The Race for 2008 after Warner

The contours of the race for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination are a tad less murky now that former Virginia Governor Mark Warner has removed himself from consideration. Warner, a onetime cell-phone magnate and business-friendly pragmatist in office, had emerged as perhaps the strongest of two or three candidates wooing southern moderates hoping to replicate the success of Bill Clinton. Ironically, the core of his case was that if Democrats nominated Clinton’s wife, they would forfeit the votes of centrists in the south, midwest and rural America, and risk carrying only the party strongholds which alone will not produce victory; a recent New York Times magazine cover story by Matt Bai described him as the “anti-Hillary.”

Warner’s withdrawal does open up opportunities for other contenders fishing in the same pool, such as Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, and John Edwards, John Kerry’s running mate in 2004. The intelligent, low-key Bayh has yet to get much traction, but Edwards’ economic populism and relative moderation on cultural and foreign policy issues make him a strong contender in early caucus and primary states such as Iowa (where he surprised many with a second-place showing last time), Nevada (which has moved its primary up and where organized labour, a group with which Edwards is popular, is the dominant presence in Democratic politics) and his native North Carolina. Moreover, trial lawyers, while anathema in upscale Republican circles, are heroes in much of the south, where class action law suits are often seen as the “little guy”’s only option in getting his due. Edwards’ fellow trial lawyers also provide him with a ready-made donor base, one that helped him in 2004 and could do so again.

Yet if any one candidate was viewed recently as having a decent shot at challenging Hillary from the right, it was Warner, and his departure may also signal that much of the Democratic establishment has reconciled itself to fielding her as the next nominee. While this may seem tantamount to acceptance of inevitable defeat, as I have written elsewhere, the Senator has worked assiduously over the last few years at positioning herself close to the midpoint of the political spectrum, and if she makes herself merely acceptable to Republican-leaning suburban women, she might be a stronger candidate than is often assumed.

Who knows, it might even be the case that many of the Democrats most skeptical of Hillary’s chances doubt that any Democrat can win in 2008, and hence have little incentive to actively oppose her nomination. Oddly enough, President Bush’s very unpopularity, even in some Republican circles, may strengthen the GOP’s hand in two years. With Bush’s own standing in the polls low, and his political strategy since 2002 of relying primarily on high turnout among the Republican base looking as it may not suffice to retain Republican control of Congress in November, come 2008 the party may see the need to embrace a different strategy and nominate the “anti-Bush.” A relatively non-partisan and unorthodox Republican appealing to Democrats and independents, unhobbled by too many ties to the party’s less popular constituent groups, such as John McCain, even Rudy Giuliani, perhaps Chuck Hagel, could be hard indeed for a Democrat, any Democrat, to beat.

The Democrat best-positioned to deny Hillary the nomination has, so far, been coy about his intentions. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, despite his comparative youth and inexperience, is one of the most compelling orators on the Democratic scene, with a rock-star status he would be well-advised to translate into Presidential capital before he becomes too familiar a figure in the Senate. Like Hillary, he can claim that his nomination would be a truly history-making event, with all the excitement and potential to upend established alignments that implies. According to a recent column by Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, Obama and his aides are now privately putting the odds of his running at 50%, which is striking indeed for a man with only two years of experience in national politics under his belt.

He is reported to be watching one mid-term race closely, and my guess is that he’s selected another for particular scrutiny. The first is the Tennessee Senate race, where a young, articulate, African-American from the moderate wing of the Democratic Party, Harold Ford, Jr., is in a tight race to replace retiring Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. A Ford victory would serve as an important demonstration of the willingness of white southerners to vote for a black Democrat, provided he was ideologically acceptable. The other race is in Virginia, where a onetime Republican, the novelist and Reagan-era Secretary of the Navy James Webb, is giving presidential hopeful George Allen a far closer fight than anyone expected. Webb is a novice politician, and it shows, but Allen’s widely reported gaffes have made the race tight, with Webb down by three or four points. Webb has not managed to generate much enthusiasm among the state’s heavily Democratic black voters, but a heavy back turnout could tip the balance, and Obama has appeared alongside Webb and worked to motivate Virginia’s African-Americans to come out and back Webb. A Webb victory would show how mobilizing black voters can make Democrats competitive in at least some southern states. (While most of the deep south is beyond the reach of any Democratic Presidential contender, Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia and Arkansas are certainly not.)

Obama came from relative obscurity as a State legislator to win a contested Senate nomination in a normally Democratic state, and then the general election. The proven ability to generate high black turnout and win in some southern states would give him a strong claim as the Democrat who can expand the party beyond its own base and cut into the Republicans.’ That could make him far more promising than Hillary as a Democratic standard-bearer.