It remains open to debate whether Hillary Clinton’s New Hampshire remark about Martin Luther King, LBJ, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was an attempt to play to race. I suspect probably not, but given a variety of other initiatives of the Clintons’ campaign that do seem to have been racially polarizing, it’s hard to give Clinton the benefit of the doubt. At the very least, the remark suggested how Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama approach politics differently, a theme recently explored in a long George Packer article: “Obama offers himself as a catalyst by which disenchanted Americans can overcome two decades of vicious partisanship, energize our democracy, and restore faith in government. Clinton presents politics as the art of the possible, with change coming incrementally through good governance, a skill that she has honed in her career as advocate, First Lady, and senator.”

The Clintons’ dismissal of the power of rhetoric, however, also flows from a quite different conception of the role of words in American politics. Though the Bush administration has taken “truthiness” to a new extreme, it’s worth remembering that the concept of “spin” originated with James Carville, Paul Begala, and the 1992 Bill Clinton campaign. Rhetoric exists not to inspire or even to convey the truth, but merely to try to obtain political advantage.

It’s this willingness to abuse words that has been the most dispiriting element of the Clintons’ efforts in 2008. (Bill Clinton has been guiltier of this problem than Hillary, though it’s hard to imagine that their effort hasn’t been coordinated.) Take, for instance, the opening sentence of the memo penned by Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis-Doyle and senior strategist Mark Penn after the Nevada caucuses: “Today we won a huge victory by overcoming institutional hurdles and one of the worst negative ads in recent memory.”

A “huge victory”? Clinton won by six percentage points, and actually (due a quirk in allocation rules) secured fewer delegates to the national convention than did Obama.

“Overcoming institutional hurdles”? In the caucuses, Clinton secured the endorsement of: Harry Reid’s son; the state’s only Democratic member of Congress; the state’s most recent former Democratic governor; and the former mayor of Las Vegas. She had the aggressive support of the state's largest Democratic newspaper, the Las Vegas Sun. Obama did receive the (overrated, it turned out) endorsement of the Culinary Workers’ Union, but Clinton had support from more unions in the state than did Obama.

“One of the worst negative ads in recent memory.” Penn was referring to a Spanish-language ad run by the Culinary Workers saying “Hillary Clinton does not respect our people” and “Hillary Clinton is shameless.” The ad was a response to the decision of a Clinton-allied union and several Clinton supporters to try to block caucusing at Las Vegas casinos after the Culinary Workers endorsed Obama—even though some of the plaintiffs had approved of the caucusing approach before the union made its endorsement.

Take two of the “worst negative ads in recent memory”:
1990 Helms-Gantt:


2002 Chambliss-Cleland:


Could anyone seriously maintain that the Culinary Workers’ ad was even remotely comparable to the ads above?

If words exist primarily as political tools, they can’t inspire. No wonder the Clintons have been so dismissive of Obama’s use of rhetoric.

Gary Ostrower - 1/25/2008

Pioneer of spin? Let's not forget Michael Deaver.

Michael Green - 1/25/2008

I am not here to argue about the positive or negative nature of the ads, but as a professor of history in Las Vegas who teaches and writes extensively about the area, I can tell you, Hillary Clinton did not have quite so much going for her as Professor Johnson suggests. First, despite my respect for Harry Reid, even if he endorsed Sen. Clinton, his every wish is not even every Democratic voter's command, and I think he would be the first to say that. Second, the largest Democratic newspaper, the Sun, actually is published as a section of the much larger Review-Journal, which is to the political right of Attila the Hun on its editorial page and frequently allows its editorial views to determine what goes on in its news columns. Third, the Culinary Union is by far the state's largest union, and while there may be merit in suggesting that Sen. Clinton's union endorsements made up the difference with its endorsement of Sen. Obama, it oversimplifies the role that these unions play in Nevada and, I suspect, elsewhere. Finally, it is hard enough to measure the importance of each endorsement in a political campaign, but Nevada is an unusual state: for example, mentioning the endorsements by the former Democratic governor and former Democratic mayor does not take into account the percentage of the population--perhaps as much as 1/4 of the state--that has arrived since either of them was in office and therefore has no real memory of them, nor does it address their popularity among Nevada Democrats.

So, I make no brief that Nevada is wholly unique or wholly normal. Nor do I suggest that those of us inside the state do not benefit from the analyses of those outside it. But too often those outside the state have tried to explain it without knowing enough about it, and it gets a little old.

Jonathan Dresner - 1/22/2008

You know, I'm just going to take your word for it: I don't have the energy to wade into Tancredo's mind right now.

Jeremy Young - 1/22/2008

It's possible that the anti-Clinton ads may well be the nastiest thing promulgated so far this year

Nope, Tom Tancredo wins that award hands down.

Jonathan Dresner - 1/21/2008

The tendency to escalate accusations has something to do, I think, with a combination of short memories and the rising standards created by past transgressions.

It's possible that the anti-Clinton ads may well be the nastiest thing promulgated so far this year -- not being in a battleground state, nor an afficianado of political spots, it's hard for me to judge -- and the fact that it pales in comparison to your other examples is precisely because those past rhetorical atrocities have set new limits on what can be said.

One quibble, though: can you really accuse the Clintons of pioneering abuse of language after the Reagan years? That administration took doublespeak to real heights, which Clinton emulated, but rarely exceeded.