Obama vs. Clinton: The Real Policy Difference

May 8, 2008

Just a couple more observations about the primary before I pack it in for this season. Throughout the campaign I’ve heard people say there’s precious little difference between Obama and Clinton’s policy proposals. That may be true. But Clinton had only lately become a populist and champion of blue-collar America. And when it came to raising money and asking for votes… well, she used the same corporate big-money strategies. As Karen Tumulty points out in Time:

Though Clinton’s totals from working the shrimp-cocktail circuit remained impressive by every historic measure, her donors were typically big-check writers. And once they had ponied up the $2,300 allowed by law, they were forbidden to give more. The once bottomless Clinton well was drying up. [ The Five Mistakes Clinton Made ]

Tumulty also points out that Clinton simply did not contest a large number of states, deciding ahead of time that she was unlikely to do well.

Contrast that with the supposedly elitist Obama, who raised money from small donors and campaigned everywhere. While the allegedly regular-gal Clinton was photo-opping with shot-glasses and raising money from rich colleagues, the supposedly elitist Obama actually engaging with people in small states and raising large amounts of money from enormous numbers of small donors.

So what it comes down to for me was this: who could I trust the most to actually implement the agenda they were proposing? Clinton, who was populist when the camera was on but still relying on the politics of big money and cronyism? Or Obama, who was campaigning as hard as possible everywhere possible and relying on thousands of small donations instead of hundreds of really large ones?

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