By now, most of you know that Hillary Clinton is in the race for the Democratic nomination for President in 2008. As Steven D said, ‘Big Surprise’. The bloggers have all received their notices and invitations from Peter Daou…a man I think we all like and respect, but who has a very tough job in convincing the blogosphere to embrace Ms. Clinton.
In some respects this is an exciting time. Never before has a woman been this well positioned to win the nomination of either party. Who could have predicted that a former first lady would be the first? And this isn’t some token campaign. Hillary Clinton is extremely, extremely, well qualified to be President of the United States. There is no doubt that she has the requisite intelligence and experience that is needed. But, that doesn’t mean that we should want her to be elected. Not necessarily.
I understand what Hillary Clinton has been doing. She emerged from the Clinton era with a reputation as a big-government liberal, a hard-left feminist that had contempt for the cookie-bakers, and as someone with, perhaps, a few ethical problems in her past legal career. This was the legacy of a very sustained and vicious smear campaign funded by Richard Mellon-Scaife and others. She was humanized somewhat by the l’affair Lewinsky but, politically, she was seen as a fringe left personality. She has worked hard over the last six years to change that perception. She has scrupulously avoided attaching her name to any liberal initiatives (not hard in the Bush era) while becoming best known as an advocate and apologist for the war in Iraq.
The war did not go well. Unlike Al Gore in 1992, Hillary is unable to benefit from her support for a war in the Persian Gulf. At least, she is unable to benefit from it in a Democratic primary. But her hawkishness accomplished her general election goal, which was to be seen as a moderate, acceptable choice. Hillary has intentionally courted hostile criticism from the blogosphere precisely so that she could eliminate her reputation as a radical. This might strike me as brilliant strategery if not for the over 20,000 injured or dead American soldiers and 600,000 dead Iraqis that came as part of the bargain.
A very large percentage of the activist community is simply unwilling to forgive Hillary’s hawkishness…in my opinion, rightly so. In spite of this, Hillary is electable. She may have difficulty winning the nomination, but she will have much less difficulty winning the general election.
This runs counter to the narrative on Hillary. She is supposed to be too divisive, too unpopular in red areas of the country, to be electable. This is inaccurate. It will become even less accurate after a primary season where she is constantly portrayed as just this side of Joe Lieberman on the sliding political scale. Hillary is running as a pro-corporate, pro-empire, Democratic Leadership Council Democrat. Attempts to portray her as a communist or a feminazi will fall on deaf ears and will not even be considered by the Gang of 500. If you are concerned about Hillary’s electablity, you are opposing her for the wrong reason.
Hillary will have an effect, however, on the electability of Democrats running for the House and Senate. There are pockets of the country where Hillary remains deeply unpopular. There are quite a few congresspeople that will find their seats a little more vulnerable with Hillary at the top of the ticket.
There are some other concerns I have about the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. I don’t particularly like the idea of political dynasties in America. I don’t dispute that Hillary’s time in the White House provided her with valuable experience that is unlikely to be wasted in her potential governance of the nation. I don’t think, however, that we should make such experience a prerequisite for the job. It’s a trade-off that acts to limit the pool of qualified candidates.
I have some concerns about her competency. She did not handle her Health Care Initiative well. In fact, it ended in disaster and over forty million Americans remain without health coverage, at least in part, because of Hillary’s failure.
I also remain, personally, fairly far to the left of Hillary Clinton. This is true especially in our foreign policy, but also in our domestic policy. I do not support the basic political aims of the Democratic Leadership Council. I never supported the DLC on policy, but I no longer think it is a good electoral strategy either. The blogosphere has changed what is possible for candidates of the left. We no longer need to rely on corporate donations. We can win this election using the same model that just brought us resounding victories in the midterms.
A Hillary presidency would be exciting on some levels. I can imagine a female President giving a state of the union address with Nancy Pelosi behind her shoulder. I like that image. I think Ms. Clinton would be a decent president and I think she might actually be good at healing our nation and bringing us back together a bit. But I want to shoot higher. I know we can do better. I don’t want to continue on the Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton seesaw.
One last point: the Democrats are fielding a very strong field of candidates. Even long shot candidates like Biden, Richardson, Vilsack, and Dodd are serious, qualified candidates. Contrast that to the Republicans. They have John McCain. They have Mitt Romney. They might have Rudy Guiliani. But that is all they have. And those candidates each have characteristics that are deeply troubling to the Republican base. McCain hates evangelicals, evangelicals distrust Romney’s Mormonism, and Rudy is too moderate on social issues.
The Dems are in great position to win the White House in 2008. Right now my two top choices are Edwards and Dodd. I like them for ideological reasons. I am open-minded about Obama. Hillary? Not so much.
