Spring Break
Hillary Clinton for President
Jay B. Swanson (jbswanso@)
Issue date: 1/8/08 Section: Opinion
Over the past few years, Republicans have embarrassed themselves by producing one of the worst presidents of the past century (it is between Bush and Waren G. Harding), fielding a blatantly corrupt and often sexually deviant congressional delegation, as well as miring our nation in one of the most predictable, avoidable and disastrous imperial ventures since Augustus's Roman legions met disaster at Teutoburg Forest. A nation beleaguered after an eight year Republican regime needs a Democrat, but the question on Hillary Clinton remains: is she Democrat enough?
Right wingers hate Hillary Clinton. For some reason she occupies a special place in their nightmares. Every misstep she has taken on the campaign trail has been greeted by gleeful cackling from Fox News' pundits. Of course, they do not like any of the Democratic candidates, but their hatred for Hillary goes beyond what is appropriate for the political arena and approaches what a 13 year old girl would feel for her step mom. It manifests itself in similarly juvenile ways: after a Clinton staffer planted a question at an Iowa Clinton rally, Sean Hannity and Michael Steele spent a large portion of the show doing Bill Clinton impressions in response.
Yet even progressives continue to approach her with suspicion and mistrust. There is barely any unequivocal support for Hillary among liberals the same way there is for Obama or Edwards. The answer to the question "Are you supporting Hillary?" is almost always preceded by an embarrassed sigh. What support she has from progressives has seemingly been coerced by the weight of the inevitability of her nomination. Her campaign is so relentless that many grudgingly call her our candidate.
This ambivalence has a lot to do with Hillary's transparent attempts to move rightwards to the center. These moves, like her flag burning bill or her formerly ambiguous position on the morality of the war in Iraq, never brought her centrist appeal and only ever served to alienate progressives. True, most things politicians do are cynical maneuvers rather than ideological stands, but we would like a bit more subtlety than an anti-flag-burning bill.
Nonetheless, this kind of posturing is ultimately cosmetic. If we look beyond this we see a solid Democratic candidate. She has sensible plan for ending the war in Iraq that makes bringing the troops home our top priority, but won't allow the beleaguered country to unravel more than it has already. Her energy plan does not shy away from environmentalist rhetoric and has been given prominence in her campaign. Clinton's health care ideas have developed since the days of "Hillarycare;" her new plan is well thought of and widely praised. Given all this we should not mistrust Hillary any more than any of the other candidates. Perhaps she comes off as cold or ambitious, but Hillary Clinton is as much a Democrat as any other candidate today. It is time for prospective voters to go beyond questions of her fealty to progressives, liberals, and Democrats, and start comparing her record of competence and experience to those of her opponents.
Right wingers hate Hillary Clinton. For some reason she occupies a special place in their nightmares. Every misstep she has taken on the campaign trail has been greeted by gleeful cackling from Fox News' pundits. Of course, they do not like any of the Democratic candidates, but their hatred for Hillary goes beyond what is appropriate for the political arena and approaches what a 13 year old girl would feel for her step mom. It manifests itself in similarly juvenile ways: after a Clinton staffer planted a question at an Iowa Clinton rally, Sean Hannity and Michael Steele spent a large portion of the show doing Bill Clinton impressions in response.
Yet even progressives continue to approach her with suspicion and mistrust. There is barely any unequivocal support for Hillary among liberals the same way there is for Obama or Edwards. The answer to the question "Are you supporting Hillary?" is almost always preceded by an embarrassed sigh. What support she has from progressives has seemingly been coerced by the weight of the inevitability of her nomination. Her campaign is so relentless that many grudgingly call her our candidate.
This ambivalence has a lot to do with Hillary's transparent attempts to move rightwards to the center. These moves, like her flag burning bill or her formerly ambiguous position on the morality of the war in Iraq, never brought her centrist appeal and only ever served to alienate progressives. True, most things politicians do are cynical maneuvers rather than ideological stands, but we would like a bit more subtlety than an anti-flag-burning bill.
Nonetheless, this kind of posturing is ultimately cosmetic. If we look beyond this we see a solid Democratic candidate. She has sensible plan for ending the war in Iraq that makes bringing the troops home our top priority, but won't allow the beleaguered country to unravel more than it has already. Her energy plan does not shy away from environmentalist rhetoric and has been given prominence in her campaign. Clinton's health care ideas have developed since the days of "Hillarycare;" her new plan is well thought of and widely praised. Given all this we should not mistrust Hillary any more than any of the other candidates. Perhaps she comes off as cold or ambitious, but Hillary Clinton is as much a Democrat as any other candidate today. It is time for prospective voters to go beyond questions of her fealty to progressives, liberals, and Democrats, and start comparing her record of competence and experience to those of her opponents.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Curtis D. Young
posted 3/18/08 @ 10:28 AM EST
I'm not sure that looking beyond her political posturing provides us with the best candidate moving into the general. Of course, we will have to work with her if elected, however, it will be a long road!
CDY
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