Bringing different things to the table.

Watching Hillary Clinton close this weekend’s debate talking about Flint crystalized something that had been gnawing at the back of my mind: The big difference between her and Bernie Sanders. No, I’m not talking substantively, in terms of policy (plenty of differences there), but in their style of politics.

In short, Sanders is a big picture guy. He has a great, broad, sweeping vision of what America should look like, and his campaign focuses almost exclusively on that. Meanwhile, Clinton is tactical, taking breaking news items and contextualizing them within her own political framework (for example, talking about Flint at the end of last weekend’s debate).

Those are both good things, as part of a greater whole. But where both candidates fail is in doing what the other one does really well. So for example, Clinton can connect with individuals on an issue-by-issue basis by showing that she is attuned to their specific particular needs of the moment, but she fails to inspire by speaking of a grander vision. (We are left to wonder whether she even has one.) Meanwhile, Sanders can inspire with his big vision, but often seems aloof or unaware of of the current news cycle. You can see that in the debates (or in his initial responses to Black Lives Matter and the Paris attacks), how he falls back to his grand vision when asked about specific current events rather than talk about how he would specifically address that issue, or how he would even (practically) accomplish those big-vision items.

Sanders is a visionary, Clinton is a technocrat. There are pros and cons to each, and neither is inherently better than the other. We complain that our party often lacks that big vision, so Sanders’ approach is welcome on that front. On the other hand, Clinton-style competence reassures us we won’t have a Katrina or Flint on our hands if she’s elected. Ideally, we’d have a hybrid candidate that could do both, but we go into the elections with the candidates we have ...