I mean that as a sincere question. And I know that there are those who will view this as a “hit piece”, but so be it. She is the frontrunner, yet she has offered few details of her vision for this country. Or to that, even an overarching theme for her campaign as to why she wants to be President of the United States. I said many months ago that we need someone that not only wants to be the President but also has a campaign whose purpose and direction can be easily understood, discussed and supported. We do not need, nor can we afford a candidate that wants to be called the President more than they want to BE the President
So far, she has largely skated by without really saying or doing much – not even as much as she can in her current role as United States Senator. Sure, she has been a more than capable Senator and has done some pretty damn good things for NY. And yes, her voting record is largely progressive-ish, at least not much different from the other candidates when you take those “which candidate do I agree with most” tests.
But what does that all mean? Why exactly does Clinton want to be President? What is her overarching theme of the candidacy? And for those of us here in the netroots, why has she made such a conscious decision to not only not reach out to us – a very large and vocal and motivated (and smart) constituency – but to go out of her way to basically shun us. For that matter, what does that say about the influence we will have, or where we will fit in as far as our ideas, ideals and organizing power if and when she is elected President?
Tonight at 8PM Eastern, thereisnospoon and I will talk about this issue on a larger scale on our BlogTalkRadio show. When we started talking about this topic and issue, we ran down a number of campaigns on both the Democratic and republican side, including Dodd (restoring the Constitution), Romney (“moderate and pragmatic” who can get stuff done), Rudy (strength on national security, even if that is a farce), Edwards (middle class and other class issues), Huckabee (the “true conservative”), to name a few.
Yet when we came to Clinton – the presumed frontrunner and “inevitable” candidate, we were both at a loss. What is her campaign theme? Why is she running? What does she have to offer that other candidates don’t?
She talks about her experience, yet questions about her past experience are off limits. She talks about foreign policy issues, yet her vote on Kyl-Lieberman, her lack of leadership on Iraq and desire to not answer any questions or explain her vote on Iran based on “it being a hypothetical” run contrary to that as well. She has a keen interest in reforming the healthcare system, as evidence by her attempts during her husband’s administration, yet her plan is neither a radical change or all that different from other candidates’ plans. Not that it makes her plan bad by any stretch, it just isn’t all that different.
When the other candidates finally attack her positions, or lack thereof, she appears to get defensive about being ganged up on by a bunch of men as opposed to actually clarifying her positions. She is doing very well in head to head matchups with the republican counterparts, yet both Obama and Edwards are as well, so “being more electable” isn’t the issue – not to mention that it isn’t really a reason to run either.
Obviously, she is a much better candidate or option than any of the republican counterparts as well, but then again, even the worst Democratic candidate is better than the best republican candidate. But a campaign has to be much more than that. You need to have that “2 minute elevator speech”, as it is called in my business. What does she stand for that the others don’t? How is she a leader or how is she leading in areas that the other candidates aren’t?
How does she stand out from the other candidates? On what positions? And if it is based on her experience, then why is all talk, challenges and questions about that experience off limits?
I know why she wants to be called the President. But I don’t know why she actually wants to be President. And at this particular time in history, with all that is wrong in the United States, as well as around the world (much of which is directly related to our actions and need strong leadership to fix or change course), this is something that we deserve to know from our candidates, let alone the frontrunner.
also in orange
This isn’t a reasonable argument. Look at Senator Clinton’s choices since graduation from college. Look at the issues to which she’s devoted time and energy.
This may sound like she’s my first choice, and that’s not true. Her policies aren’t as progressive as I’d like. But she offers the advantage of a toughness that won’t wither.
It’s been bothering me for a couple days. With greatest respect to Biden, Dodd, Kucinich, let’s face it. They are running not for president, but for secretaries of Defense, State and Peace (probably in that order.) By dividing up the anti-Clinton vote, they insure her victory.
If those three (plus Gravel, of course) were not in the race, if Obama and Edwards agreed to detente, would Senator Clinton have a chance? The math says no.
I think that you are being unrealistic to ask H. Clinton to lay out her proposed policies this early. That would give the enemy Republicans a full year to distort them and use them against her.
At present her job is to get the nomination while leaving the Republicans as few openings to attack her as possible.
This is far from the ideal way to choose our leader, but Hillary is the only one of the candidates for the nomination who has gone through the fire from the right-wing, and is the only one who is likely to be able to survive it for the next year.
I think Hillary will be elected in 2008. That means that both the economic conservatives and the religious conservatives are going to be gunning for her as long as she is in office. The election is going to be the nastiest Presidential contest anyone currently living has ever seen, and after she is elected the nastiness is going to increase rather than decrease.
Of the three big names, my preferred candidate (based on policies) is Edwards, but based on the ability to get elected and survive in office, no one but Hillary can do it without going through a very dangerous on-the-job-training period. Bill Clinton was probably the finest politician America has seen in over a century, but he was learning to deal with the right-wing character assassins on the job. This learning curve accounts for Bill’s failures dealing with the right-wing.
Hillary has been through all that, and no one alive today (besides the unfortunately ineligible Bill Clinton) is prepared for the Hell that is going to be the Presidency through the next term.
The Republicans have defeated themselves, and they don’t believe it. When they lose the Presidency they will punish the winner every way possible. Obama is too inexperienced to deal with it, and I doubt his Kumbaya let’s-all-get-together message is suitable anyway.
Nor have I seen anything from Edwards that indicates he can go for the jugular when he needs to. That is going to be needed, and Hillary can do it.
So essentially I think that Hillary is playing it safe during the run up to the nomination. Any other strategy would leave her too open to right-wing attacks.
I have heard from many that they will vote for Hillary because of Bill. This is certainly no reason to vote for her. I try to disabuse them of this idea with the fact that Bill Clinton will not be president in 2009 – Hillary will be – if elected. God forbid something should happen to Bill, who will then guide Hillary if she in fact must rely upon Bill’s tutelage?
I also support John Edwards for president based on his policies and his recognition of the need for change in this country. Having been around many trial lawyers I do believe he is capable of going for the jugular, but perhaps in a less visceral way than the Republicans.
If Hillary gets the nod, I WILL NOT VOTE FOR HER! I will go to the polls, but she will not get my vote. Party be damned. I don’t trust her and her positions are too close to Bush’s and the scum he rode in with.
What I can’t understand is in a country of 300 million people why we can’t we find someone other than a Bush or a Clinton to be president? Do we really want or need 8 more years of dynasty?
Don’t worry, Clammy, she really DOES want to be president. She just doesn’t want to talk about why.
She has already told us why she is running.
Winning is every thing and the only thing.
Winning.
That gold star. That ribbon around the neck. The applause and theme song and her name on the throne, the podium, the socks, the jacket, and the porta-potty.
Hilary wants to be Queen if she can’t be Empress of the Arabies. She has made no movement away from imperialism. Has she used her position to lead an antiwar protest? To compel impeachment of lawbreakers? To thwart those who would torture, spy, data-mine? What has she done by reason of her own oath to preserve and protect the Constitution? If she has broken her oath as Senator, we can expect her to break it as President.
America’s slide into dictatorship will only be hastened by voting for dynasties.
I will NOT vote for her. I will not help destroy my country by trading freedoms for the security of a police state run by patrician families.
The Presidency is a job, not a prize. And anybody who doesn’t come to it the same way they’d come to a job interview doesn’t deserve consideration. A candidate for a job expects to be questioned as to why they want it and what they’d do with the responsibility. Being able to brag about the fact they got the job is certainly not a reason to be hired.