March 1, 2005
IS DEMOCRATIC CENTRISM REALLY EXTREME CONSERVATISM? (via Daniel Merriman):
God Is a Centrist Democrat: Hillary Clinton moves self, whole party into the religious middle (Kristen Lombardi, March 2 - 8, 2005, Village Voice)
[F]or all the notice of Clinton's centrist tone and morality-speak on the national stage, her New York constituents largely missed the senator's real debut as a God-fearing Middle American. It came in a January 19 speech in Boston that made headlines there, with Clinton appearing in a Globe photograph alongside the host, Reverend Eugene Rivers III, one of the state's most outspoken opponents of same-sex marriage.Clinton had traveled there to attend a benefit for Rivers's youth-outreach program, known as the National Ten Point Leadership Foundation, which promotes faith-based solutions to gang violence and urban crime. At the event, attended by many of the city's prominent black ministers, the senator celebrated the foundation's street ministry to at-risk kids. But she also used the opportunity to demonstrate her commitment to a key issue in the culture wars, the role of faith in addressing social ills like poverty and hunger. Listen to her praise faith-based initiatives:
"There is a lot that needs to be done, and there is an unnecessary debate in our country about how to do it. It does not matter whether it is inspired by faith, inspired by obligation, inspired by family, or inspired by threat of a federal indictment. The work is what is important. . . . And there is no contradiction between faith based, community based, faith inspired, government inspired—we are all in this together, and we need to provide support for the ongoing work."
Clinton didn't stop with that. She invoked God's name a half-dozen times—thanking God for the Ten Point's faithful soldiers, commending those who "see God at work in the lives of even the most hopeless and left-behind of our children." And she made plain her religious credentials:
"People often ask me whether I'm a praying person, and I say I was lucky enough to be raised in a praying family, and learned to say my prayers as a very young child, and remembered seeing my late father by the side of his bed until his very last days saying his prayers. So I was fortunate. But I also say that had I not been a praying person, that after I'd been in the White House for a few months, I would have become a praying person."
Her strategy in trying to sound like the second coming of John Wesley is clear. "She's trying to re-create her Northeast liberal image and move to the center," says Saint Louis University political science professor Kenneth Warren. A longtime Democratic pollster, he says big-ticket social items have clearly hurt the party. "The only way to win the presidency in 2008 is to be perceived as more moderate and sympathetic on moral values." [...]
Clinton, of all Democrats, has no chance of winning over the hardcore religious right. Such conservatives, says University of Akron professor John Green, who specializes in religion and politics, "really don't like her. They associate her with her husband and see her as a raving liberal."
So her real target is middle-of-the-road churchgoers who take faith seriously enough to leave the Democrats because of absolutist stances on abortion rights, gay rights, and church-state separation. Yet they don't fit with the Republicans' domestic policies. "It's entirely possible for Clinton to do well with this group if she can find a moderate approach and a religious language," Green says.
This group includes people like pro-life Catholics, Latino evangelicals, and black Protestants—people, in effect, like Reverend Rivers and his audience in Boston.
Hillary is already pro-war and, as this essay suggests, at least playing footsie with pro-life, anti-gay, pro-faith-based positions. All she'd have to do is revert to her husband's putative Third Way by advocating SS accounts, HSAs, and school vouchers and she'd be indistinguishable from George W. Bush who folks at the Voice think is the most extreme right-winger in our history. It's easy to see why conservatives would but why would Democrats vote for her? Posted by Orrin Judd at March 1, 2005 5:24 PM
Because her last name isn't Bush.
Posted by: Derek Copold at March 1, 2005 5:27 PMShe should have been up for Best Actress.
Posted by: Sandy P at March 1, 2005 5:29 PMUnfortunately for her, evangelical Christians beyond the age of 9 don't generally speak in terms of "saying my prayers." The people she's trying to reach (generally) don't think of prayer as a ritual that you do every night, but as a constant conversation. Bush uses that kind of language because he's an evangelical. Clinton doesn't, presumably because she isn't.
Posted by: Timothy at March 1, 2005 5:32 PMHillary is attempting an extreme make-over. But at what point in the procedure can she reassure her base that it's all only cosmetic? And outreach based on fake but accurate potmodernism won't fly.
Posted by: Luciferous at March 1, 2005 5:49 PMC'mon - the real reason she's doing this is because as she approaches the nomination, all the unanswered questions are going to come up again. And, unlike 1992-99, there will have to be answers. If the media hive doesn't ask, the 527s (or their new gestation) will.
She's building her version of a firewall.
Posted by: jim hamlen at March 1, 2005 6:24 PMIt's really up to the Senate Republicans and the Bush White House to push forward an issue or two that will make Hillary fish or cut bait as far as whether or not her recent positions are part of her true beliefs or just the smart bet for 2008 if you want to pull away 200,000 or so voters in a couple of key states like Ohio or New Mexico.
That's going to be tough to do on foreign policy, unless the Senate gets an issue where the vote is in the 51-49 range, where Mrs. Clinton's vote would be both decisive and remembered by partisans both sides of the aisle come Election Day 2008. But in the case of something like Monday's Supreme Court ruling barring executions of anyone for crimes committed under the age of 18, the GOP can just wait until (inevitably) some 17-year-old committs a heinous crime that shocks and outrages the nation, which is then reminded that person can only receive lfe as their maximum sentence. Push the issue then and see whether Hillary stays with her party, or follws her own version of Bill's Ricky Ray Rector strategy in showing Americans she's tough on crime.
Posted by: John at March 1, 2005 6:58 PM" but why would Democrats vote for her?"
Because they all know she's lying, just to get elected - afterwhich she will revert to the true socialist/one-worlder that she is!
Posted by: oswald Booth Czolgosz at March 1, 2005 8:07 PMHillary isn't pro-war--she's pro-Hillary.
I had no idea they even MADE 50-lb. Bibles.
Posted by: Noel at March 1, 2005 8:11 PMThe sad thing is, in her own typically Wesleyan heart of hearts, Hillary is sincere.
Posted by: Dan at March 1, 2005 8:14 PMThe most important thing that Hillary has going for her with the base (in Arabic "Al Qaeda") is that so many Republicans hate her.
It is all emotions.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at March 2, 2005 2:20 AMMaybe yes. But maybe no.
I can be as cynical as the next guy. And of course, she is a politician. And politicians do tend to want to be elected.
But maybe, just maybe she has made a genuine turnaround. And maybe, just maybe she is fighting for what she perceives as the soul of the Democratic Party and a strong two-party American tradition (because if the Democrats continue on the path they're on, it seems they're staring utter decimation in the face).
And maybe, just maybe this (i.e., a saner DP) might make her a greater threat, politically, in 2008---though conceivably, this could also destroy her chances.
(And maybe, just maybe I'm merely being naive.)
In any event, my point is that one just can't know for certain, and that extreme cynicism can be very destructive. Besides, whatever happened to "benefit of the doubt"?
The GOP will be able to attack her record with ease. It will be interesting to see how she gets around this with her new-found centrism. That 'Road to Damascus' moment will be lots of laughs. Kerry was easily attacked as a flip-flopper. The GOP could just play the Hildebeest's conflicting statements to the tune of 'Flip, Flop and Fly' and have enough material for hundreds of ads.
I know she hasn't had even the merest change of heart, but Bill can always vouch for her integrity.
Posted by: Bart at March 2, 2005 7:01 AMBarry --
Noone has the ability to look into Hillary's heart and say for sure what her views on the war on terror really are. But back before the 2004 election she would vote with Bush in Washington and then go off to Democratic fundraisers and attack the U.S. actions in Iraq and in the WOT in general. That's exactly the opposite of what other Democratic politicans were doing, such as Daschle, who voted against Bush in D.C. and ran ads in S.D. portraying him as a supporter of the president. But it's a heady strategy in her bid for the Oval Office, because her pre-election rants to the faithful are already all-but-forgotten, while she now has the voting record to run as being tough on terrorism in 2008.
That's why it's up to the White House and Senate Republicans to come up with at least a few controversal issues which Hillary will have to vote on that will show one way or another whether she really has had a change of heart or if her votes are merely positioning for 2008. If the GOP is too incompetenent to do that, they'll pay the price 3 1/2 years from now.
Posted by: John at March 2, 2005 8:06 AMIf it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck.
Posted by: John J. Coupal at March 2, 2005 8:14 AMRemember the speech she gave in SF last spring/summer, where she announced that "we will increase taxes to work for the common good", or "to make things better for everyone", or some nonsense like that? She was quoted in several papers, but I'll bet she knew there were no cameras in the room.
But if David Rosen is convicted, she probably will not be able to survive politically.
Posted by: jim hamlen at March 2, 2005 9:53 AM"Hillary Clinton moves self, whole party into the religious middle "
Hummmm, I think somebody forget to send the memo to the party that they are moving to the middle on this!! lol
Posted by: bdawg65 at March 2, 2005 11:20 AM" If the GOP is too incompetenent to do that, they'll pay the price 3 1/2 years from now."
Well, from what we've seen so far, if she's counting on GOP incompetence in the Senate, she's made the proper decision.
When it comes to Bush's sucessor, for now put me in the Anybody-But-A-Senator category.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at March 2, 2005 12:57 PM