Tag: Hillary Clinton

Well, she’s trying.

Jon Chait gets the critical differences – and sees why Gore is a stronger candidate. Money quote on the Rodham game-plan:

The theory was that her centrist positions would endear her to moderates but that it wouldn’t cost her on the left, because years of conservative vilification caused liberals to bond with her emotionally.
But instead of moderates focusing on her positions while liberals focus on her persona, the opposite seems to be happening. Moderates fear she remains too culturally divisive to win. And liberals can’t stand her centrist positioning. It’s the worst of all worlds.

Meanwhile, Gore keeps his counsel.

Arianna’s with Al.

She seems unstoppable as a candidate for president, and yet has huge liabilities for the Democrats. Will someone emerge to get in her way? My ruminations in my Sunday Times of London column today.

(Photo: Richard Phibbs/Corbis Outline.)

Which is it? Mine or Kos’? A reader comments:

It seems to me that while you and Markos both have deep issues with Hillary, you seem to see the problem with her candidacy in vastly different terms. Kos seems to believe (as do most leftists) that the Democrats do not need a centrist figure to win, but a base-rousing liberal (I’m betting Kos would love a Feingold candidacy).  However you submit that "After the deep red-blue divides of the past decade and a half, a candidacy that would simply take those wounds and rub salt in them cannot be good for the country", which in my mind eliminates a left-winger.
Kos, and the liberal myth he espouses, sounds great if you occupy the left-wing (as Kos calls it the Jesse Jackson Democratic Party), but I’ve yet to see the electoral proof that such a campaign would win.
Kos and his ilk claim the Gore and Kerry losses augur for a liberal insurgency that will crystallize the left and bring millions of heretofore non-voters to the polls, galvanized not by policies themselves but stubborn adherence to those policies.
They continue to ignore the steady conservative movement of the last 40 years (perhaps they are too young to fully remember the Reagan revolution?) and overstate the meaning of the ‘netroots’ movement.
As a centrist Democrat I feel the party increasingly slipping over a precipice- or thanks to Kos and his friends perhaps pushed over a precipice would be more apt.

Maybe the solution is Mark Warner.

It’s very hard to disagree with this analysis:

She doesn’t have a single memorable policy or legislative accomplishment to her name. Meanwhile, she remains behind the curve or downright incoherent on pressing issues such as the war in Iraq.
On the war, Clinton’s recent "I disagree with those who believe we should pull out, and I disagree with those who believe we should stay without end" seems little different from Kerry’s famous "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it" line. The last thing we need is yet another Democrat afraid to stand on principle.
In person, Clinton is one of the warmest politicians I’ve ever met, but her advisers have stripped what personality she has, hiding it from the public. Some of that may be a product of her team’s legendary paranoia, somewhat understandable given the knives out for her. But what remains is a heartless, passionless machine, surrounded by the very people who ground down the activist base in the 1990s and have continued to hold the party’s grassroots in utter contempt. The operation is rudderless, without any sign of significant leadership. And to top it off, a sizable number of Democrats don’t think she could win a general election, anyway.

Now, imagine how rough the Republicans will be on her. I have two major issues with Senator Clinton. The first is that she is, willy-nilly, a deeply polarizing figure. After the deep red-blue divides of the past decade and a half, a candidacy that would simply take those wounds and rub salt in them cannot be good for the country. Secondly, the Bill problem is insurmountable. I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking about what on earth you do with him if she wins the White House. We will be back to a co-presidency, with all its psycho-dramas and constitutional worries. (Why should anyone win a co-presidency through marriage?) I know she has a massive money advantage. But I don’t think she’d even stand a faint chance up against McCain. The theme of the next few years will be change. The Democrats shouldn’t offer up a warmed-over version of a bitter, divisive past.

(Photo: Kevin Wolf/AP.)

Hannity goes there.

I’m amazed that in an attempt to shore up her liberal credentials, she has decided to go to a Farrakhan rally. Just kidding. But the thought experiment is a useful one. Next week, John McCain visits the Republican version of Louis Farrakhan, i.e. Jerry Falwell. That’s not just my analogy. It’s McCain’s. Money quote from the Arizona senator:

Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right.

So why the media and political acquiescence to McCain’s visit. My own resignation comes from the fact that Falwell and the forces of intolerance he represents control the base of the GOP; and McCain simply has no choice but to kowtow to them. But that in itself is surely an indication of how far right the Republican center has now become. Farrakhan is a religious anti-Semite. Falwell is a religious homophobe. Falwell, however, also blamed Americans for 9/11. He did so while the ashes of many such Americans were still in the air in Manhattan. If he isn’t beyond the pale, who is? And if he represents the key to being nominated in the GOP, what has happened to conservatism?

Senator Clinton’s polling data keeps getting worse as her money advantage keeps growing. If I were a Democrat, I’d be worried.

Could she be as bad for gay equality as her husband? Some in New York think so. Money quote from the head of New York State’s chief gay rights group:

"This year Eliot Spitzer, David Patterson, Alan Hevesi, Andrew Cuomo, Mark Green, Sean Maloney and others are running for statewide office and are in favor of marriage equality for gays and lesbians. When our struggle is over, they will be recorded as being on the right side of history and as of now Hillary Clinton will not be with them."

And neither will her husband.