There’s so much to like about Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, but his conversation with the National Journal’s Marin Cogan shows he’s probably not the guy to lead the Democratic Party in the 21st century. Comparing Sen. Dianne Feinstein to a prostitute and opining that defeated House Majority Leader Eric Cantor looks gay shows a man unready for a Democratic primary run in 2016, especially if he’s running against Hillary Clinton.
One big question about 2016 is whether the Democrats look for someone who is the natural heir (or heiress) to the Obama coalition – someone who can consolidate it and maybe even expand it. Or do they look for a new way to put together the electoral puzzle? Do they return to the 1990s and 2000s, when Democrats hoped to regain the allegiance of white working-class men, even in the South and non-coastal West? Schweitzer seems a return to that strategy, and not a very promising one.
In case you weren’t paying attention, Cogan’s thoughtful and respectful profile featured Schweitzer reacting to Cantor’s primary defeat this way:
“Don’t hold this against me, but I’m going to blurt it out. How do I say this … men in the South, they are a little effeminate.” When Cogin asked what he meant, he explained, “They just have effeminate mannerisms. If you were just a regular person, you turned on the TV, and you saw Eric Cantor talking, I would say — and I’m fine with gay people, that’s all right — but my gaydar is 60-70 percent. But he’s not, I think, so I don’t know. Again, I couldn’t care less. I’m accepting.”
Not only will that likely alienate the LGBT community, it won’t help the Democrats get back the Southern white guy vote, either.
Schweitzer’s comments about Feinstein were arguably worse, even if he was making a legitimate point: That Feinstein’s “oversight” of the intelligence community has often ignored spying abuses – until her own staff was spied upon. "She was the woman who was standing under the streetlight with her dress pulled all the way up over her knees, and now she says, 'I'm a nun,' when it comes to this spying!" he told Cogin. Then he kind of caught himself: "I mean, maybe that's the wrong metaphor — but she was all in!"
Schweitzer admirers may argue that their guy is a victim of political correctness and that his policy stands should matter more than infelicitous, dated turns of phrase. They probably won’t. The Montana governor seems unready for an electoral universe in which women are the majority voting bloc and a cornerstone of the Democratic base, and stereotyping gays (or Southern men!) as "effeminate" offends almost everyone.
In remarks to Salon’s Elias Isquith, Schweitzer avoided such slips and said lots of things that will appeal to the party’s antiwar base. He also came out strongly for a single-payer healthcare system. But something else struck me about Isquith’s interview: Schweitzer reminded me of another presidential aspirant, 2008’s Barack Obama – but not entirely in a good way. Here’s the Montana governor talking about what he’s learned from running a red state:
Something they apparently can’t do in Washington, D.C., anymore is … talk to people you disagree with. You can’t spend time with people who aren’t like you because then they will call you a RINO or a DINO. Republicans don’t wanna talk to Democrats; Democrats don’t want to talk to Republicans. They don’t want to hear our ideas, and we don’t want to hear theirs. We’re not going to solve the problems that we have in our country if that’s the way we’re going to do our business. I can tell you, in Montana, that when I go down to have a pint of beer or a cup of coffee downtown, or when we have family get-togethers, we don’t all agree on things but we talk about things. And I learn things. And sometimes I learn enough that it shifts my position.
When Isquith noted that Schweitzer sounded like Obama used to, and asked whether he thought the president’s problems with the other party are of his own making, Schweitzer segued into blaming Obama for the loss of a public healthcare option. His remarks about the president reminded me a little of the president blaming Bill Clinton for his problems with Newt Gingrich.
I think that’s going to be part of the appeal of Hillary Clinton to Democrats – that she knows Republicans aren’t going to cave in to her, if she drinks enough coffee or pints of beer with them. I think that’s true of Vice President Joe Biden, too – who doesn’t get nearly enough credit or attention as all eyes are fixed on Clinton.
Clinton and Biden can easily inherit and consolidate the Obama coalition. So far, the other candidates mentioned – Schweitzer, diffident one-term Sen. Jim Webb, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, even Sen. Elizabeth Warren – probably can’t. It’s possible one of these other contenders can put together the electoral map differently, but no one has shown how. It’s sad to say, but probably any white Democrat will get a larger share of the white vote than Obama did in 2012 – yet they’ll have to work hard to match his support among African-Americans, Latinos and Asians.
The only natural constituency for Schweizer – and most other possible challengers, to be honest – is the media, which has decided it can’t abide another Clinton candidacy, especially a successful one. That makes them very different from actual Democrats: In the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, Clinton is far more popular with Democrats than when she ran in 2008. On whether she is “knowledgeable and experienced” enough to be president, 88 percent of Democrats say yes, compared with 73 percent six years ago. Eighty percent of Democrats say she understands average people, up from 64 percent in 2008. There’s been a 20-point jump on the questions of whether she shares Democratic voters’ views on issues, a 25-point jump on whether she’s honest and straightforward and a 21-point jump when asked whether she is “easygoing and likable.”
This is not to say Clinton doesn’t deserve a primary challenge. But it is to say that most of the candidates being floated as prospects have a constituency among the media, but not within the Democratic base as currently constituted. Brian Schweitzer may dust himself off and keep trying to make a case for why Democrats should nominate him to be president, but he’s made the job harder for himself in the last few days.
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