If Clinton Wins, She Needs to Win Big: Independent Commentator

A well-known independent US political commentator says it is hard to imagine a scenario where Hillary Clinton won’t win the upcoming election – but she’ll have a very hard time unless she wins by a large margin.

Dan Schnur, director of the Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California, says while it is close, it’s unlikely Donald Trump will win because of Clinton’s structural, logistical and financial advantages.

But, he told Q+A’s Corin Dann, a narrow win will be of concern to the new president if it is Mrs Clinton.
“If she just ekes this out, then she almost certainly inherits a very very divided country and a Republican congress absolutely determined to stop her every step of the way.

“Our presidents who win by larger margins — Ronald Reagan, Lyndon Johnson — they get a mandate, and they get almost a permission slip from Congress to pursue a much more aggressive agenda. When a president wins by a narrow margin, they don’t get that luxury.

“And so for Clinton to be a successful president, certainly she needs to win, but in her best possible outcome, it can’t be that close a race either.”

END




Q + A
Episode 35
DAN SCHNUR
Interviewed by CORIN DANN

GREG To make sense of the forces that are shaping this election and the next president's term, whoever that may be, Corin Dann met up with well-known US political commentator Dan Schnur. Dan Schnur describes himself as an independent. He's the director of the Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California. Corin began by asking how Trump has managed to close the gap with Clinton.

DAN Now in the closing weeks of the campaign, he has managed to close the gap with Clinton in a very very surprising way. I say this a few days before the election, it’s still unlikely that he wins just because there’s some structural and logistical and financial advantages that Clinton has, but most people who pay attention to such things would’ve told you last June or July that this was going to be a landslide, not a squeaker.

CORIN Why has that happened?

DAN In both the Republican Party establishment and the Democratic Party establishment as well over the years have really taken for granted their support from large chunks of their respective party bases and really haven’t noticed the ideological splits that have emerged within their party. In other words, if you are a traditional establishment Republican figure, you think, ‘Well, I have the economic conservatives on Wall Street, I have the national security conservatives elsewhere in the country, I have the social and religious conservatives, and they’ll turn out for me.’ And what they didn’t notice, because they were so busy paying attention to those economic conservatives, but they were ignoring the cultural conservatives, who got more and more angry and more and more alienated. By the same token in the Democratic Party, organised labour and well-moneyed financial interests on the Democratic side became increasingly influential, and young voters in particular, who never really had the ear of their political leaders, became very disaffected until Bernie Sanders came along and made it clear to them that he was willing to listen. Once again, the common thread between Trump and Sanders in this election and I think in the years going forward is both of them showed a willingness to listen to voters who otherwise weren’t getting attention from political leaders. And even if Trump and Sanders supporters did not believe that their candidates were going to accomplish everything they promised to, they were just happy to have somebody listen.

CORIN Is that sentiment a one-off or is it going to stay, that feeling of disconnection?

DAN Well, there’s a children’s book that’s been popular in this country for many years. You may have it as well. The title is If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, he’s going to want a glass of milk, and I suspect what happens with these newly empowered activists in both parties is they’re not satiated at all, just the opposite. They see the influence they can have if they get engaged and stay involved. I don’t think these sentiments are going away at all. In fact, if anything, I think they’ll continue to grow in the years ahead. I mean, this is the most significant economic and technological change in society since the Industrial Revolution, but at least in the Industrial Revolution, as we were changing from an agrarian to industrial society, at least those people who were displaced knew what to do. They left their family farm, and they went to the city to work in a factory or on a construction site. It’s not like a 55-year-old construction worker’s going to move to Silicon Valley and acquire financing for a social-networking start-up. He doesn’t know what comes next and doesn’t believe that most people named Bush or Clinton are paying much attention to him, but someone named Trump and Sanders is.

CORIN Do you think whoever wins is going to continue to face real opposition from another politician who can capture that movement?

DAN Well, it’s a great question, and I think not only is the premise of your question right, but I think that challenge more likely than not comes from within the president’s own party. And so just as the Tea Party and the Freedom Caucus in Congress has made life very very difficult for Republican Party leaders over the last several years, I think it’s more than likely that Bernie Sanders supporters make life just as difficult—

CORIN So they’ll pull Hillary Clinton to the left?

DAN Well, in fact, they are already determined to do so. Senator Warren and Senator Sanders among others have begun talking about what type of Cabinet appointees would be acceptable and unacceptable to them in a Clinton administration. And even if President Hillary Clinton was inclined to try and work across party lines, as her husband was many years ago, the gravitational pull from the base of her own party doesn’t make it impossible, but it makes it much more difficult.

CORIN So a lot of that dissatisfaction you talk about seems to come out in opposition to the TPP and those sorts of trade deals. Well, they certainly do in New Zealand. Is this the end for that sort of globalised movement?

DAN Here we sit in Los Angeles, California, what we very very immodestly call the capital of the Pacific Rim, and our entire economy, our entire society is built on our relationship with the rest of the Pacific Rim, with your country and with your neighbours across the ocean. That’s why when our economy thrives, it’s because we aggressively pursue and expand those types of relationships, in terms of trade, in terms of immigration, in terms of diplomacy. And when a country looks inward, as ours tends to be doing right now, it sacrifices an awful lot of those opportunities. The good news is, historically speaking, American presidents tend to be much more responsible on these type of issues than presidential candidates.

CORIN So where do we end up if this election is very close? If there are recounts, if the likes of Donald Trump don’t accept the results, this could end up being pretty ugly for America, couldn’t it?

DAN It could be a very very devastating impact, not just on our politics but on our culture. Suppose if the election is decided and is not contested but is still a relatively narrow margin of victory, this to me is Secretary Clinton’s greatest concern at this point. She not only needs to win; she needs to win by a significant margin because if she just ekes this out, then she almost certainly inherits a very very divided country and a Republican congress absolutely determined to stop her every step of the way. Our presidents who win by larger margins — Ronald Reagan, Lyndon Johnson — they get a mandate, and they get almost a permission slip from Congress to pursue a much more aggressive agenda. When a president wins by a narrow margin, they don’t get that luxury. And so for Clinton to be a successful president, certainly she needs to win, but in her best possible outcome, it can’t be that close a race either.

CORIN The demographics in America are changing at the moment. We’ve seen a big focus on the Latino vote. How significant is that?

DAN No question about it, and also it’s worth noting the Asian-American immigrant population is now growing in this country at a faster rate than Latino immigrant population. As these immigration patterns spread from states like California and Texas and Florida throughout the rest of the country, it really creates an immense challenge for the Republican Party, as even though many Republican leaders correctly point out that newly arrived immigrants tend to be somewhat conservative, as long as the Republican Party remains so strident on the issue of immigration, it becomes much much more likely that an entire generation of immigrants simply dismisses them as an option.

CORIN So to finish with a prediction — do you think Hillary Clinton will win this election?

DAN It’s very difficult to see a situation under which Clinton loses this race. I tell my students that we are constitutionally required to have a presidential election every four years, but there’s no constitutional requirement that we’ll be inspired and motivated by our candidates every four years and that sometimes it’s just important to persevere in between the periods of inspiration. Very very smart people, much smarter than me, would argue that there have only been three truly great presidents in American history — George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. By historical coincidence, there are about 80 or 90 years in between George Washington and Abraham Lincoln; there were about 80 or 90 years between Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. I like to think we’re due.

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