    Jon Rynn Posted 5:48 am
    08 Jan 2008

    It's a movement to elect him, uhbkeys,and I don't doubt that the donors and volunteers are very excited, and I'm not even saying that they shouldn't be, but a social movement, the way I see it, is something that pushes for a fairly concrete set of goals, something that can eventually turn into legislation.  
    Will this movement that you describe outlast Obama's candidacy?  Will it involve something more than just support for him?  This is the question.  I know that he was involved with some very grassroots work in Chicago, so hopefully he's thought about these things, so please educate us on the direction that this is taking.

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  4. Matt G Posted 6:05 am
    08 Jan 2008

    (raises hand)"I wonder, do we have any precedent for a president playing a significant role not just in tapping but in creating a social movement that drives politicians to action?"
    I know that one:  Al Gore?

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  5. dkpant Posted 6:07 am
    08 Jan 2008

    Politicians creating social movementSeems to me that FDR created social movement, and it was because we were in an emergency and he took the bull by the horns. Seems to me that Edwards comes closest to that. I sincerely believe that our survival is at stake and that we are in a real fight. Edwards most genuinely understands that. And I don't think he is lacking in substance, details, hope, or diplomacy either. However, you have to get the message right first. We (i.e. the commonwealth) don't have a lot of time to screw around.

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  6. Jon Rynn's avatar

    Jon Rynn Posted 6:16 am
    08 Jan 2008

    FDR responded to social movements......of which the main one was probably the union movement, which was at its height at the time.  There were also movements of veterans and poor people, as there was no social insurance, and there was also a very large Socialist and even Communist presence in the electoral arena that pushed the Democrats, and FDR.  The consequence is that if you read many of FDR's statements from the time he sounds to the left of Dennis Kucinich.  So he definitely responded -- although he also had his problems -- but he was riding a huge wave from below.

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  7. Sean Casten's avatar

    Sean Casten Posted 6:16 am
    08 Jan 2008

    Churchill comes to mindAs a guy who inspired massive public sacrifice and got the policies done.  Others?

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  8. justlou Posted 6:21 am
    08 Jan 2008

    Teddy Roosevelt?or FDR?  
    And in a negative way, we have to look at Cheney and Bush in leading the country toward a war of choice, a bad choice, but a choice that many politicians including Clinton and Edwards followed.  

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  9. dkpant Posted 6:49 am
    08 Jan 2008

    ...Movements from belowYes. FDR rode some movements from below as well as creating his own. Again, I think Edwards is trying to ride what he senses as the injustice and frustration of average citizen today - i.e. the frustration with the lack of backbone amongst Dems and in Congress. He is trying to shift the power. To borrow Robert Reich's terms, he is trying to shift power back to the citizen in all of us rather than the consumer and investor.

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  10. LegumeSam Posted 7:54 am
    08 Jan 2008

    Obama's social movementHere is Russell Mokhiber's take on what it stands for.  Pay especial attention to the part where it says:
    Fred Hiatt in the Washington Post in June 2007 compared Mitt Romney's foreign policy to Obama's.
    Conclusion--"the similarities dwarf the differences."
    Or Lee Sustar's analysis:
    Obama's agenda is reheated Clintonism: raising the minimum wage, an expansion the Earned Income Tax Credit, and investment in education, alternative energy and technology--positive steps, perhaps, but certainly no far-reaching social programs. Workers at risk of job loss should have access to wage insurance, he writes, but he doesn't call for an increase in today's miserly unemployment benefits.
    A President Obama will keep his corporate backers happy with huge slices of pie while tossing a few crumbs to the rest of us.  Meanwhile, the shredding of the Dollar, rampant militarism, the health care crisis, abrupt climate change, and all of the other problems that have been neglected under Bush will just continue to get worse.
    Sounds like a social movement to me.  I think it's called "neoliberalism."

    http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus

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  11. infp Posted 8:05 am
    08 Jan 2008

    Follow the moneyBefore we can decide which presidential candidate is most likely to "overcome special interests", we should determine who is funding their campaign.  I know that both Hillary and Obama raised more than $100 million for their campaigns so far.  Who are they now beholden to?  I believe that Edwards opted for government funding of his campaign, maybe that should tell us something.  

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  12. LegumeSam Posted 8:19 am
    08 Jan 2008

    And from ZNet:Paul Street's precise naming of the front lines of Barack Obama's movement: Exelon, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Bros., Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Pritzker (the Hyatt heiress), the Council on Foreign Relations... yeah, those are the folks who liberated America from the regime of Jim Crow, right?

    http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus

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  13. LegumeSam Posted 8:27 am
    08 Jan 2008

    Scenes from the Obama movementI can imagine Obama's primary campaign donors right now, marching hand in hand down Wall Street in their Armani suits, singing: "We shall overreach, we shall overreach, we shall overreach some day..."

    http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus

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  14. randino Posted 8:58 am
    08 Jan 2008

    Sometimes we remind me of the prisoners inthe Bastile, who cursed and rebuked their liberators for playing a cruel joke on them. They had grown so accustomed to the darkness, that they rejected out of hand the light.
    Let me remind people that FDR was no great shake coming into the White House. There was plenty of dirt on him. He was compromised. He was looked upon as a lack luster centrist.
    You all are thinking like a bunch of accountants. I think people who spend all their lives agitating for change, are the last to recognize it when it starts happening.
    Finally, a story about FDR. He was visited by a delegation that was petitioning for him to take a certain stand on an issue.  He said, "I agree with you. Now go out there and make me agree with you." That is exactly what our job will be in an Obama presidency.
    Randy Cunningham

    Randy Cunningham

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  15. Pangolin's avatar

    Pangolin Posted 9:05 am
    08 Jan 2008

    It's the pony or the horsemen.Obama is not promising any kind of pony that will do us any good. His proposed energy policies and health care policies are sad jokes. I'm not sure if he has any policy on helping out those people who have lost or are about to lose their jobs but I would bet that  it amounts to "get lucky or live in the streets."
    America is coming off the rails. The financial scams Wall Street and the banks have foisted off on us are being exposed for the ponzi schemes they are. Energy costs are squeezing consumers on all sides. Health care is turning out to be a disaster with insurance companies charging premiums and refusing care; assuming you have health insurance. Climate change is ripping chunks out of the economy at random just to make things more fun.
    Whoever gets elected president better find a pony damn quick or the four horseman will ride without check. War, famine, pollution, and plague are all riding somewhere in the world and can come here all too quickly.
    Nature bats last.

    Put the Carbon Back

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  16. LegumeSam Posted 9:48 am
    08 Jan 2008

    You have no ideaYou all are thinking like a bunch of accountants. I think people who spend all their lives agitating for change, are the last to recognize it when it starts happening.
    I do plenty to agitate for change, and I sure as heck do plenty to enlighten the public on the issues -- and I still ain't votin' for Obama.
    And, since it seems you need to hear this explanation: the reason why politicians make concrete proposals is to make it clear before they've got the job that they have the sort of problem-solving abilities that Presidents need.
     Problem is, most Presidential candidates give the public a bunch of lame, panem et circenses answers so they can spend their terms in office doing what is most distinctly expected of them: granting favors to the elite entities that paid their bills when they were on the campaign trail.  In that light, no problem-solving abilities are needed; Bush Junior revealed to the world that any fool can be President.  
    To show that we are not fooled is, to say the least, our warning to the politicians: just gimme some truth...

    http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus

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  17. Jon Rynn's avatar

    Jon Rynn Posted 11:39 am
    08 Jan 2008

    Randy --At least FDR wanted people to make him change.  That's pretty unique among presidents.  great quote

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  18. lb311 Posted 12:37 pm
    08 Jan 2008

    Hope vs. ExperienceI do believe Hillary is smart and would be a very capable Prez.  But you could also say the same for Biden, Dodd, and Richardson.   The key for me is seeing if a truly bi-partisan movement develops from the great American "middle of the road" voters.  Right now, Obama, might be the one candidate capable of uniting & inspiring them.  If that does happen, and he "rides the wave" with an overwhelming % of the vote in November (and then he surrounds himself with smart, capable people), he could certainly leverage that mandate & be extremely able to make change in Washington.  But if it's another "hanging chad" nail-biter election and sharply divided electorate-- no President, regardless of experience, will be able to do much to alter the status quo.

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  19. caniscandida Posted 5:56 pm
    08 Jan 2008

    "Yes, we can"; "free ponies"Obama still does not strike me as a top-rank orator.  But the long, formulaic preacher's catalogue, punctuated by "Yes, we can," at the end of his speech to his campaign people last night, was very good.
    The fetching youth in the green T-shirt, in the background over Obama's left shoulder, did a valiant job of holding back his tears, and bravely allowed his spirits to be revived during the anti-Hillary jab, "Hope is never false."
    Earlier, Edwards's speech was magnificent, a perfect example of how gifted he is as an orator.  His cadence, his timing, his intonation, his solid relevant examples, were all in evidence last night.
    Whatever Obama's virtues might be, it seems clear enough that Edwards already has in mind a set of specific measures that he would take as president, while that is not so clear in Obama's case.
    A philological question: What is the origin of that ironic expression, "Everybody gets a free pony!"?  DR has been using "free ponies" to refer to false and pandering promises for as long as I have been reading him; but I had never seen that expression before.

    Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.

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  20. LegumeSam Posted 8:29 pm
    08 Jan 2008

    Love those slogans!"Hope is never false."
    What was Neville Chamberlain's hope, was it that Hitler would be placated by the gift of the Sudetenland?
    How about those hopes we all had upon Bush II's coronation, that maybe he would turn out to be the moderate he promised he would be in the 2000 election run-up?
    Or here's a good one: the hopes we all had at the beginning of '93 that Bill Clinton would be a good liberal?
    False hope is the system's way of telling us we're being scammed.  We ignore it at our risk.

    http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus

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  21. CA1981 Posted 2:40 am
    09 Jan 2008

    EdwardsI agree with INFP.  I think it is wonderful that Edwards has not taken special interest money while other candidates have.  That is why I am for Edwards.  Get special interest our of Washington and out of campaigns!!!!  Elections are not suppoused to be built on favors that will be repaid later!  No special interest money!  GO EDWARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  22. RossBleakney Posted 2:56 am
    09 Jan 2008

    lb311 is Rightlb311 (Hope vs. Experience) is absolutely correct. LBJ was able to ram through legislation because he won in a landslide. Moderate Republicans went along with LBJ in part because they knew he was right, but also because they were scared. If Hillary wins the presidency, it will be by a small margin. She will reinvigorate the Republicans (in part because of hatred for her) and these Republicans will delight their supporters by putting up road blocks to her legislation. It happened when her husband was President and will happen if she becomes President. Unlike the other candidates, Obama has reached out to Republicans and gathered the support of them (with the endorsement of people like John Anderson). Obama actually has a history of such accomplishments in the Illinois State Senate (http://tinyurl.com/3y7hkj).

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  23. edarnold41 Posted 7:33 am
    09 Jan 2008

    Obama in Illinoisib311 mentions: "Obama actually has a history of such accomplishments (reaching out to Republicans) in the Illinois State Senate".

    Here in Illinois, Barack's accomplishments are viewed somewhat differently. Our state government is run by the Combine, which is the same group of scoundrels wearing Republicrat masks, whether they claim GOP or Dems affiliation. His reputation here is severely clouded by his support for (and by) the Daley thugocracy that runs Chicago; his support for the incredibly inept successor to the Cook County Stroger regime, old John's idiot son Todd; and his sponsorship by Emil Jones, one of the Grand Old Thieves of the Illinois Senate.

    He got to be US Senator because the Illinois republican Party, in a gesture of Combine complicity, imported an out-of-state candidate to run against him, who ran such a comically inept campaign that it made Barack look good by comparison.

    This is one gift pony in whose mouth, and pedigree, you would be well advised to look before you hop on for a ride.

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  24. green8659 Posted 4:10 pm
    26 Aug 2008

    Obama has...Obama has created a media movement.

    Obama has created a reason for overbearing right wing radio hosts to stay in business.
    Obama has yet to show if he can create a facilitate this change he promises.

    Green | Bowtrol Cleanse | Web Design Indiana

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