She wasn’t involved in foreign policy, wasn’t involved in economic policy – in fact, the only policy area she was heavily involved with was health care, and that was probably the biggest domestic policy failing of the Clinton years, helping to propel the Gingrich Republicans into control of Congress and ushering in a conservative ascendancy that we are only now starting to roll back.
I’m pretty sure that she wasn’t sleeping in Bill’s bed, let alone accompanying him into the situation room when he bombed Sudan or serving as a key player in negotiations with Congress over a balanced budget.
She’s had one term in the Senate – her only elected office. And what has categorized her term most is her going out of her way to seek and be seen to seek the approval of Republicans. So she’s a “hawk” on foreign policy and defence issues, she’s a “hawk” on the deficit, she’s pro-free trade and decidedly pro-business on tax policy.
The Clinton Senate playbook has been one continuous effort to moderate her image in the minds of the electorate and while it may have worked in upstate New York – it has not worked around the country.
Despite all her efforts to out-do Joe Liebeman in crossover appeal, she is still seen as the most partisan and most liberal major Democratic candidate.
And it is her experience in the White House, matched of course by her rampaging ambition to win the presidency, that most defines her – because her negative experiences in the White House, of being attacked constantly and mishandling her one area of policy leadership, has taught her to be cautious, to be tactical, to vacillate on key decisions, to do everything she can to appeal to the right and basically to accept things the way they are because she doesn’t believe the American people are ready for real change.
Hillary Clinton may be able to convince Americans that her serving as First Lady gives her the qualifications to be President. I’m certainly not saying it disqualifies her. But, the experience she gained during the White House years has wedded her to the status quo and the pursuit of power – a status-quo that is failing America and an ambition unmatched by a vision of a better world.
Her experience – both real and imagined – should be judged not only by the addresses she places on her resume but also by the lessons she has learned along the way; lessons that have scarred her in such a way that she cannot or will not serve as an agent of change.
by her major rivals, it’s clear to see why she’s still leading the pack, however.
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It is funny how the right paints her as this extreme lefty and some of her opponents paint her as a Joe Lieberman do-alike. Bobby Kennedy got criticized in the same way when he ran for President and said, “awfully hard to be both”.
Here’s a list of people who don’t currently need on the job training for the presidency of the United States:
Jimmy Carter
George H.W. Bush
Bill Clinton
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They have served as president, they are the only people living who have on the job experience. You’ll notice I did leave W. off the list because he clearly did not finish his orientation course and still needs training.
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So, let’s examine the resumes of Hillary and Obama…
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HRC: lawyer, first lady of Arkansas, first lady of US, US Senator
BHO: community organizer, civil rights lawyer, Constitutional Law professor, State Senator, US Senator
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Other than having been married to a sitting Governor and President, I don’t see her experience as an elected public servant as being much different than Obama or, for that matter, Edwards. And while I do not doubt that she was an invaluable advisor in her husband’s campaigns and administrations, she was not the one making the decisions or with the name on the ballot.
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Hillary is a very smart, tough woman and a skilled politician, but I’ll take the experience gained with a background in community organizing and constitutional law over that of years spent as a first lady any day.
Like the fact that after law school Hillary Clinton was a staff attorney for the Children’s Defense Fund and worked on the staff of the House Judiciary Committee when it was considering the impeachment of Richard Nixon…. which I think had something to do with the Constitution. In fact, ironically she wrote a memo about what are the grounds under the Constituion for impeachment.
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I am so tired of people saying, or implying, that Hillary Clinton’s experiences as First Lady of Arkansas and of the United States just do not matter very much. Yeah right, she learned nothing from those experiences. By the way, she spent a lot of time when she was First Lady of Arkansas advocating for children and getting legislation on education issues passed. That’s at least as good an experience as community organizing. Oh, and she also helped run her husband’s campaigns, but that does not count I guess because it was her husband’s campaign. (even though she had experience working on other campaigns before she helped Bill.)
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I equate people who down play Hillary Clinton’s time as First Lady to people who downplay the work some women do who decide to stay home with their children and support their husbands in their carreers. Some people just refuse to acknowlege the skill and hardwork it involves because it is a woman doing it.
“In 1969, Hillary entered Yale Law School, where she served on the Board of Editors of Yale Law Review and Social Action, interned with children’s advocate Marian Wright Edelman, and met Bill Clinton.
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“As a law student, Hillary represented foster children and parents in family court and worked on some of the earliest studies creating legal standards for identifying and protecting abused children. Following graduation, she became a staff attorney for the Children’s Defense Fund.”
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“After graduation, Hillary advised the Children’s Defense Fund in Cambridge and joined the impeachment inquiry staff advising the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives.”
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“Hillary ran a legal aid clinic for the poor when she first got to Arkansas and handled cases of foster care and child abuse. Years later, she organized a group called Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. When she was just 30, President Carter appointed her to the board of the United States Legal Services Corporation, a federal nonprofit program that funds legal assistance for the poor.”
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“She joined the faculty of the University of Arkansas Law School in 1975 and the Rose Law Firm in 1976.”
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“She led the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession, which played a pioneering role in raising awareness of issues like sexual harassment and equal pay. Hillary was twice named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America.”
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“Hillary served as Arkansas’s First Lady for 12 years, balancing family, law, and public service. She chaired the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee, co-founded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, and served on the boards of the Arkansas Children’s Hospital, Legal Services, and the Children’s Defense Fund.”
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“She wrote a weekly newspaper column entitled “Talking It Over,” which focused on her experiences as First Lady and her observations of women, children, and families she has met around the world. Her 1996 book It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children Teach Us was a best seller, and she received a Grammy Award for her recording of it. “
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“In the White House, Hillary led efforts to make adoption easier, to expand early learning and child care, to increase funding for breast cancer research, and to help veterans suffering from Gulf War syndrome who had too often been ignored in the past. She helped launch a national campaign to prevent teen pregnancy and helped create the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, which moved children from foster care to adoption more quickly. Thanks in part to her efforts, the number of children who have moved out of foster care into adoption has increased dramatically.”
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“Hillary Clinton traveled to over eighty countries during this time, breaking the mark for most-travelled First Lady held by Pat Nixon. In a September 1995 speech before the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, Clinton argued very forcefully against practices that abused women around the world and in China itself. She was one of the most prominent international figures at the time to speak out against the treatment of Afghan women by the Islamist fundamentalist Taliban that had seized control of Afghanistan. She helped create Vital Voices, an international initiative sponsored by the United States to promote the participation of women in the political processes of their countries.”
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A published columnist, book author, Grammy Award winner, community activist, attorney, law professor, First Lady, international diplomat, US Senator, and more… sure sounds like experience to me.
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More at:
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http://www.whitehous…
http://www.hillarycl…
http://en.wikipedia….
…you people aren’t lawyers. I am. And I know that one can hire a lawyer when one needs one.
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p>I would prefer someone with at least a little managerial experience as president. It isn’t likely going to happen in the 2008 election (the only one with any managerial experience is Richardson, and he isn’t likely to succeed).
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p>Hillary’s problems are at least two-fold. One, she completely botched the health-care financing reform activity in 1993 and 1994. Not just botched it, but torpedoed it for at least a generation. So much for her management and political abilities
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p>Two, her insane vote for the resolution to authorize use of military force AUMF in Iraq in 2002, a vote that she has not explained to this day. So much for her inability to acknowledge that she was wrong. Jesu Frigging Christ, even I, on the outside, knew that going into Iraq, when in the middle of a war in Afghanistan, was stupid.
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p>So, tell us again. What are Hillary’s credentials for election? That somebody bestowed on her a Grammy Award? Surely you are joking.
So the experience of putting together a health plan proposal that was ahead of its time, and then trying to get it passed does not count because it failed? Is it your position that Hillary Clinton could not have learned anything from that experience? Is it your position that any politician that has tried to accomplish something important but fails, no matter what the reason for the failure and no matter what he or she could have learned from that experience, should just pack it in? Then why would anyone try anything bold?
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p>By the way the health care plan she helped to develop failed mostly because it was too ambitious, she and her team did not appreciate enough that Washington, D.C., was not Little Rock Arkansas, and there was a heavily-funded opposition campaign against the proposal by all the vested interests that the American public believed. To state that her attempt to make a change set back the possibility of any change just shows a complete lack of understanding about how a lot of people in this country feel about government involvement in health care (they are suspicious of it) and how much the issue is affected by the vested interests.
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p>As for the authorization of the use of military force in Iraq issue, her vote was not “insane.” I was opposed to the U.S. invading Iraq and I marched in a peace march to show my opposition, but I was not opposed to that vote. It was the only way to force Saddam Hussein to let the UN inpectors back into Iraq. If the Senate had voted the resolution down, ie, had said the President was not authorized to use military force, then what kind of negotiation do you think that would have looked like? (I assume, since you are a lawyer, you know what negotiating is like.) And it worked. The U.N. inspectors were allowed in. Unfortunately, however, that was not really what Bush was seeking.
When you say that she “has not explained to this day”, what you’re really saying is that you’re upset she hasn’t apologized for it to this day.
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p>She’s explained it a number of times, including when she cast the vote.
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p>Don’t believe me? Read her own words:
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p>http://clinton.senate.gov/spee…
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p>…and in regards to lawyers, I’m sorry you have such a low opinion of the legal profession, but lawyers are frequently taken to manage all sorts of things … law firms, corporations, non-profits, etc, frequently right out of the law firm in which they practice.
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p>Your argument suffers from at least two critical flaws:
(1) You’re setting up a strawman argument by implying that lawyers have no management experience, and (2) then saying that Hillary, because she is a lawyer, has no management experience.
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p>(1) Simply not true, of the profession at large.
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p>(2) Also not true, since I’m fairly sure no one is arguing that Hillary’s only worked as lawyer her entire life.
I think what I am arguing is that for Hillary to make it out like her experience being married to a former President and Governor in some way means she is more qualified to hold the office, while others who did not have the fortune of being married to a darn good politician are not, is a big stretch.
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p>Hell W’s Daddy was President and his granddaddy was a Senator and his bro was a Governor as well. No doubt some of that must have rubbed off on him right. But look what he has done to our country.
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p>It would be one thing if Hillary was trumpeting all her non-First Lady experience but she says nothing about that stuff. She’s running as Bill’s wife, two for the price of one. Take Bill out of this and you have a very impressive and bright women with lots to recommend her – but really nothing more than any of the others. And with Bill in the fold, she is overselling how much “experience” being married to the President has given her. She didn’t make tough decisions on war and peace, on tax and spend and since she has joined the Senate she has been cautiously spending all her time preparing to run for PREZ.
Outside of New York City proper Hillary is despised in New York, much in the way Mitt is revered here in Massachusetts.
This is the nature of “ambitious” people.
Hillary has done zippo for the state and will do zippo for the nation if succesful/
Hillary won re-election with 67% of the vote.
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p>Election Results
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p>http://www.elections.state.ny….
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p>For convenience, the results are broken down by NYC and non NYC votes.
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p>Hillary Clinton got 1,731,085 votes outside NYC.
Her opponent got 1,039,010 outside NYC.
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p>If she was really hated as you claim, shouldn’t she have done worse outside NYC?
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p>…as far as her record helping out the State of New York, it’s far too extensive to catalog in this brief post.
Newsflash: Beating token opposition with support in the 60s is not a big dign of endearment with the public.
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p>http://www.centerforpolitics.o…
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p>After practically ignoring her Democratic primary opponent, Senator Hillary Clinton has turned up the heat on Republican John Spencer, who poses no legitimate threat. In the two weeks since the primary, Senator Clinton’s campaign has aggressively attacked Spencer, a former mayor of Yonkers, despite having $22 million while Spencer can not even afford TV ad time, as well as soaring past him in the polls, 62 to 33 percent. “They’ve made a decision to inflate Spencer so they could show the rest of the country that they could defeat a conservative menace,” political strategist Bill Cunningham said in a recent AP story. “If she has no real opponent, there’s no real way to check out her electability nationwide.”
The evidence of her winning by such margins certainly suggests she is not “hated” outside NYC. People do not vote for people they “hate”. Given a choice between someone who’s obscure or given “token opposition” and somone one “hates”, one tends to choose the former.
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p>Further, Senator Clinton polls considerably ahead of the “America’s Mayor” in New York state too.
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p>Tell us where you’re hiding your Hate-o-meter.
Lol … While she CAMPAIGNED to bring jobs back to the upstate in order to stop the rapid population loss, in fact many more jobs were lost and old population centers are now deserted ghost towns.
Her one statewide initiative was her much beloved plan to INVEST IN INFRASTRUCTURE, which to Hillary meant “expanding broadband access to the entire state”.
Unfortunalty for Hillary, the bridge collapse in Minnasota occured at an inopportune time, by reminding her constituants that INFRASTUCTURE investment means more than diverting large amounts of taxpayer dollars into Verizons stated quest to corner the market on bandwith. But at least one of her larger contributors has been repaid in kind.
Get a clue.
… the position of POTUS is a collaborative one. The most important decision the Prez makes is about with whom the Prez works. Our current POTUS choose Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Condeleeza Rice, Alberto Gonzalez, Donald Rumsfeld, etc… All of whom swap a well-thumbed and tattered copy of Seven Habits of Highly Effective Nazis obsessively. The one true campaign statement that Bush fulfilled from the ’00 race is that he would choose experienced people to advise him. As we can see, experience is no bar to either incompetence, mendacity or, to quote Hannah Arendt, “the banality of evil”.
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p>In light of this, Clinton ought to be judged not solely on her experience but on whom she’ll bring to the table with her. Having the big Dawg at her elbow is a plus for me. In addition, Bill Clinton, with some notable lapses (Dick Morris…? eeeww) has chosen well in the past, particularly on economic matters. I would like to think either HRC learned some things from Dawg or, it was her thinking to begin with (which he used to help make decisions). Win win.
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p>Nor, it ought to be noted, is experience in general been all that much used in electing presidents. Reagan? Eisenhower?
And so the question is begged, why do consider it the showstopper here? And again, there are precious few metrics available to voters to gauge whether any given experience has been either helpful for the candidate or even just carried out competently… George H W Bush had a great deal of experience in some high level roles, all of which seems to have taught him nothing whatsoever about policy and governance. George W Bushes tenure as Governor of Texas was marked by irrelevance as much as anything else. So manifest failure can be lumped in with ‘experience’ too and the voter is none the wiser.
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p>You leave Bill Clinton off of your list, who as we may remember in 1992 was widely remembered only as that blow hard who gave the endlessly boring keynote speach during the 1988 convention. Ah what a speach … the crowd woke from slumber to give him a standing ovation when at the 80 minute mark he said “and in closing” ….
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p>Just an example of how chossing inexperience may not be bad, Clinton went from obscurity to historical acclaim by becoming one of only two presidents in US histroy to be impeached.