May 12, 2005
IF SHE'S THE WILL, THERE'S A WAY:
Hillary in 2008? No Way!: Why the former First Lady should stay in the Senate (Joe Klein, May 08, 2005, TIME)
I like Senator Clinton. She has a wicked, ironic sense of humor (in private) and a great raucous belly laugh. She is smart and solid; she inspires tremendous loyalty among those who work for her. She is not quite as creative a policy thinker as her husband, but she easily masters difficult issues—her newfound grasp of military matters has impressed colleagues of both parties on the Armed Services Committee—and she is not even vaguely the left-wing harridan portrayed by the Precambrian right. I also think that a Clinton presidential candidacy in 2008 would be a disaster on many levels.It would doubtless be a circus, a revisitation of the carnival ugliness that infested public life in the 1990s. Already there are blogs, websites and fund-raising campaigns dedicated to denigrating her. According to the New York Observer last week, these sites aren't getting much traffic—yet. But they will. I remember several conversations with Senator Clinton after her health-care plan was killed 10 years ago, and she was clearly pained—nonplussed by the quality of anger, the sheer hatred, directed against her. That experience would be a walk in the park compared to the vitriol if she ran for President. And while I'd love to see someone confront, and defeat, the free-range haters on the right, the last thing we need is a campaign that would polarize the nation even more. Indeed, we could use the exact opposite—a candidate who would inspire America's centrist majority to rise up against the extreme special interests in both parties.
Senator Clinton's supporters will say she is that candidate. And it is true that Clinton has far more leeway to run as a moderate than almost any other Democrat. Her repositioning on social issues has been overrated—she will have to do more than merely "respect" those who oppose abortion; she will have to propose creative compromises.
But Clinton is a judicious hawk on foreign policy and has learned her lessons on domestic-policy overreach. No less an expert than Newt Gingrich says, "Hillary has become one of the very few people who know what to do about health care." Still, she has some very real political limitations. She has a clenched, wary public presence, which won't work well in an electorate that prizes aw-shucks informality; she isn't a particularly warm or eloquent speaker, especially in front of large audiences. Any woman running for President will face a toughness conundrum: she will constantly have to prove her strength and be careful about showing her emotions. She won't have the luxury of, say, Bill Clinton's public sogginess. It will take a brilliant politician to create a credible feminine presidential style. So far, Senator Clinton hasn't shown the ease or creativity necessary to break the ultimate glass ceiling.
It's easy enough to come up with a scenario where she wins in 2008--factional fighting in the GOP between Christians, libertarians, nativists, and Inside the Beltway types--and far too early to assume she'd be a bad president. She's certainly smart enough to play Tony Blair to George W. Bush's Margaret Thatcher. The two big questions are: (1) Is Newt right? Has she moved toward the kind of Third Way solutions her husband ran on but then didn't act on (other than Welfare which the GOP crammed down his craw)? Her performance on SS reform so far isn't encouraging. (2) Could she withstand the hatred that would come from her Left? While some on the Right would never be reconciled to a second Clinton presidency, she could co-opt many by pushing a truly reformist agenda. However, in doing so she'd end up getting bombarded with the same vitriol from former friends and allies that Tony Blair gets. He doesn't cope with it all that well, but he does stay the course; would she? Posted by Orrin Judd at May 12, 2005 5:21 PM
Sure, OJ. Y'all have fun. We'll send a postcard.
Posted by: John Resnick at May 12, 2005 5:32 PMI welcome Hillary presidential run.
She will fail, she's as crooked as her husband with none of the charm.
On the plus side, she'll make a stab at illegal immigration and force the GOP to move rightward on that issue.
Posted by: AML at May 12, 2005 5:56 PMYep. The very idea of seeing Hillary Rodham Fredegund Clinton taking the oath of office revolts the senses.
OJ's free to stay and enjoy the workers paradise if he wants. Me, I'm stuffing my mattress in case the unthinkable happens, in which case I'll scout out foreign conservative havens and, failing that, place messages in bottles in hope of rescue.
Who wants to come with me? I'm open to all suggestions. We'll set up a BroJudd-In-Exile party minus Numero Uno, who I suspect will get a reality-mugging and tag along with us soon enough.
Question: Is there any government on earth that will take us in? Imagine me, David Cohen, Peter B, Ed Driscoll, pj, Buttercup, jd watson, Annoying Old Guy, bart, pchuck, Raoul Ortega, Luciferous, Mike Morley, Jeff Guinn, JonofAtlanta, Rick T., erp, AML, Robert Schwartz, Sandy P., John Resnick, AWW, Lou Gots, genecis, Jim in Chicago, b, jim hamlen, h-man, Tom C, ratbert, and all the rest getting off the airplane in a foreign terminal (Harry wanted to come, too, but some of the Christians flashed a crucifix at him and he shuffled away).
They'd take one look at us bitching at each other and run our passports through the shredder.
So we'll have to pool our brainpower and come up with a master plan. Who's in? Who's out? And who has money? If you've got some moolah to burn, please post your credit card number. There's no cause for worry about fraud -- after all, we're a community. What are friends for?
Posted by: Matt Murphy at May 12, 2005 6:05 PMThere are quite a few uninhabited islands, aren't there?
Posted by: Sandy P. at May 12, 2005 6:38 PMSandy P. :
Well, I need some suggestions. We will need to escape quickly to avoided being polished off after the Revolution.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at May 12, 2005 6:46 PMIt's even sillier when conservatives threaten to leave America than when the Left does--they at least hate the country.
Posted by: oj at May 12, 2005 6:56 PMI'm not goin anywhere. This country survived the Civil War, we'll survive Hillary. Besides, I seriously doubt if she'd ever be elected. Just my two cents. If you people do get a nice tropical island, can I come and visit in the wintertime? I'm in Wisconsin right now, and it is only 38 efin degrees. I've given up hope on global warming. I'm thinking it was just a cruel joke.
Posted by: AllenS at May 12, 2005 7:01 PMMatt:
I will stay behind and lead the resistance! Harry will arrive shortly after you all do, in a crucifix-free shipping container.
AllenS:
Hillary may cause a Civil War.
Come on over anytime you like...we'll need info from our occupied homeland.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at May 12, 2005 7:13 PMYes, if she does as well as her husband did you'll all come crawling back when the Dow hits 36,000...
Posted by: oj at May 12, 2005 7:13 PMMatt:
I will stay behind and lead the resistance! Harry will arrive shortly after you all do, in a crucifix-free shipping container.
...major American investors and wealth-producers right in their pocketbooks.
I expect lots of SPLATS! around Wall Street when she gets in.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at May 12, 2005 7:17 PMWhich means the rest of us can kiss our portfolios goodbye. Boy, am I glad Social Security is there for us...
Posted by: Matt Murphy at May 12, 2005 7:20 PM"...I'll scout out foreign conservative havens..."
Which ones would those be? Right now, I can't think of any country that even comes close to the US in terms of conservatism. But I've had a couple of drinks. Liberals can crow about fleeing the country because they have have a lot of choices, but Conservatives pretty much have to stay and tough it out or learn to sing La Marseillaise (with feeling, dammit).
Hillary's advantage so far is there's been no legislation where she's voted on the "moderate" side -- such as on the War on Terror -- where her vote has meant the difference between winning and losing for the rest of the Senate Democrats. So for now, she's had a free pass to cast those votes in order to burnish her voting record for 2008 without really calling down the furor of the left onto her head.
That's why the Senate leadership and the White House need to push issues to a vote like Social Security reform that will result in very close votes and force Hillary to comnmit to either the reform side or to stand with the Democratic leadershhip. If you want to prove she hasn't changed her stripes and this is just an effort at triangulation, you need to make her show her hand on some of the issues that motivate the activists on both sides of the aisle.
Posted by: John at May 12, 2005 7:22 PMGovernor Breck:
Perhaps we could head Down Under? Or possibly we could occupy a small tropical island and, being the more macho kind of evil heartless colonialist conservatives, we could run off all two of the native inhabitants with our secondhand smoke?
If Hillary is elected, we'll be learning songs one way or another.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at May 12, 2005 7:34 PMSounds like John's the only one here not drinking.
Posted by: Genecis at May 12, 2005 7:35 PMDave W. :
Thanks for the offer to lead the Resistance, but perhaps a more clandestine role will be appropriate? Somebody's got to watch out for all those investors defenstrating themselves...
Posted by: Matt Murphy at May 12, 2005 7:45 PMOJ,
Sounds like he wrote this for you: "The Clinton line in 1992 was, Buy one, get one free. We've already had that co-presidency—for its full, constitutional eight years. What's more, I suspect there would be innate and appropriate populist resistance to this slouch toward monarchial democracy. There is something fundamentally un-American—and very European—about the Clintons and the Bushes trading the office every eight years, with stale, familiar corps of retainers, supporters and enemies. Bill Clinton was a good President. Hillary Clinton is a good Senator. But enough already. (And that goes for you too, Jeb.)"
I basically agree with the above, except for his measure of slick Willy, the president who brought us 9/11.
John, lets go get a drink.
Posted by: Genecis at May 12, 2005 7:46 PMdefenestrating...excuse me...
Posted by: Matt Murphy at May 12, 2005 7:47 PMOJ: I don't hate the country and I'm not threatening to leave. I just think it would be an ideal time for a prolonged earning spree abroad. Plus, the idea of being be stuck here with Hillary as President WITHOUT my wife here to commiserate(she will surely not stay) is more than I can bear.
Posted by: John Resnick at May 12, 2005 7:54 PMGrand Cayman Islands - high GDP, tax haven, great weather, and only the occasional hurricane.
Posted by: Gideon at May 12, 2005 8:02 PMDavid Rosen's trial started yesterday. This thread is just a bit premature.
Posted by: jim hamlen at May 12, 2005 8:30 PMONly allowed to stay 6 months, can't become a citizen for 10 years, IIRC.
Posted by: Sandy P. at May 12, 2005 8:50 PMPerhaps the GOP should nominate George Voinovich. The NYT might even endorse him over Hillary.
Posted by: ratbert at May 12, 2005 9:02 PMSo the Caymans are out?
There must be other possibilities.
Again, I'm partial to doing Australia.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at May 12, 2005 10:24 PMI'm in Seattle, what can she possibly do to me that hasn't been done already?
Posted by: Pat H at May 13, 2005 12:12 AMGenecis --
Acutally, I think we ought to go to Washington, get Hillary drunk and then she'll either pour her heart out about how she's changed some of her views since Sept. 11, or she'll blurt out her plans to take over the world -- or how she'll castrate Bill if he screws this thing up for her.
Seriously, the 100-0 vote in the Senate this week for the additional $81 billion in funding for Iraq shows that even the densest Democrats get this trangulation thing to some extent.
Remember, just over a year ago, Sen. Kerry and others were taking about how they had been hoodwinked, scammed, flim-flammed, bamboozled and whatever else into voting for the original $87 billion funding plan, so you would think, based on that, that there was no way in the world they would vote for the next plan. But the Democrats besides Hillary realize that A.) They're on the losing side of this by a big margin, so there's no reason to go to the mat for something you're going to get swamped on, even if it annoys the MoveOn crowd; and B.) After Kerry's "I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it" fiasco, no Democrat wants to be caught on the wrong side of the issue again in 2008.
Hillary was ahead of the curve here, because she voted for the original $87 billion and never really griped about it (other than some swipes at Bush at DNC fundraisers). But again, it's not a vote that was going to be close, so there was no real downside for her in voting to approve the funding, and there's no downside to any future votes for funding the troops in the Gulf, since those votes are never going to be close, either.
If the Republicans are going to smoke out the missus, odds are they're going to have to do it on the more divisive domestic issues, where her vote one way or the other will make a difference. The problem for the GOP is potential presidential candidates like McCain and Hagel aren't smart enough to realize by showing their "independent" streaks on so many narrow issues, they risk allowing Hillary a free pass on those same issues, so that if either one of them ever became the nominee, they wouldn't be able to use those votes against her in the 2008 general election.
Posted by: John at May 13, 2005 12:23 AMMatt -
Have you ever been to Australia? Its not quite as conservative as you may imagine (my wife is an aussie). It may be possible to engineer a mass migration to Western Australia where the population is quite low but high in percentages of conservatives. It also has lots of open land + oil and gas. I'd say maybe 5 million immigrants could be enough to push for an independant state though Canberra wouldn't give it up without a civil war. (Yes I've done a lot of daydreaming about this).
Posted by: Shelton at May 13, 2005 11:51 AMShelton:
Western Australia is precisely what I was thinking. An independent state may not be necessary. All we need is a hideout until the beleaguered forces of freedom storm Congress (whose handpicked members will by then be meeting in NYC's 50-story Temple of Hillary, under the watchful eye of Her Heinous) and reestablish the Constitution. The details of a war-crimes tribunal can be hashed out after our glorious re-entry from exile.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at May 13, 2005 12:59 PMBy the way, have anybody noticed that conservatives always seem to predominate in the west? Western Australia, western America, western Canada, etc. Are there are nations where the eastern region is particularly conservative?
Posted by: Matt Murphy at May 13, 2005 1:00 PMQueensland is probably a better bet, as it has a strong conservative political presence anyway.
As for me, in a Hillary presidency, it's Singapore here I come, especially now that they have casinos opening up.
At some point, there will have to be some consistency between her/its voting record and her/its statements. It is incumbent upon the GOP to hold her feet to the fire. If it's all smoke and mirrors, then she will vote with her party. If it is a real change of heart, then she'll take a huge hit from the MoveOn types and other contributors. Either way, once her game is revealed she loses.
I still can't imagine a scenario where she gets more than 10% of the vote from White male heterosexuals.
Posted by: bart at May 13, 2005 2:36 PMI have to agree with Bart - I know its in vogue now even for Republicans to hype up the Hillary machine but I for one can't imagine a scenario in which she wins. In order for a Democrat to become president he/she will have to win a southern state - Hillary can not do this. I've yet to hear a pundit explain how that would be possible. White male southern pro-government conservatives may have voted for her good-ol-boy husband but they will never vote for her. Take it from me -- a white male southern pro-government conservative myself.
Posted by: Shelton at May 13, 2005 3:15 PMbart:
I wasn't sure whether to include you in my fictional scenario but threw you in anyway. Surely you could join our happy band of exiles in Australia and make intermittent trips to the one-armed bandits up north?
What concerns me is that I think the Left wants the presidency back so bad that they'll overlook her moderate votes in the understanding that she's only voting that way to fool the "rubes." Most serious Republicans won't be fooled -- elephants have long memories -- but people less attentive to politics might be.
Shelton:
Kerry didn't take any southern states either but change a few votes in Ohio and he wins.
She has me quite concerned. Obviously, I would love to be wrong about this.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at May 13, 2005 3:38 PMOnly problem is that IA, IN, OH and MO are more conservative than they were 10 years ago and they will be even more conservative 3 years from now making it even more difficult for Hillary to win those states than it was for Kerry (who lost them all). I'm just not concerned with Hillary - I've bet that she won't even win the nomination though I hope she does, it would be a fun election season if she did.
Posted by: Shelton at May 13, 2005 4:05 PMPlay nice, oj.
Shelton - I love your optimism about the impossibility of a Hillary! presidency. But remember, we're talking about the electoral fraud party here. Remember Florida.
Posted by: Tom at May 13, 2005 4:47 PMShelton:
Not if she can convince people that she's moved to the right. Heck, she's convinced OJ.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at May 13, 2005 4:53 PMNormally that would concern me (liberal politicians moving right for the election season) but she has much more to overcome than that. There are far too many people who just outright hate her for her to win. It hasn't anything to do with politics but rather with personality/persona. Too many moderates and conservative democrat men and women dislike her persona too much for her to convince them otherwise.
Charm is 3/4ths a presidential package and Hillary aint got enough of it. There are certain personality types that may do well in New England and maybe even California but women like Hillary are universally despised by both men and women in the south and in the west. Its obvious to Hillary supporters that she would struggle to get the white boy vote in the south and midwest - what is not so obvious is that the white girls out here hate the Hillary type even more than the men do.
Posted by: Shelton at May 13, 2005 5:36 PM