David Michael Miller
The press reaction to Hillary Clinton’s modest victory in the Nevada caucuses was curious.
Here was a candidate who was the overwhelming favorite at the start of the process, a candidate with virtually all the endorsements and lots and lots of money, a candidate who is the best-known politician in America if not in the world. She went up against a little-known senator from a tiny state who calls himself a democratic socialist. And in the first three contests, Bernie Sanders played her to a tie in Iowa, crushed her in New Hampshire and finished a respectable six points back in Nevada, where Clinton had held a double-digit lead just weeks ago.
But to watch and read the press reports and the pundits you’d think Clinton had now sewn up the nomination. And, in fact, it continues to get harder for Sanders going forward mostly because he runs into states with large African American populations, where Clinton does extremely well. If she gets the nomination she very well may owe black voters for her victory.
But even there, it’s black voters over 50 who support her. Younger African Americans are split, and Sanders continued to do well in Nevada with young people from all backgrounds, winning about three out of four millennials there. And Sanders even won the Hispanic vote, which until recently had been thought to be strongly for Clinton.
It appears that Clinton was teetering on a possible loss in Nevada until the powerful Sen. Harry Reid stepped in and got the Culinary Workers Union and other unions to get out the vote for Clinton. The establishment came to her rescue and they eked out a narrow victory. She’ll take home 19 delegates while Sanders gets 15.
So Clinton’s base is older women, older African Americans, elected officials and union leaders. If she’s going to have a serious chance to hold on to the presidency for the Democrats, she has to do something to inspire a broader base, most conspicuously including young people.
But her message is all about simple competence and incremental change with an overlay of old-fashioned Democratic identity politics. She is not likely to be any more inspiring in the general election than she is now because fundamentally her narrative is about maintaining the old Democratic establishment. She is who she is except when she tries to be somebody she’s not, which only makes her even less appealing. Her adoption of Sanders’ rhetoric about getting tough on Wall Street, for example, just reminds people of how much money she is getting from the financial sector and calls into question her credibility on that topic.
It seems that Clinton has started down the inevitable road to the nomination that her campaign always promised. She’s next in line, and maybe her number has finally been called at the deli counter of politics. But if she can’t find some way to win over not just the votes but the enthusiasm of voters who are passionate about Sanders (or would be passionate about Elizabeth Warren), her chances of winning in November should make any Democrat nervous.
