Hillary Clinton – Page 2

Politics is broken

This is a fairly tough — and I’d say fair — explanation by Johann Hari in The Independent of how the Clinton campaign has operated, the myths surrounding the Clintons and Hillary Clinton’s claims of experience.

It is clear the Clintons are determined to get this nomination, any way, any how. If they have to do it by falsely claiming to have won states like Florida and Michigan – where Obama’s name wasn’t even on the ballot, because there was an agreement by all the candidates to punish the states for holding early primaries – then they will. If they have to do it by overturning the will of the Democratic electorate by appealing to the unelected super-delegates – a group of party functionaries who seem likely to hold the balance – then they will. If they have to do it by pandering to racist sentiments – dismissing Obama as akin to the black firebrand Jesse Jackson, or by leaking images of Obama in African tribal dress – then they will do it.

This ties fairly well to the special comment (video here) offered by Keith Olbermann on Wednesday, which tied together the Geraldine Ferarro comments essentially calling Barack Obama an affirmative action candidate with other questionable comments and the tacit acceptance of so much of this questionable behavior by the campaign and the candidate.

To Sen. Clinton’s supporters, to her admirers, to her friends for whom she is first choice, and to her friends for whom she is second choice, she is still letting herself be perceived as standing next to, and standing by, racial divisiveness and blindness.

And worst yet, after what President Clinton said during the South Carolina primary, comparing the Obama and Jesse Jackson campaigns; a disturbing, but only borderline remark.

After what some in the black community have perceived as a racial undertone to the “3 A.M.” ad, a disturbing but only borderline interpretation …

And after that moment’s hesitation in her own answer on 60 Minutes about Obama’s religion; a disturbing, but only borderline vagueness …

After those precedents, there are those who see a pattern, false or true.

After those precedents, there are those who see an intent, false or true.

After those precedents, there are those who see the Clinton campaign’s anything-but-benign neglect of this Ferraro catastrophe, falsely or truly, as a desire to hear the kind of casual prejudice that still haunts this society voiced and to not distance the campaign from it.

To not distance you from it, Senator!

To not distance you from that which you as a woman, and Sen. Obama as an African-American, should both know and feel with the deepest of personal pain!

Which you should both fight with all you have!

Which you should both ensure has no place in this contest!

This, Sen. Clinton, is your campaign, and it is your name.

The tawdry direction in which this campaign has turned is a huge disappointment, given the remarkable interest that it has generated — record turnouts, massive rallies, etc. — and the good will with which the Democrats entered the election season. Anyone handicapping the race back in December or even February would have made the Democratic nominee — whether it were to be Clinton or Obama — the odds-on favorite to reside at One Pennsylvania Ave. come January.

But, as Olbermann points out, the ugliness is making that less likely. The Clintons appear willing to damage Obama in a way that will weaken him in November and split the party in the process. Hari views it as the Clintons making a “lunge at power” that “should be remembered when the end credits roll – as a greasy stain on the bright blue dress of the Democratic Party.”

He writes

Think about the symbolism for the watching world if the Clintons manage to snatch this nomination. The people in a majority of states in America will have shown they are ready to embrace a black man as President – only for some white guys in suits to hand it to the wife of the ex-President. Their arguments in their own defence will seem feeble. The idea that Hillary is more “experienced” seems to me both anti-feminist and untrue. How does being married to a man make you “experienced” in his job? As the stand-up comedian Chris Rock said in a recent gig, “I don’t get it. I’ve been married for 10 years – but if my wife came out here on stage now, you wouldn’t laugh.”

This is not about sinking the Clinton candidacy and promoting Obama. Yes, I did vote for Obama in the New Jersey primary, but not out of any great commitment. He was actually no higher than third or fourth on my original list (after John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich and possibly Chris Dodd). This criticism has nothing to do with my vote or potential support.

This is about tone and tone-deafness and what it might imply about the candidates. Obama has his flaws — his “new way” is in too many ways a recycling of the old way and too often traps him in unhealthy compromises designed to show his ability to rise above partisanship. And he also has allowed himself to be connected to some questionable people.

As for John McCain — his willingness to accept endorsements from radical Christian clerics like the Rev. John Hagee and or the Rev. Rod Parsley offer only the most tepid of rebukes to their views. Not exactly what one might expect from the driver of the “Straight-Talk Express.”

Watching this Democratic race spin into the dark side is a bit like watching an unfunny comedian — say Andrew Dice Clay — tell off-color jokes. The audience might titter a bit uncomfortably as it squirms in its seats, but it is just waiting for the show to end and for the comic to get off stage.

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Meet me in a land of hope and dreams

Hillary Clinton walks off the stage to Bruce Springsteen’s “Land of Hope and Dreams.” Interesting, though I suspect that the Boss is staying out of the primary race.

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The imploding candidate

I want to draw attention to a New Jersey blogger who has, I think, summed up the failures of the Clinton campaign and the apparent narcissism that fuels what is looking more and more like a lost cause.

Clinton, as Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast writes, has attempted to paint herself as something that she isn’t — a progressive — while at the same time being weighed down by her husband.

I don’t know about anyone else, but when I see her talk about creating good jobs at good wages, I want to shout at the TV, “Then why do you cozy up to the very companies that want to send those very jobs overseas?” She gives lip service to “retraining”, but says nothing about the nature of the jobs for which already highly skilled IT workers should “retrain.” Granted, she’s in a difficult position, because she either has to run on her words or run on her (and let’s face it, Bill’s) record. And for someone who refuses to ever admit that she was wrong, she has a long track record of supporting policies that she now repudiates on the stump without ever using the words “wrong” or “mistake.”

She adds this:

Clinton’s biggest problem is that the transformational nature of her candidacy is by definition muted by the inescapable fact that a Hillary Clinton presidency is not something entirely new, and it’s not uncharted territory. We’ve been here before. Assuming that the Obama Train continues its relentless roll into Denver and wraps things up by then, the irony of the Clinton candidacy will be that the first viable woman candidates’s aspirations were largely thwarted by the very husband whose own departing popularity ratings in 2000, after surviving eight years of Republican witch hunts, was still higher than George W. Bush’s have been for most of his presidency. Bill Clinton was supposed to be her biggest asset, and it seems he’s been her biggest liability, for all that people DO remember his presidency fondly. He’s become a liability because without the presidency and the ability to formulate policy as a backdrop, and when the campaign’s back is against the wall, all of Bill Clinton’s flaws have come to the fore — the “It’s all about me” narcissism. The need for attention and adulation. The relentlessness that’s no longer cloaked in a smile and a lower lip curled so fetchingly under his teeth.

Essentially, Clinton became the frontrunner early when she was the only one with serious name recognition and the party was still lost in a romantic lust for a successful past. Not that the past was all that great or that the party was all that healthy during the Clinton years, but Bill and Hillary were living in the White House and George W. Bush was not.

Once the campaign began and Barack Obama presented himself as an alternative that was looking ahead, her campaign started to crumble.

While there remains a possibility that she can rebound and win the nomination, the window is closing. And the smaller the opening becomes, the more of the old Clinton streetfighter attitude becomes apparent — as well as the sense of entitlement. Remember, the Clinton presidency was won built on the demise of the old Democratic coalition, one that made welfare reform a cause celebre and triangulation its chief philosophical attitude, making elements of the GOP Contract With America its own to maintain its grip on the White House.

I have no illusions about an Obama presidency. He’s already shown a willingness to tack right when he thinks it will be beneficial (his healthcare plan, for instance), but I like his energy and I think he probably has better progressive instincts than Hillary Clinton, more genuine progressive sensibilities, and is more likely to craft a larger coalition to get the right kinds of things done.

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Questions on the environment

John McCain is considered to be a Republican with a strong environmental record. Both Democrats are, as well. This, as The Nation points out, creates the potential that we could have a useful conversation on the topic.

An easy place to start would be with the California emissions plan, which requires a waiver from the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The Bush-run agency has refused to issue the waiver. What would the candidates do? Would McCain, Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton tell the EPA to grant California its exemption — and by extension, grant similar extensions to the dozen or so other states waiting to find out the fate of the California plan? (Obama and Clinton both told the California League of Conservation Voters they support California; McCain did not answer the group’s survey, but he did endorse the California plan during the GOP California debate — though it was on federalist grounds that allowed him also to endorse Louisiana’s right to drill off its coast.)

The answer to this question would go a long way toward understanding which of these candidates would actually move the country forward on the issue. McCain, for intance, has a lifetime score of 26 percent from the League of Conservation Voters, with a 2005 score of 43 percent and a 2006 score of 29 percent. Obama’s lifetime score is 96 percent (95 percent in 2005 and 100 percent in 2006) and Clinton’s is 90 percent (95 percent and 71 percent).

Depending on how the political press plays this, McCain’s reputation as an environmental-friendly candidate could neutralize the environment as an issue in November. Reputation, however, is meaningless. What has he actually done and what does he actually say? And what the records of the other remaining candidates? How do they compare?

This raises a larger question of narrative and the roles in which the press cast candidates. It is not the meddia’s responsibility to pigeonhole those running, but to explode the myths the candidates use to sell themselves, to force them to do more than use vague words like “maverick,” “change” and “experience.”

John McCain may indeed be a maverick, but within what context? And does that make him an environmentalist? I’m hoping we’ll get some answers between now and November and, assuming we do, I think it will become eminently clear which of these candidates is greenest.

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Clinton’s baggage

Frank Rich’s column in Sunday’s edition of The New York Times gets to the core of why a large number of Democrats are concerned with the potential Hillary Clinton candidacy, especially if he ends up facing off against Sen. John McCain.

His point is that the “two for the price of one” that a Hillary Clinton candidacy implies — her 35 years of experience schpiel only makes sense if her years as first lady are included as a prime component, which begs the question of why the former president would play any less of a role in her White House than she says she played in his — will inject the fall campaign (which will start well before the conventions should she distance herself from Barack Obama next week) with all of the baggage that the former president carries.

And Rich is not talking about Monica Lewinksy and the rabid hatred on the right of the Clintons, though that will be a factor. Rich points to something else — Bill Clinton’s post-presidential activities.

Yes, Clinton has seemed a positive force, working with the senior George Bush to raise money for a number of causes. But we shouldn’t let that overshadow the more questionable activities:

To get a taste of what surprises may be in store, you need merely revisit the Bill Clinton questions that Hillary Clinton has avoided to date.

Asked by Tim Russert at a September debate whether the Clinton presidential library and foundation would disclose the identities of its donors during the campaign, Mrs. Clinton said it wasn’t up to her. “What’s your recommendation?” Mr. Russert countered. Mrs. Clinton replied: “Well, I don’t talk about my private conversations with my husband, but I’m sure he’d be happy to consider that.”

Not so happy, as it turns out. The names still have not been made public.

The question of who has contributed are important because they can be viewed as an effort on the part of contributors to skirt campaign-finance rules and win influence via other means.

The Times found an overlap between library benefactors and Hillary Clinton campaign donors, some of whom might have an agenda with a new Clinton administration. (Much as one early library supporter, Marc Rich’s ex-wife, Denise, had an agenda with the last one.) “The vast scale of these secret fund-raising operations presents enormous opportunities for abuse,” said Representative Henry Waxman, the California Democrat whose legislation to force disclosure passed overwhelmingly in the House but remains stalled in the Senate.

The Post and Times reporters couldn’t unlock all the secrets. The unanswered questions could keep them and their competitors busy until Nov. 4. Mr. Clinton’s increased centrality to the campaign will also give The Wall Street Journal a greater news peg to continue its reportorial forays into the unraveling financial partnership between Mr. Clinton and the swashbuckling billionaire Ron Burkle.

Rich goes on about this and other matters, including the contrast between Clinton and McCain, a contrast that strips Clinton of the central plank of her campaign — her experience. In fact, the intersection of change and experience that she has lately been touting will not play against McCain, who can offer the same argument — along with his (undeserved) reputation for independence.

Democrats, who have been so concerned about electability (overly concerned, I’d say), really need to consider how a so-called Billary candidacy will play in the fall. This is not about a woman candidate, but about this candidate and whether the country is ready for a reprise of the Clinton years.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
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