There’s a lesson in yesterday’s Massachusetts results that, in fairness to Hillary supporters, might give Obama fans some pause. As I described, we never really expected to win Massachusetts, but I do feel that we fell a few points shy of where we could have been in the popular vote (even if we achieved exactly what we were aiming for in the delegate fight). In the absence of campaign staff on the ground for either candidate, it was left to the local machinery to carry on the battle. And all else being equal, machines generally beat movements unless the movement is disciplined, prepared, and enthusiastic.
Unfortunately in Massachusetts, the Deval Patrick movement that could have turned out a better showing for Obama had largely washed away.
Movements, as the name implies, need to keep moving to maintain their vitality. Thus they inevitably come to an end, either dying off or coalescing into a new machine that replaces the previous one. If you’re looking for change, the game is to keep the movement going for as long as possible and then convert it into a machine as late as possible.
But the first trick is to keep the people in a movement going, which initially means winning small but significant victories — enough to put on a cushion for the inevitable defeats. Unfortunately, Patrick largely failed to do this, aiming too high (and alienating the legislature that controlled his agenda’s destiny) and failing to focus adequately on whatever he was aiming at. What’s more, the Establishment gave him no quarter, magnifying symbolic rookie mistakes with the aid of a compliant media. Starting with a weak leadership team and thus inadequate understanding of how the Massachusetts legislative branch works, Patrick hit a streaks of “L”s that turned an assassination attempt by the Establishment into an assisted suicide.
Patrick subsequently chalked up a few “W”s, but those victories were too late to resurrect the energy that had surrounded Deval the Candidate. Moreover, movements are touchy things with a life and a conscience of their own. If Patrick had any chance of rallying his grassroots to push the rest of his agenda, he’s probably blown it with his casino plan, which clashes with the values of his core constituents. Even if the casinos make rational sense (which is a debatable point), they just don’t make moral sense within the value structure that undergirded the Deval campaign. Deviating from specific legislation is one thing; contradicting your core principles is quite another (as Romney should now be able to attest to). What could have been a transformative governorship now seems to destined to be, at best, a pretty good one.
So when it came time to turn on that grassroots that swept in a governor whose slogan, “Together we can” echoes Obama’s (he’d used “Yes we can” in his 2004 Senate race), there weren’t that many who were ready to answer the call. And so the Establishment, Clinton, had the upper hand on Super Tuesday.
What’s the lesson here for Obama? Run the Presidency with as much care and strategic planning as the campaign. Expect political muggings from the Establishment early and often. Set expectations initially low, exceed them, and keep jacking them up rather than aiming impossibly high and failing (see: Hillarycare I). Educate followers about the actual relationship between the President and Congress (it’s not how the media portrays it). Through wise care and feeding of the grassroots, keep supporters fired up to do battle with the Establishment when the time comes to win the big battles.
So, does Deval’s freshman year offer Hillary supporters ammunition to shoot down Obama’s “politics of hope”? Yes — but. But if you believe that our country needs profound change, and not just tweaking around the margins, an Establishment leader like Clinton just doesn’t have enough leverage standing inside the machine to break the machine open. Those of us who support Obama do so knowing that any candidate is a roll of the dice — Hillary included — but believe that this particular candidate has also loaded the dice in his favor. Unlike Patrick, Obama’s previous experience as an organizer and then as a legislator gives him a political education in both legislation and in the power and frailty of movements. When our national political system has been so thoroughly broken by the Reagan legacy, tinkering incrementally at the policy level is simply a bigger risk than trying to rewrite the game itself.
