I know that a lot of people are disturbed by my antipathy for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Some see ugly or subconscious motivations, while others think my criticisms apply equally, or near equally, to the other candidates. Sometime soon I will put together a comprehensive piece explaining why I oppose her campaign so vociferously. I haven’t done so to date because it requires a lot of sourcing and I haven’t had the time to do it properly. I will provide a little preview here:
It’s not personal. Every major criticism I have of Hillary Clinton is equally true for her husband, whose foreign policy was extremely bad, and whose economic policies were mixed, but inappropriate for our times. Yet, most Democrats have a positive impression of the Clinton years and do not make any connection between the rise of terrorist opposition to our policies and the foreign policy decisions (primarily, the forward basing strategy) of the Clinton administration.
There are three main problems with Clintonism in our current situation.
1) A forward basing strategy of eastward NATO expansion, conjoined with expanding military bases into Central Asia, the Horn of Africa, and the Arabian peninsula. This has caused blowback without commensurate compensation.
2) Appeasement, capitulation, and triangulation on social issues that weakens the Democratic brand.
3) While good on budgetary issues, the Clintons commitment to free trade has not worked out for working Americans. Hillary acknowledges this, to her credit, but the track record is bad, and her supporters remain the same.
In addition, I think there is good evidence that Clinton, while she can certainly win the presidency, has limited ability to breakthrough the red/blue state divide and help deliver a realigning election. But this is not my main objection to her candidacy.
But more on this later (with links and stuff).
My question is, what is the case for Hillary Clinton? I’ll stipulate that she has personal attributes and a life story that are attractive. But what is the case that the segment of the Democratic Party that she represents is the segment that progressives should empower to not only run the White House, but the DNC, the DSCC, and the DCCC?
I’d love to have a woman running the country…I’d love to have 50 female senators, too. I think we’d have much better policies if that were the case. But that is not reason enough for me to support a candidate that represents the segment of the party that thinks Howard Dean (and by extension, his supporters for heading the DNC) are no more than assholes from Vermont.