The Populist Strategy

Rather than argue about who stole from what speech or who has wanted to be President for how long, I think it'd be instructive to take a look at the way both campaigns are presenting themselves and organizing on the ground.

I know there is this creeping idea that Obama is engendering a cult of personality (thanks for that, Hillary partisans in the liberal blogosphere!), but actually he's empowering individuals to take action and build a working majority. The great thing about this is how the campaign is manifesting that vision in Texas, where he's making young voters care about politics, organizing within unions, and using a full-throated message of populism to make his case.

Union officials say that a push from younger members helped persuade the Service Employees International Union and the United Food and Commercial Workers to endorse Obama last week. Both unions plan to be active in the campaign, making personal contact with their membership on behalf of Obama.

About 40% of the food union's members are younger than 30 years old, and their enthusiasm helped move the union out of neutrality and toward an endorsement, said union president Joe Hansen. "Barack Obama did something to our members and to our leadership," Hansen said [...]

One of two ads that Obama is airing in Latino radio markets in Texas is pitched explicitly at younger Latino voters. "Obama is talking to me," it says, "about the opportunity to go to college, and about ensuring my parents and grandparents have the healthcare they need. That's why I'm talking to others -- my parents, my uncles, and my friends" about supporting Obama.

Some local Obama backers say they have begun to see the Illinois senator, the son of an African father, as someone who can relate to the Latino experience [...]

Both also say they favor reworking the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Still, Obama's strategy is to try to make NAFTA a central issue of the campaign and to try to draw contrasts on the issue with Clinton.

Many union voters believe that NAFTA was responsible for encouraging companies to send U.S. jobs abroad.

Of course, with Texas close to the border and Ohio shedding manufacturing jobs, it's natural for both candidates to take on an unabashedly populist strategy.

WAUSAU, Wis. — Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama intensified their populist appeals on Monday, responding to widespread economic anxiety and pushing the Democratic Party further from the business-friendly posture once championed by Bill Clinton.

Mrs. Clinton, speaking on the eve of the Wisconsin primary but looking forward to primaries in Ohio and Texas on March 4, issued a 12-page compendium of her economic policies that emphasizes programs aiding families stressed by high oil prices, home foreclosures, costly student loans and soaring health care premiums.

In public appearances here and in her economic booklet, she took aim at hedge fund managers, oil company profits, drug company subsidies and trade agreements that she says encourage companies to export jobs [...]

Campaigning in Ohio before flying to Wisconsin for an election-eve rally, Mr. Obama said the wealthy had “made out like bandits” under the Bush administration and called for an end to tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas.

“In the last year alone,” Mr. Obama said, “93 plants have closed in this state. And yet, year after year, politicians in Washington sign trade agreements that are riddled with perks for big corporations but have absolutely no protections for American workers. It’s bad for our economy; it’s bad for our country.” [...]

At an event Monday at a union hall in Wausau, Mrs. Clinton said that other countries had taken advantage of the Bush administration’s pro-trade policies.

“I’m tired of being played for a patsy,” Mrs. Clinton said at the hall. “We have the largest market in the world. It’s time we said to the rest of the world, ‘If you want to have anything to do with our market, you have to play by our rules.’ ” [...]

He delivered a blistering critique of corporations that he said had benefited to the detriment of working families across the United States over the last seven years.

“We now have greater income inequality than any time since the Great Depression,” Mr. Obama said, speaking to reporters after touring the titanium plant. “For us to want to reverse that so everyone has a stake in the economy, I think is just common sense and good for everybody, including business.”

I don't think that suddenly, with the election of either of these two, that overnight worker's rights will top the agenda and corporations will lose their personhood. But I do think it's excellent for them both to try on the populist rhetoric and take it out for a test drive. Who knows, they might even like it. And it shows how John Edwards is STILL driving policy in this race. Obama met with him over the weekend, and if Edwards were smart he wouldn't endorse yet. He's getting a lot of mileage out of dangling the endorsement, and the candidates truly are moving to his side.

It's also great that there's still a race going on. That's not a popular view, but you wouldn't be seeing this back and forth on who is more committed to American jobs and reducing inequality without an actual contest. I didn't think I'd EVER see Hillary Clinton say something as forceful as "I'm tired of being played for a patsy." And because the race is extending into so many states, that's just another method in which the new coalition of Democrats can hold whoever makes it to the White House accountable.

Now, I don't expect this to last. Clinton is already scurrying away from her rhetoric by talking about the continuing vital role of the oil and gas industry in remarks to the Houston Chronicle. But for the record, I DO think that both Clinton and Obama are committed to some fairly fundamental changes in our economy, like investing in green jobs, rewarding companies that stay stateside, making trade deals somewhat more fair, and stressing the need to fight climate change. That would be a significant shift from the status quo. And having two candidates who send surrogates to a debate on science is, in a word, refreshing.

Once again, these candidates aren't perfect but their becoming boxed in through this battle to a strikingly new vision for America, and that's a good thing.