The whole story...
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080107/editorsThe leading Democratic contenders--Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama--have been covered from various points of view in these pages. There are aspects of each candidate and campaign to be admired, and also those that cause concern. Hillary Clinton has proven herself a dedicated centrist, and when the center moves left, she has shown, she can move too. When it comes to trade and globalization, she has shifted from being an ardent supporter of NAFTA to calling for a "timeout" on all such deals (although she recently signaled her support for the Peru Free Trade Agreement). Clinton may not have apologized for her vote for the Iraq War, but she has called for its end. Her plan, however, would begin slowly and would involve retaining a "reduced residual force," perhaps as many as 60,000 soldiers, to combat terrorism and train Iraqi military forces. As she indicated by voting for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment--which classified the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization--her shift on Iraq did not reflect a fundamental political reorientation. Indeed, a Hillary Clinton administration could see a revival of her husband's advisers and their procorporate neoliberal policies. Certainly the presence of familiar and high-priced pollsters and lobbyists in the upper echelons of her campaign, as advisers and donors, is a worrisome sign. (Both Obama and Edwards have declined lobbyist donations.) The experience Clinton touts is likely to frustrate the change she promises. To be sure, her election would represent a historic breakthrough for women, and a Clinton presidency even modestly responsive to an ascendant left would be far better than a Clinton presidency triangulating in the wake of the Reagan revolution. But there's little reason to believe it would make ample space for a progressive agenda.
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On the campaign trail Edwards has displayed a smart, necessary partisanship--denouncing corporate power and its crippling influence on government. He has argued with conviction that government does best when it does more for its citizens. His campaign has met some roadblocks. He has not managed to consolidate the traditional Democratic base, and while he has loyal supporters among organized labor, he has not sewn up union support across the board, nor has he excited a cohort of previously disenfranchised voters. Perhaps some have been turned off by the media's relentless fixation on the "three H's"--haircuts, hedge funds and houses--symbols of the gap between his populist rhetoric and his lifestyle. Nonetheless, he has been at his best when taking on spiraling economic inequality. In a series of bold initiatives, he has called for an end to poverty in thirty years, universal healthcare, a hike in the minimum wage to $9.50 by 2012 and an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050--accomplished in part by the creation of a green-collar jobs corps. His policy proposals are not always perfect, but they are uncommonly detailed and crafted in conjunction with progressive organizations. Most important, his programs were announced first, and they clearly pushed Clinton and Obama in a progressive direction. His healthcare plan stops short of a single-payer program, but it unapologetically includes employer mandates and tax increases. Likewise, although he voted for the Iraq War and his plan to end it doesn't commit to full and immediate withdrawal, he has repudiated that vote and proposes a faster pullout than his two main rivals. And Edwards is the only leading candidate to connect the war and the home front, bravely arguing that an ambitious domestic agenda would require cuts to the military budget. His is the campaign that has most effectively responded to the spirit of progressive populism that lifted Congressional Democrats to victory in 2006.
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An Obama presidency would contain fresh faces--but would it have fresh ideas? We would like to answer with a resounding yes, but Obama has lagged behind Edwards in offering innovative policies and politicizing neglected issues. His healthcare plan is virtually identical to Hillary Clinton's--except it does not include mandates, a conservative feature he has curiously decided to emphasize. Likewise, his plan to exit Iraq exhibits the "strategic drift" toward leaving behind a significant residual force, as if fewer troops could accomplish what more have failed to do. Like Clinton, once in the Senate he has continued to vote for funding the war. These last two matters are especially unfortunate because they undermine what ought to be one of his greatest assets: Barack Obama was opposed to the Iraq War from the very beginning. When so many Democrats backed Bush's military adventure, Obama exercised fine judgment--a quality his campaign has stressed. Since then that judgment has seen some praiseworthy reprises--as when he bucked conventional wisdom by insisting on face-to-face negotiations with Iran, Cuba and Syria--but it has often tilted toward caution and centrism. Obama has skillfully cultivated the image of a postpartisan leader, one with enormous appeal to broad swaths of voters alienated from politics as usual. But if he governs that way, how will progressives who want to take on entrenched interests fare in his administration?
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