Hillary Clinton's no Henry IV

    In a mean-spirited op-ed that's apparently part of an on-going twenty-year jihad against the Clintons, Maureen Dowd likens Hillary Clinton to an "annoyed queen".  While I have been first very critical, then somewhat less critical, of Hillary's response to revelations that she violated federal email retention rules, I wouldn't necessarily call her regal.  Still, it is more than fair for Democrats to question whether Clinton's aloof and condescending manner will hand the White House to the Republicans next November.  It is also fair to ask whether, if elected, she will serve in the best interests of the American people.

    According to the Guardian, in 1996, Hillary's close friend Janet Blair suggested things might go easier for her if she tried to develop "friendlier relations . . . with media figures . . . and stop[ped] changing her hair so often".  Clinton's response:

    I know I should do more to suck up to the press. I know it confuses people when I change my hairdos. I know I have to compromise. . .  But I’m just not going to. . . I’m a complex person and they’re just going to have to live with that. I’m used to winning, and I intend to win on my own terms.

    Strong-sounding words.   The problem is that nobody can win solely on her own terms, not even Hillary Clinton.  There are always compromises that have to be made.  You just hope that your candidate's compromises don't fundamentally undermine positions that drew you to her in the first place.

    In this vein, it's hard to be optimistic about Hillary.  Young Hillary Rodham opposed the Vietnam war.  Senator Hillary Clinton voted to authorize George W. Bush to use force against Iraq and has argued the President Obama should have more aggressively supported the Syrian rebels challenging Bashar Al Assad.

    In 1993, first lady Hillary Clinton was front and center in the fight for true health care reform.  As a Senator in 2005 and Presidential candidate in 2008, she supported an incremental approach.  Likewise, she has declined to criticize the repeal of Glass-Steagall which led to the consolidation of investment and commercial banks and quite possibly the banking crisis in 2008.

    It seems quite likely that Clinton's adoption of a centrist or even moderately conservative approach in fiscal and military matters reflects her compromise with the financial titans, including Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, and pro-Israel supporters who have backed her over the past 15 years.  I can understand that nineteen years ago, Hillary Clinton felt that she could not try to charm the press or style her hair "sensibly" without violating core principles.  What is so disappointing is that her core principles don't require her to keep up the fight for universal health care, to stand up to (not for) big banks, and to support peaceful solutions to complex international problems.

    In 1593, Henry IV was positioned to take the kingship of France.  Baptized in the Catholic faith, but raised a Protestant, as a young man Henry had fought on the side of the Huguenots.  Nevertheless, to secure the support of the great mass of French people who were Catholic, he converted.  Upon making the decision to return to the religion of his birth, Henry reportedly said: "Paris is well worth a mass."

    Henry IV is remembered as one of the best-loved of French Kings (admittedly the competition isn't too keen).  Another of his famous sayings is "a chicken in every pot" meaning that no peasant in his realm should be so poor that his family cannot enjoy a chicken for Sunday dinner.  In contrast to most of French history before and after, his reign was characterized by peace and prosperity.

    Henry IV did more than merely compromise his religion in order to secure the French throne he gave it up.  Presumably he sought power, given how he wielded it, for the purpose of improving the lot of the ordinary French citizen.  In direct contrast, Hillary Clinton's overweening sense of self prevents her from compromising on small stuff, e.g., she will not display humility or admit fault.  Nevertheless, she does compromise.  Sadly such compromises always seem to be to policies that would benefit poor, working and middle-class Americans.

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    What is so disappointing is that her core principles don't require her to keep up the fight for universal health care, to stand up to (not for) big banks, and to support peaceful solutions to complex international problems.

    She's unlike other presidents, including her husband, who were catapulted into prime time. She's a power player because she's been moving in powerful circles since 1992.  Some of her best friends are bankers.  No matter who you are, you don't represent New York in the senate without some friends in finance, particularly hedge funds.

    It's hard for me to see her as much more or less liberal than Obama. She was his Secretary of State, after all.  He trusted her, he gave her a lot of leeway.  They share a lot of advisers.  She's more of an interventionist that he is but he's an interventionist too.

    Obama made compromises as well.  On health care, to get something huge done.  On the stimulus, because not enough was better than nothing.  He didn't even use the authority he had to help stop home foreclosures, which is one of the biggest unexplained mysteries of his handling of the financial crisis.

    She's not perfect, by any stretch. But Senator Warren isn't running.


    I'm less likely to idealize Henri, who wanted to be king for mostly the same reasons other people want to be king, and was willing to fight a long, bloody war to get the throne.

    But yes, he's much more sympathetic than many of the Kings before or after him.


    But he's no King Harley Race.

    I do this every time you say "King," don't I?


    Ah, operant conditioning. The question is do you see it as negative or positive reinforcement?


    Oh, I just realize we haven't even gotten to Macho King Randy Savage or Jerry the King Lawler!

    (I mean, positive reinforcement).


    Hal, Hal, Hal - you sound like you're pulling from Henry IV's scripts themselves - a few hundred years have passed - hit refresh to 2003:

    In fact, in the last few months, Mrs. Clinton has repeatedly confounded the expectations of people who judged her from her White House years. She has appeared publicly with Newt Gingrich, her onetime political foe. She has called abortion a "sad, even tragic choice." She has stood fast in defense of her vote authorizing President Bush to go to war in Iraq. Over the last few weeks, she has found defenders among prominent conservative commentators who feel she was maligned in a new unauthorized biography.

    Yeah, Hillary was in the Senate for 8 years, seen as a team player, a compromiser and hard worker, not a prima donna - and then she ran for president - seemed to be both a humiliating but very growing experience for her - you should read about it, was in all the papers. Maybe what she did in 1996 is trumped by what she did in 2003 or last year?

    By the way, did you catch this better quote:

    “HC says press has big egos and no brains,” wrote Blair on May 19, 1993, during the White House travel office controversy. “That [the White House is] just going to have to work them better; that her staff has figured it out and would be glad to teach [Bill’s] staff."

    Yep, egos & no brains - If you're going to cherry pick from a cherry pick of Hillary quotes, cover the good stuff too - note that when Bush ran for President, he regularly flattered the press and gave them obsequious names, flattered them up - seemed to work - they never bothered reporting that he lied on Social Security or his military service.. Guess that HIllary is pretty perceptive little gal.

    Even that quote about being non-bending you introduce with? Looking at it from another side, Blair notes:

    “[Hillary] sounded very up, almost jolly,” wrote Blair. “Told me how she and Bill and Chelsea had been to church, to a Chinese restaurant, to a Shakespeare play, greeted everywhere with wild applause and cheers—this, she said is what drives their adversaries totally nuts, that they don’t bend, do not appear to be suffering.”

    If she were royalty, it'd be more like Marie Antoinette than Henry IV - "Let them eat shit". I like her the more - wish there were more Democrats willing to take the fight to the opposition, humiliate them as needed.

    And the opposition has always made it rather personal. Try the pictures of Hillary here - okay, I'll print a couple to perhaps make you realize she's a rather pretty woman - and people have done their best to taint her with the worst of her photos, the ugly duckling, whether catching her mid-word or that geeky big glasses with farmgirl skirt look - like we all don't have a bunch of 70's fashion looks we'd like obliterated.

    (yes, frankly I'd assumed as well that she was homely, except when she started to go for that Sharon Stone look on the campaign 1992 and then someone told her to ditch the headbands and go to a dowdy frumpy boring Washington bangs cut)

    Also eye-catching are her takes on Washington & being pragmatic/bending to reality:

    July 28, 1993: (eight days after Hillary confidante and deputy White House counsel Vince Foster is found dead) HC says it’s time to stop complaining about DC and its insane process and just figure out how to make the crappy thing work.

    HC still in despair that nobody in WH tough and mean enough.

    Sept 26, 1993: [Ahead of Hillary’s three days of testimony before Congress on health care reform] She’s begun to see that they don’t really care about the issues but want to feel they’re part of the process. So she’s slobbering over their “craft” as she testifies.

    Dec. 3, 1993: [Oregon Republican Senator Bob] Packwood—HC tied of all those whiney women, ans she needs him on health care. I told her I’d been bonding with creeps, she said that was the story of her whole past year.

    Now, you give part of a quote, "I know I have to compromise. . .  But I’m just not going to." - do you remember what the whole quote was?

    “I know how to compromise, I have been compromised. I gave up my name, got contact lenses. But I’m not going to try to present to be someone that I’m not.”

    The name change came when her husband was running for governor in conservative Arkansas and people thought her strange for not taking his last name:

    In one of my conversations with the President, he emphasized the point that not only had he not requested her to change her name but he had at first resisted her changing it. “She understood that it was part of a picture that we had painted for the voters that made them feel alienated from us. And she said to me—I never will forget.. . . I respected her so much for this, because she came in to see me, and she said, ‘We’ve got to talk about this name deal.’ She said, ‘I couldn’t bear it—if we’re going to do this, let’s try to win. I couldn’t bear it if this costs you the election. It’s just not that big a deal to me anymore.’ ”

    Clinton continued, “And, see, the interesting thing is, Hillary told me she was nine years old when she decided she would keep her own name when she got married. It had nothing to do with the feminist movement or anything. She said, ‘I like my name. I was interested in my family. I didn’t want to give it up.’ And she was a young child when she decided that.”

    What about the glasses?
    One family friend recalled that shortly after Clinton’s defeat Hillary asked her, “What are they wearing?”—a reference to the more fashion-conscious. It was a startlingly uncharacteristic query; this person commented, “It was the first time I ever heard her sounding vulnerable.” Hillary lightened her hair, began wearing contact lenses and makeup, and hired a fashion consultant to help her select a wardrobe.

    So she re-made herself to help her husband win. Pretty awful of her, no? at least you seem to think so:

    The problem is that nobody can win solely on her own terms, not even Hillary Clinton.  There are always compromises that have to be made.  You just hope that your candidate's compromises don't fundamentally undermine positions that drew you to her in the first place. In this vein, it's hard to be optimistic about Hillary.

    Yep, that's pretty horrid - she won't suck up to the press, so let's second-guess her fundamental positions and wring our hands in despair, oh-oh-oh... welcome to doomsville. But I understand you're a bit stuck in the way-back machine, as people have had this quandary about the Hillary duality for a long time, such as this NY Times piece in 1992

    "You know, some people think of you as an inspiring female attorney mother, and other people think of you as the overbearing yuppie wife from hell," the reporter said. "How would you describe yourself?"

    Such a quandary, eh? Hal brings up Hillary in 2003 - "Senator Hillary Clinton voted to authorize George W. Bush to use force against Iraq" - wow, Hal - you got her - a vote for threat of war and inspections which then found now weapons, supported by Biden, Kerry, John Edwards, Feinstein, Harry Reid, Tom Harkin, Daschle, Schumer, Lieberman, Max Cleland, Mel Carnahan, and the next month the entire UN Security Council. The same effort that the anti-war candidate Obama took 3 years to withdraw from, leaving 20,000 "non-war" soldiers and 5000 military contractors. Why exactly is Hillary the only one carrying the water for Bush's push for war?

    Hal: In 1993, first lady Hillary Clinton was front and center in the fight for true health care reform.  As a Senator in 2005 and Presidential candidate in 2008, she supported an incremental approach. 

    Gee, I thought this was common knowledge - in 1993 bitchy Democratic Senators like Byrd and Moynihan sabotaged their own party's "Hillarycare", even denying the use of reconciliation the way the 2010 ACA bill finally painfully passed,  while she & Kennedy got SCHIP passed in 1997 and Obama was able to expand it easily in 2009. Many people think expanding Medicare would have been much simpler and less divisive approach than Obamacare, without another bitchy sabotage of abortion by D-Ben Nelson. [hint: if it doesn't have your name, it has a better chance of passage - thus the "Marshall Plan" and not the "Truman Plan"]

    "What is so disappointing is that her core principles don't require her to keep up the fight for universal health care, to stand up to (not for) big banks, and to support peaceful solutions to complex international problems." - okay, Hal, I'm losing you - Hillary should learn to compromise, and after getting thrashed by a candidate with no experience who whipsawed from supposed anti-war to surging in Iraq and Afghanistan and who compromised hugely with both banks and big pharma in his 3 major thrusts his first 2 years, you expect Hillary should hold her course and be principled?

    "In direct contrast, Hillary Clinton's overweening sense of self prevents her from compromising on small stuff, e.g., she will not display humility or admit fault. "

    - okay, now you may have stepped on the stupid rail. First, if you look just a little bit, you find that Hillary's humility including showing up to Congressmen's districts to stump for healthcare - always being prepared unlike many slackers - as well as being deferential during her time in the Senate rather than coming in as a rock star. (try that, Anthony Weiner). She even changed her name to help her husband, and noted his loneliness and difficult times in the White House to forgive one of the most humiliating cases of infidelity in US history. She played Secretary of State to her party's president who'd just beaten her, and proved wrong the contention paraded for 2 years (actually 20) that she was too divisive and would tear things down - nor has she staked out criticism of the same guy despite presumably running to replace him next year.

    So what are her big faults? lessee, she got lots of campaign contributions from banks. (more than Obama? he got $67 million from lawyers & investors) She didn't say anything about Glass-Steagal (which isn't the same as "decline", but whatevers). She backed arms for the Syrian opposition - uh, like high on my list compared to decapitation by ISIS, war in Iraq-Afghanistan-Pakistan, risk of war with Russia.

    Aside from that pesky streak that keeps her from admitting "fault" (you mean about Benghazi, or what?), what are the other sins? "policies that would benefit poor, working and middle-class Americans" - you mean war or you mean benefit the poor and average joe? I have trouble how these war issues cross over to economic? Compared with Obama who put his bundler Penny Pritzker in as Commerce Secretary, I just don't understand the big complaint. Call me when the snoozefest is over.


    Speaking of glasses. I read the bio of Hillary and she was mocked in elementary school for her "coke bottle glasses." So was I. Oppo campaigns will always find the most unattractive pictures they can use but some of Hillary's photos are the weirdest I've seen. I have a theory. She looks so bugged eyed at times because she struggling to see. If I was constantly photographed while trying to read or look out at some distant person there would likely be a lot of weird pics with me squinting and opening my eyes extra wide all bugged eyed or with my face all scrunched up. People with bad eye sight do all sorts of things with their face to bring the blur into some sort of clarity.


    Maybe as Diogenes was looking for an "honest man", she's just looking for someone in DC who's not a freak. Okay, your theory's probably more realistic...


    Thanks PP.  The truth is HRC has lots and lots of "moxi."  I am glad that she is here in politics, in this time and space, because as a women she is so needed. The biggest plus is she is not intimidated by the chattering air head class in the village or the crazies on the far right.  

    Hillary is just a few month older then me.  You should see some of my pictures from way back with large glasses and over perm hair.  LOL... We all looked like that then. I have a pair of Marchon big frames that are 30+ years old that I get new lenses in each time my eyes change.  I like them and wear them when quilting and doing close work.  I have smaller frames that are in style that I wear in public.  Who cares about stuff like that, with serious problems like global warming and the economy that needs jobs.  


    trkingmomoe - what is the basis for your claim that HRC is "not intimidated by the chattering air head class in the village or the crazies on the far right"?  I provided several instances where she has moved to the right presumably due to pressure from somebody. 

    On another note, we agree that "global warming" and the lack of enough good "jobs" are two of the biggest problems we face.  What has Hillary Clinton done or said that suggests she will pursue policies that will address these issues? Regarding AGW, she has failed to state whether she supports the disastrous Keystone XL pipeline.  http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/02/19/clinton-foundation-receiving....  Regarding jobs, the biggest reason that there are so many fewer good middle-class jobs today per capita than there were forty years ago is the "free" trade agreements, including NAFTA, that Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and President Obama have signed.  http://crooksandliars.com/2015/01/nafta-tpp-clinton-global-initiatives-free 

    Now, the TPP, NAFTA on steroids, may become law.  While HRC has never quite come out and taken a position fer or agin TPP, what little is on the record suggests she would approve it.  http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Hillary_Clinton_Free_Trade.htm

    Finally, why is her sex relevant?


    1) start a column invoking Maureen Dowd and 20 years of sexism along with "annoyed queen", and then ask "why is her sex relevant?" - great finale.

    2) your examples of HIllary "moving to the right" are rather inconclusive - opposing Vietnam as propping up the remnants of a French colonialist system is of course different from dealing with a Mideast state that had pursued WMDs & invaded its neighbors in the past. Even the authorization for war was part and parcel with 6 months of return of the UN for weapons hunting - hardly a mad go-to-war-now directive

    3) Opposition to the Keystone pipeline wasn't about global warming, so it's too a bit too slick to tie her non-statement on that issue to her general AGW attitude. If you want her views on global warming, why don't you just google "Hillary global warming" where you'd find major speeches in Sept & Dec?

    http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/hillary-clinton-harry-reid-national-clean-energy-summit-110621.html

    http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/225680-clinton-calls-out-climate-deniers

    4) NAFTA certainly didn't take our middle class jobs, and it's silly to talk about NAFTA's effect without mentioning China offshoring that dwarfs it. Just another round of disgruntled Clinton bashing pretending to care about policies. If you want to discuss this grownup-style, look at say an analysis of what went wrong and why - open agricultural policies pitted subsidized US conglomerates against tiny Mexican farmers, a recipe for disaster. Reforming the manufacturing sector was probably a plus, but Mexico ended up competing with China in that sector and for a number of reasons besides "cheap efficient huge warehouses" that didn't work out. Labor rates in Mexico rose from $3/hour to $5.60 in 6 years - you'd think that good, no? But Chinese labor was 73 cents an hour, so Mexican laborers lose by doing better. China also finances its export sector, handles currency exchange better, etc. - short story, Mexico got butchered. BUT IT DOESN'T MEAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS ARE FLAWED. It means we have to understand what free trade agreements can do and what are the risks and what the protections needed are. Labor rates aren't the only factor - if your income goes down by a fifth but your cost-of-major-goods goes down by half, you might end up living better. If these savings don't get passed on to the consumer though, the result could be disastrous. But it's way too misleading & facile to take NAFTA and just say "free trade agreements bad".

    So is TPP the same as NAFTA or a different situation?  Are we only worried about wages for US workers, or for decreasing poverty & increasing wages in other countries, especially the Pacific? (for example, the agglomeration of industries in Asia might be much more dense to reach critical mass and efficiency, which wouldn't have happened in Mexico, ignoring the education gap as well). There's no miracle in this, but still open trade *can be* (but doesn't have to be) mutually beneficial.

    Anyway, complicated stuff worth thinking about - not just blithely hanging around Hillary's neck either because of her husband's policy 20 years ago, or because she didn't answer fast enough for you to be happy.


    Thanks for the links.  I also just found some great speeches by her on climate since I looked on youtube.


    I want to see her break that glass ceiling.  She is her own person and what ever Bill decided to do as president was done by him not her.  I have followed her career since the days of Watergate.  I did not judge her through Bill Clinton in those days and I still don't. In fact I knew about her before I knew who she was married to.  

    She has been dealing with the Clinton Conspiracy Machine since the early 1990's.  Look at all the money that has been thrown at that and still she is in the running for nomination.  But it has never brought her down and run her off.  That take courage and strength to stand up to that. I see her through my own experience as a women and what it is like to be one. From that I find her able to with stand intimidation because she has weathered so much. There is a double standard in our society.  The media has  even brought out her status as a grandmother like it mattered. She is very qualified. 

    Why should she come out with a yes or no on trade agreements and pipe line?  She hasn't announced if she is running yet.  As a voter I will learn more about where the candidates stand on issues as the campaign get underway full swing next year as they unfold their talking points. Will she take a stand during the campaign? We will see. 

    She brings to the table women's issues even if she don't run on them.  Our current President brought minority issues to the table by just being African American that this country is long over due in facing.  We are now dealing with discrimination that has been over looked. HRC will also bring forward issues that need to be in the conversation just because she is a women. These issues of inequality and abuse that women face will be front and center because the far right can't help them selves with their hate. Minority issues, whether they are about race or gender has to move forward for the well being of this country.  

    I don't find putting her under a microscope useful.  We need to be united behind our presidential bench as a party and win this election. 

     

       


    The simple fact is that, in over twenty years, Hillary Clinton has not fought for poor, working, and middle-class women or men and neither you nor PP has provided any examples of her doing so.  There are of course many examples of Elizabeth Warren doing so. 

    HRC may accept the science of global warming but she hasn't proposed any programs or policies to rein it in.   As far as we can glean she may well support the Keystone Pipeline which according to NASA scientist James Hansen would mean "game over" for preventing the worst impacts of climate change.  The best reason for her to speak against the Keystone pipeline now is to exert pressure on Obama not to approve it.  The second best reason is so voters will know where she stands on this very important issue.

    Regarding her vote to authorize the use of military force against Iraq.  HRC never repudiated it which is, when you think about it, very frightening. 

    Regarding "free trade" agreements, I did not write that NAFTA alone caused the middle-class job hemorrhage, I wrote that the agreements, including NAFTA, were responsible.  I should have included the granting of most favored nation (MFN) status to China in that umbrella.  In any case, Clinton has generally supported "free trade" and did support MFN for China.  A relatively recent speech praising  the repressive unfree economy of Singapore does not offer hope that she will change her position.  http://www.smu.edu.sg/news/2012/11/20/us-secretary-state-hillary-clinton...

    Claiming that it's ironic for me to question the relevance of Clinton's sex since I cite well-known Hillary Hater Maureen Dowd is counterintuitive given that I actually criticize Dowd for over-the-top, personality-based criticism of both Clintons and took issue with her "annoyed queen" description.

    Having a woman President would be great if she champions women - especially poor, working, and middle-class ones.  The evidence that Hillary Clinton will be such a champion is sparse indeed.


    Elisabeth Warren isn't running and has no desire to run. She is where she wants to be and plans to finish the work she started.  She is 100% behind Hillary Clinton. Warren has built a power base in the Senate and we need her there to keep the pressure on. Warren went after the Banking Industry accesses because of her experience as a bankruptcy lawyer. That has been her main focus.  She has also focused on Corporations and their unwillingness to pay their fair share of taxes. She has punched holes into the job creator myth and trickle down economics in a way that people can understand.  She has been good at framing that fight. 

    I like Elisabeth Warren and have read her book. I trust her judgment that she is better off in the Senate and would be in over her head as president.  There is more to being president then taking on the oligarchy. Warren doesn't have to be in the Whitehouse to roll back their greed. 

    You need to get familiar with the Clinton Foundation. In 1977 HRC cofounded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. This included poverty. 

    Its mission statement is "to protect and promote through research, education and advocacy the rights and well-being of Arkansas children and their families, to assure that they have the opportunity to lead healthy and productive lives.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas_Advocates_for_Children_and_Families

    She has always cared about families, children and poverty. This is the basis of the Clinton Foundation. 

    I have a blog I have been working on about her knowledge of global warming.  It will be a few weeks so stick around.  

    I will let someone else take on the rest of your talk radio point of view.of Hillary.

    Oh and there is nothing all the simple about Hillary. High achievers are always complicated.  


    Elizabeth Warren "is 100% behind Hillary Clinton."

    Stop the presses! Warren has endorsed Hillary! Who knew?

    I guess when you are grasping at straws trying to sell Hillary to yourself as a legitimately progressive candidate who isn't in the pocket of our owners, you are inclined to say just about anything.


    What straws?  I have followed her public life 40 years.  Warren has publicly indorsed Clinton. As much as we all admire Warren, she is not interested in running.  Can Moveon.org and the group who is demanding "only her or we will crash and burn," talk her into it?  So far it has not worked. 

    I am a New Deal Democrat and don't like the power that the oligarchy has been handed by the GOP, but I am also a women who wants that glass ceiling broken. I am tired of the double standard also.


    Sleepin, Elizabeth Warren isn't a "legitimately progressive candidate"  - here she is diagnosing how women entering the workplace proved a financial disaster in America, here she is opposing Obama's medical device tax, the estate tax, and labeling for genetically modified foods.

    Hillary already went through one campaign dealing with her supposed liberal opponent - how liberal did that guy turn out to be in terms of war and surveillance and support for poverty?

    And before she conspicuously bolstered her security chops, Democrats were getting regularly bruised up for being soft on security - look at the whole 2004 campaign. So if liberals can't protect their candidates for taking a liberal position, give it up - neocons is what we'll get, eh?


    Diagnosing a problem by collecting data doesn't make one liberal or conservative. It's the solutions one proposes to fix the problem that makes one liberal or conservative.


    Also how one evaluates the data and causes, but point taken.

    Are you Rand Paul's advocate?

    In 2005 and again in 2007, less than 20 years ago, Senator Clinton introduced the "The Paycheck Fairness Act". The Policy was adopted  in 2014 in part by President Obama's executive order which barred federal contractors from retaliating against employee who discuss their salaries. 

    As Senator she co-sponsored the Lily Ledbetter Act of 2009, which was singed into law by our current President.  

    One of the more amazing things about Hillary Clinton is her decades long work on Children's issues. However, in 1997 and 1999, Clinton played a leading role in advocating the creation of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, the Adoption and Safe Families Act, and the Foster Care Independence Act.

    I took that from her wiki page...

    Clinton began her advocacy for children long before she became first lady of the United States. She also made substantial legal contributions on child policy with documents published in both the Harvard Educational Review and The Yale Law Journal. These are real contributions to forming long term policies, and because of this CHIP was formed. Seriously, this had a huge impact on the lives of children and their families. And while America at the time wasn't smart enough to allow the government to implement Universal Health Care initiatives, they were smart enough to allow legislators to implement CHIP. In this particular case Clinton had long term impact on the health of children in America. She helped expand care to those who couldn't/can't advocate for themselves. Their parents of course had no power to advocate for their children, let alone a policy that would help change the overall health of American Children. This policy has had impact on the lives of children, long term impact. I have no reason to believe that Clinton wouldn't continue her work on behalf of children and other marginalized populations.

    She is a pretty good politician, Hal. She doesn't deny climate change, believes in the science, has long term advocated for children and women, knows income inequality is a big issue with long term policy implications for the Democratic Party, etc and so on, and on top of all of that, she knows how to play the political game, it is a game you know. Out manuevering your opponent is the point of the game and she is pretty good at it.  As long as her own team doesn't continually attack her and slap on more and more requirements to become the purist candidate she should do damn well in this next election, in fact so well, she will be President.


    Have we sunk so low that not "deny[ing] climate change" and starting a foundation for children 37 years ago defines a good candidate?  Perhaps, just perhaps, she can be driven out of the race so a Democrat from the Democratic wing of the Democratic party can fight for us.  I certainly support the Lily Ledbetter Act but it's a somewhat divisive law as it pits or can easily be spun as pitting working-class men and women against each other rather than uniting them against the plutocrats.  In any case, HRC doesn't need to be pure.  Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown aren't pure.  But, unlike Hillary Clinton, they and Bernie Sanders (who just might be pure) understand income inequality and global warming and have demonstrated that they will confront the malefactors of great wealth responsible for them.

    Look, I don't think Hillary Clinton would be anywhere near the worst possible President in 2017.  She's obviously head and shoulders above probable Republican front-runner Scott Walker and, if only because of the Supreme Court, Jeb Bush.  But, we all agree (I think) that the two most serious problems we face, and they are very very serious indeed and closely intertwined, are economic injustice and global warming.  Hillary Clinton's record and close ties to financiers make it very unlikely she will tackle them except on the margins.


    Hal, I don't question the extraordinary grassroots success of President Obama in focusing on small contributors over the internet, etc.  That's something for a candidate to be proud of.  But, of course, and you know this to be so, the president was also very successful at raising funds then, and certainly now, from the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent.  I think the metric of one's ties to the rich as measured by efforts to raise funds from the elite of the elite is a fair one, a critically important one in a structural sense as well, but hardly something that at this point would distinguish the president from Hillary Clinton in the kind of way that gave the president the right to claim credit for running on support from working folk.

    Finally, for what it's worth, I have seen Hillary Clinton up close when it comes to her relationship with working people, at least as measured by a good portion of organized labor.  Support for her is of course not universal among all unions.  But I think speculation about her relationship to working people is unfair.

    In the end I just think that there is just no way to make an argument, that all things equal, politician Clinton would be any less effective helping working people than politician Obama has been in fact or would be under similar circumstances.

    Heck, I'm old enough to remember some guy named Genghis or something back in '08 telling me that this guy Obama was going to single-handedly leap from tall buildings in a single bound and pass EFCA as we all prepared to live happily ever after!  :)


    Hal, it doesn't seem like you know much about Hillary besides No Dowd's hit pieces and the typical end-of-the-world left's standard litany of cant-be-satisfied complaints which always seem to harken back to the Clinton years and ignore the subsequent 14. Presume you don't know Hillary voted against CAFTA and for SCHIP and a few other interesting moves in the Senate, even tho as a first term minority Senator there were limits to what she could do. Anyway, for your eddyfication, here's a summary of her Senate time. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_career_of_Hillary_Ro...

    .

    Well, if this is a double post I apologize.

    Hal, you lost me some time ago, but this statement really makes me wonder about your thinking:

    Look, I don't think Hillary Clinton would be anywhere near the worst possible President in 2017.  She's obviously head and shoulders above probable Republican front-runner Scott Walker and, if only because of the Supreme Court, Jeb Bush.

    Really?  Are you really saying that Jeb would be better than Hillary except for Supreme Court appointments?  Never mind.  That is what you said.  I guess that's all I need to know about you.


    Cville Dem - I obviously didn't say "Jeb would be better than Hillary except for" Supreme Court nominees.   I said she would be better than Jeb because of the Supreme Court.  That statement doesn't mean and can't reasonably be interpreted as meaning that I think Jeb would otherwise be better.  I am curious about something though: You write that I lost you "some time ago".  Why?  What did I write that in your view is clearly false or misleading?  If I got something wrong, I am happy to correct the record.


    Thanks Tmac,

    I was very fortunate to hear her speak in the late 1970's.  What I walked away with from that was how difficult foster care was on children because their rights of childhood were not being recognized. It had a impact on me and I think that is why I am the type of grandmother I am today. If I remember correctly that she was involved in some class action litigation to force Arkansas to make changes in their foster care system to protect children from its abuse.


    Maybe I'm being overly simplistic, but I would frame the issues from which we should then look at Hillary and what she brings to the table as follows:

    1. For many reasons I think, there is a large swath of the Democratic Party that doesn't want HRC to be the nominee. For some reason, or because of some devotion to a protocol, or perhaps due to fear of providing ammunition for later use by the GOP, the many varied de facto voices for that view, Mika Brezinski on MSNBC for example IMO, just won't come out and say just that.  Do you think it's fair to put you in that category in terms of understanding your article?  It's not a qualitative criticism by any stretch, but it might put what you're writing here in what I think is its appropriate context.  I mean, for example, once you get to "overweening sense of self" I would submit: "Houston, we have a problem."

    2. I supported Hillary in 2008 and had to come around to supporting President Obama.  But I'm a loyal Democrat and it was easier to do that under the circumstances as they were back then.  I'm fully prepared to support HRC again.  All I would ask is that if there are folks in the grassroots and folks at the top who do not want to see Hillary run, say so now, say it loudly, and rally behind who is ready to challenger her, because otherwise it will just be too late the way the whole presidential election system works.

    Edited to add I'm starting to get old enough where I can say I'm old enough! :) I have been around enough Democratic elections since at least 1976 to know that this is not the first time there has been this sense that the heir apparent must not prevail.  Heck, I was all over Ted Kennedy in '80, etc., and in Madison in 1984 I remember joining a bunch of folks to listen to the late and great George McGovern as he threw his hat in the ring to challenge other challengers taking on then heir-apparent Walter Mondale.

    Every election is different I know, but in 2015 how do you fund a real challenge to HRC and set up an organization at this point or certainly in the very near future to effectuate that kind of serious challenge?


    Bruce - I have very specifically explained why I would prefer that Hillary Rodham Clinton not run for President:  Policy-wise, over the past years, she has not fought nearly as hard as I would like for economic justice and against global warming and she is significantly more hawkish than I am. Personality-wise, her "overweening sense of self" which prevents her from acknowledging error or "compromising" on "small stuff", means that (A) she may not be the candidate most likely to defeat a truly frightening Republican like Scott Walker and (B) may not reverse course when events require a change in policy or action.  I'm curious in what ways you see things differently.


    Sorry, didn't see this when I wrote response above. Maybe that helps a bit, but do come back and would be happy to cover whatever you think I should also consider, etc.  You write like someone who knows how to write to real people by the way, even if we disagree, and I appreciate that.


    Thanks nothing works on me like flattering my writing!  There's lots more at www.halginsberg.com.


    I don't know if that swath of Democratic Party that doesn't want Hillary is that large because of the current poling.  But it is a noisy group on the internet blogs.  


    Post deleted - duplicate


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