My liking of Hillary starts with what she tried to do when Bill was first elected President. Some are cultural issues – like her initial refusal to be the nation’s housewife. Hillary started off strong, retaining her last name, going to all men’s clubs with her husband the President and heading up the Health Care Commission. But she, like the rest of the Clinton White House learned the hard way that the Washington establishment would have none of this. She was lambasted for retaining her name, mocked for not taking on the role of housewife to the nation and her health care plan went down in flames. 1992 to 1994 were tough years for the Clintons – and for the Democrats.
What Hillary tried to do says a lot about her. She tried to make sure that every American had health coverage. That matters. She tried to assert herself as a smart person – a lawyer with brains and passion. That matters.
That she failed says a lot about her, and about the country. Her failure then taught both Hillary and Bill that getting President doesn’t mean much, not without there being a grassroots movement to back up idealistic visions of liberal leaders. Bill got elected and was popular because he proposed things that most Americans wanted. But he was almost powerless to see these things through because it’s not Americans who decide what will get done in Washington.
Hillary was an ambitious idealist in 1992. So was Bill. And the two worked tirelessly to make things better. We all know about the early failures of the Clinton White House to pull it together. And we have all paid dearly for this shortcoming. But the Clintons did pull it together, and as a result 1992-2000 turned out to be far better years for America and the world than 2000-2008.
Clearly, Hillary remains ambitious. And her voting record (in all but one essential way – her vote authorizing force which led to Bush’s invasion of Iraq) marks her a steadfast liberal. In fact, she’s often rated one of the most liberal Senators, much to the amusement of the bastions of Hillary Haters in Right Wing talking head circles. But she no longer an ambitious idealist who can’t pull it together. In fact what stands out about Hillary’s tenure in the Senate is not so much that she’s an almost consistent liberal voter, but that she is has become so good at working in the Senate.
Hillary has focused on the details of being a Senator, as opposed to being Hillary the political super star. She’s focused on upstate New York, local issues and getting things done, according to arcane rules and precedents that she so blindly ignored when she first came to Washington. In additional, Hillary has been consistent about the core principles of little L liberalism. She’s advocated rule of law, separation of powers, multi-lateral foreign policy. She’s rejected the doctrine of preemptive strikes. She’s successfully worked to extend jobs benefits to Americans out of work and to fund child care for low income Americans. And she’s stuck to her longtime priorities, trying to ensure that drugs are tested as safe and effective for children before going to market and to extend health coverage for reservists and members of the National Guard.
All of this matters, since great rhetoric means nothing if nothing will come of it. And it says something about the kind of woman Hillary is. That says that she will change ways if needed, that she will do the down and dirty work of mastering the arcane ways of the Senate to make sure she and her constituents are heard, and that she will work with others to get things done. These are the kinds of things we say we want from our politicians, even though we also say we want them to fight, fight, fight. It’s tough being the minority. And it’s tough mastering the balance between working together and caving in. I think Hillary’s mastered this balance, and that America is sorely in need of leadership that brings people together. So not only do I believe that Hillary’s heart is still in the right place, I also believe that she’s got her head there too. And that’s why I can support Hillary as our next President, not just accept her.
Note: I am working on a coming soon draft Hillary project – visit my disclosure page for details.
This Tom Kertes:
Or this Tom Kertes:
I believe that our goal as liberals should be to make it possible for every child to be raised by at least one parent at home. I believe that a parent raising a child at home is better for the child than a child being raised through institutional child care or by barely older siblings. It is in the interest of both parents and children for at least one parent to be at home. That’s because the quality of life is most often improved for both the parent at home and the child.
It is amazing how you contradict yourself.
and does not need a First Lady to stay in the White House to care for us. The role of First Lady is insulting to women, and Hillary challenged that.
I think that every American family should have it be possible to have one parent stay at home to care for their children.
And I believe that women and men should be equally compelled to be the one to stay at home – with men doing some affirmative action on this since it has been women who have been forced to stay at home in the past.
The two passages have nothing to do with the other. One was about the sexist role of the First Lady, the other about parents caring for thier children at home.
I believe the nation is not a child Really?
have you forgotten the fact that Hilliary is a mother?
Chelsea was still in elementary school when the Clintons took office.
Hillary and Bill were ambitious, but idealists? Please dude, your dissembling borders on the Limbaughesque.
The health plan failed because it was laughable and unworkable in reality. Its essence was a healthcare landscape still dominated by a handful of large insurance companies, but now also with a large federal bureaucracy piling on more nonsense and added cost.
Eventually, nobody defended it, simply because it was a mess. It died mercifully.
So should this series, imho. Just contact Hillary directly and ask her for a gig.
because it was opposed by the Washington establishment. I think it was unworkable because it was cobbled together to be all things to all members of the establishment.
I also think it failed because many of the Democrats in 1992 were actually Republicans – and they were opposed to the idea of universal health coverage. Hillary supported that, and I think she deserves credit for that stance.
If Hillary’s plan failed, why didn’t an alternative pass? My answer, Washington DC was opposed to universal coverage and liberal progressives failed to have the organizational base and the power to get what valued onto the national agenda.
No alternative passed because there is no alternative. Wishful thinking alone doesnt get the job done.
The US could easily adopt medicare for everyone but the costs would be staggering and would involve trade offs the majority of Americans are unwilling to accept.
For instance, the Germans have socialized medicine, pensions and long term unemployment. The Germans also dont binge shop with credit cards. They arent consumers in the american tradition. They choose to save more and purchase social insurance with their money. Most Americans choose to run up credit card bills so they can have houses full of new cars, TVs and lots of other junk instead of paying for social insurance.
Hillary deserves no credit at all for her “work” on healthcare reform. It was not a “noble” cause for her but merely a play for her own future political prospects.
Her plan was misguided, poorly planned and nowhere close to being executable in any form.
And that is a qualification for her presidency?
That and “learning how to get along” in the Senate?
Seems more like disqualifications than qualifications to me.
Let me see. I am a hero to you if I refuse to be a housewife but I am immoral to you if I refuse to be a breeder, even though being a breeder for you is optional. Sex is a basic human need, ask any shrink and read any textbook on mental health and basic human needs…..but I get stuck with incubating for you “moral” people who can’t get pregnant getting their basic human needs met (how convenient for you!). And now the stupid bitch sold me out again on contraception for her own personal gain! I can completely understand how and why you love Hillary. I can also completely understand why I detest her of late!! What in the hell are the core principles of little L liberalism? Who are you, the Karl Rove of the DLC?
I say he is just a dude lining up for a job with another loser. Sort of a low grade Bob Shrum.
the liberal arts, the enlightenment for info on the principles of little L liberalism
and being the nation’s housewife is not the same as taking care your children at home. The nation does not need to cared for from the White House by the First Lady. It is an insulting role for the wife of the president, and Hillary took that role on.
Your admonishment to “read up” on liberalism and your stance that your two essays have nothing to do with one another (when you have been here for a week telling us that they represent your opinion), provide a response to Tracy and Parker’s points about the contridictions inherent in espousing the views expressed in both.
Tom Kertes has just summarised Rick Santorum’s book in to “librul-speak”.
I was trying to find a simple way to put it all, and here it was. Thanks!
Liberalism? Is there a list for big L Liberalism too? What is the title of the text that talks specifically about little L Liberalism? I want to make sure that I get it all down right so that I can converse with you on a definable level that isn’t just someone blowing hot air up their own ass.
And still the best thing my dad ever taught me was that the truth can usually be defined in one, two, or three sentences at most. Anything over that is just someone bullshitting you! Actually he told me that if my explanation was any more complicated than that, I was bullshitting him!
Tom, I won’t even argue your points, because even if I agreed with all of them, which I don’t, they would be irrelevant to me, because there is no way I can support a two-family dynasty in this country.
Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton.
No. Just. . .no.
It’s not healthy to concentrate that much power in the same people over and over again, so it begins to look like a tight ball rolling through history. Even the Adams and the Roosevelt families had a little space between their presidents! Now that Bill seems to have become nearly an adopted son to the elder Bushes, the potential for the consolidation of power looks even more concentrated.
There is NO WAY that Hillary Clinton will win a national election. Not a snowball’s chance in hell.
Now, maybe if I believed in the slightest in Hillary Clinton as a candiate, her ideals or trusted her as far as I could throw her, I might give it a go anyway. But as it stands, I cannot even bring myself to consider holding my nose and voting for her, as I did with Kerry. If she wins the nomination, I will NOT be voting for her.
Have fun with your campaign!
Stuffed him in the closet, and hijacked his accounts.
He used to write some great stuff. The imposter’s not just wrong, but makes flabby arguments.
Women would be jumping out of seats with glee in droves if the first woman nominee hadn’t sold us out to the lowest moral bidder. We would be marching in the streets, we would be working the phone banks, raising funds, walking precincts, putting bumper stickers on our windows and cars, driving lawnsigns in all over our yards, we would be, in a word, ready to take it to the streets.
Instead, what do we have? A woman who has been in the crosshairs of the Rapture Right, the woman who sat on the Today Show espousing the lowdown, dirty, morally inept rightwing who she nows covets. We get a leader in our party who has the clout, the intelligence, the political savvy and know how, to nail these immoral assholes to the wall and she turns a deaf ear to women when we are fighting for our friggin’ lives.
She endorses and promotes the Democrats for Life group that is as anti-woman and deceptive as any ‘family values’ organization of the Rapture Right. She becomes a national leader in our fight to have Plan B emergency contraception made available OTC and then bails at the last moment, going back on her promise to women across the country, because she believes and trusts this administration to do what they said they would do. It wasn’t out of ignorance that she cut and ran leaving women in the lurch.
Hillary just doesn’t get it. For all that she could have had from women, she has lost us and, more importantly, she has lost our vote. She can grab the megaphone from now until doomsday and tell the world abortions are tragic, horrible, immoral, dastardly, and should be less available than they already are, she can rail against women’s right to choose, she can use rightwing talking points all the while pretending she’s on the side of women but we’re not as naive as she apparently is, we don’t have a nickel’s worth of trust because we have been watching her and what we see is a woman who could be the most powerful woman in the world tell us our lives are not worth a damn to her.