Democrats shouldn't settle for momentum-killing Hillary

When Democrats worry about Hillary Clinton's electability, they focus on her re-energizing a depressed Republican base while demoralizing core Democratic activists, particularly those outraged about the Iraq war. A Nov. 26 Zogby poll actually shows her trailing the major Republican candidates, while John Edwards and Barack Obama defeat them.

But there's a further danger if Clinton is nominated, beyond losing a winnable election — that she'll prevail but then split the Democratic Party.

We forget that this happened with her husband Bill, because compared to George W. Bush, he's looking awfully good. Much of Hillary Clinton's support may be nostalgia for when America's president seemed to engage reality.

But, remember that over the course of Bill Clinton's presidency, the Democrats lost six Senate seats, 46 House seats and nine governorships. This political bleeding began when Monica Lewinsky was still an Oregon college senior.

Given Hillary's protracted support of the war, her embrace of neocon-servative rhetoric on Iran and her coziness with powerful corporate interests, she could create a similar backlash once in office, dividing and depressing the Democratic base and reversing the party's newfound momentum.

Think about 1994. Pundits credited major Republican victories to angry white men, Hillary Clinton's failed health-care plan, and Newt Gingrich's "Contract With America." But the defeat was equally rooted in a massive withdrawal of volunteer support among Democratic activists who felt politically betrayed. Nothing fostered this sense more than Bill Clinton's going to the mat for the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Angered by a sense that he was subordinating all other priorities to corporate profits and by his cavalier attitude toward the hollowing out of America's industrial base, labor, environmental and social-justice activists nationwide withdrew their energy from Democratic campaigns. This helped swing the election, much as the continued extension of these policies (particularly with China) led enough Democratic-leaning voters in 2000 to stay home or vote for Ralph Nader to help tip the election.

No place saw a more dramatic political shift than my home state of Washington. In November 1992, Democratic activists volunteered by the thousands, hoping to end the Reagan-Bush era. On Election Day, I joined five other volunteers to help get out the vote in a swing district 20 miles south of Seattle. Volunteers had a similar presence in every major Democratic or competitive district in the state, and Democrats won eight out of nine House seats.

But by 1994, grass-roots Democratic campaigners mostly stayed home, disgruntled. In Washington state, there were barely enough people to canvass Seattle's most liberal neighborhoods, let alone swing suburban districts. Republicans won seven of the nine congressional races, and re-elected a senator known for baiting environmental groups.

The same was true nationwide. I visited 11 states that campaign season, staying with friends long involved with progressive causes. Everywhere I went, the Republicans would win critical races by the narrowest of margins. Yet, my friends and their friends seemed strangely detached, so disgusted with Democratic politics that they no longer wanted anything to do with it.

CNN found that the voters who stayed home would have reversed the election outcome, had they voted. Even a modest volunteer effort could have prevented the Republican sweep.

To prevail in close races, Democrats need enthusiastic volunteer involvement. This happened in 1992, and again in 2006. If Hillary Clinton is the nominee, she'll most likely significantly damp this involvement, especially among anti-war activists.

She'll also draw out the political right in a way that will make it far harder for down-ticket Democrats in states like Kentucky and Virginia, where the party has recently been winning. She might not win at all, despite Bush's disastrous reign.

But even if she does win, she's then strongly likely to fracture the party with her stands. She talks of staying in Iraq for counterterrorism operations, which could easily go on indefinitely. She backed the Kyl-Lieberman Iran amendment that James Webb called "Cheney's fondest pipe dream." She supported a regressive bankruptcy bill and the extension of Bush's tax cuts on capital gains and dividends.

If Clinton's contributors are any guide, like the homeland-security contractors she courted at a $1,000-a-plate dinner, she's likely to cave to corporate interests in her economic policies. The relative party unity created by Bush's policies will quickly erode.

Because the Republican candidates would continue Bush's and Cheney's destructive approaches, I'd vote for Clinton if she became the nominee. But I'd do so with a heavy heart.

With Republican polling numbers in the toilet, this election gives Democrats an opportunity to seriously shift our national course that we may not have again for years. It would be a tragedy if they settled for the candidate most likely to shatter the momentum of this shift when it has barely begun.