The biggest political mistakes are made when parties are most
certain they are right. The nomination of Susan Rice to be
Secretary of State would bring both parties into that level of
certitude…and risk. However, it is undoubtedly Obama who has the
most to lose.
Obama has been aggressively intent on claiming and exploiting a
mandate from the November election. Nominating UN Ambassador Susan
Rice to be Hillary Clinton’s replacement would fit not only with
Obama’s mandate agenda, but also reinforce the demographic point
November seemed to highlight. The White House relishes forcing
Republicans into a fight over a minority candidate.
Republicans are equally eager to explore an issue Romney
painfully fumbled: the 9/11 attack in Benghazi, which left four
Americans dead. Rice sits at the pivotal point of that story: the
Administration’s recognition, and then explanation, of this
terrorist act. Republicans see a Rice nomination as the chance
finally to have a public debate over this.
So focused on their clear opportunities, each side is
overlooking equally obvious risks.
For Republicans, November’s demographic gaps had a real impact
on the election’s outcomes. Their presidential candidate lost among
women, who made up 53% of the electorate, 55%-44%. And they lost
among Blacks 93%-6%. Opposition to Rice’s nomination could keep
those cleavages fresh.
For Obama though, the risk is far greater, and more importantly,
unnecessary.
The Benghazi attack was a debacle of the first magnitude. From
start to finish — if the story really is finished — there are
serious questions still to be asked and the answers won’t be
flattering to anyone involved. However, for whatever reason, the
Administration has largely gotten a pass on Benghazi.
The attack raises the ultimate Watergate question: What did you
know and when did you know it? However, a Rice nomination raises an
even more fundamental one first: Why would Obama want this
fight?
A Rice nomination would open an issue Obama has largely escaped,
thrusts it before a media that has largely ignored it, and onto
Capitol Hill, the split control of which has kept this issue out of
Congress. There the nomination would stay — not for hours, which
the Administration has sought to avoid thus far — but for
days.
And the Administration’s defense would rest on Susan Rice, whose
inability to assuage her critics’ concerns in private would be put
to the test in public.
All this would be done at the start of his second term, when he
is trying to claim and exercise a mandate.
While it may seem inconceivable that Obama would actually bring
this disadvantageous and unnecessary fight on himself, we must
remember: He has done it before, on a far bigger scale, and at just
such a juncture.
Fresh in office, with the economy in recession, his concerted
effort with overwhelming Congressional majorities was for…
healthcare overall. It consumed over a year of his presidency,
failed to attract any bipartisan support, and came within a single
vote of failing to pass at all. And it still remains unpopular with
a majority of Americans.
Diverting his agenda to nominate Rice could again risk
immediately consuming the momentum he brought out of November. He
would be risking it this time, not on a policy, but on a person few
people know now or will remember later, but who could turn a
largely neglected issue into something that the public might come
to never forget.
And this time the cost would come out of a smaller stock of
political capital.
Despite his insistence on a mandate, his 2008 popular vote share
was essentially halved this November. His approval rating is still
only slightly above 50% and — in contrast to the large majorities
he controlled in Congress in 2009 — his majority in the Senate is
less and in the House, nonexistent.
When two armies choose to give battle they do so because they
perceive a strength in themselves or a weakness in their opponent
that the other side does not see. The problem is: Only one can be
right. The able commander must do more than examine the opponent,
he must also weigh the cost of failure against the reward of
victory. Such a calculation in a potential battle over Rice
distinctly favors Republicans.
At the end of the day, Obama will get a new Secretary of State
— virtually anyone else he wants. Why then does he seemingly want
this one so much?
# # #
(The author served in the Treasury Department and the Office of
Management and Budget from 2001 to 2004 and as a congressional
staff member from 1987 to 2000)
