Hillary Clinton: A Triangulator for Non-Triangulating Times

[marmar]

from Working for Change:


Geov Parrish
WorkingForChange.com
01.29.07


A triangulator for non-triangulating times
Hillary, stuck in 1999, launches politics-as-usual campaign

As huge crowds gathered in Washington over the weekend to protest the war –- organizers on Saturday estimated half a million, while AP, the New York Times, and the Washington Post all opted for the ludicrously low-balled "tens of thousands" –- one leading politician was notable for fleeing the city ahead of the angry hordes. No, it wasn't President Bush, who stayed put in the White House. It was Hillary Clinton.
Clinton not only avoided the demonstration, but chose to compete with it in the Saturday news cycle, holding a high-profile "town hall" meeting in her first campaign visit to the all-important state of Iowa. All-important to everyone, that is, except Clinton, who had previously ignored the state and trails John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Tom Vilsack in the latest polling there.

Why doesn't Hillary care much about Iowa? Because she is running a slick, well-orchestrated, pitch-perfect campaign for President -– if this were 2000. Clinton's game is exactly what George Bush and Al Gore both did in securing their parties' nominations in that season, running to replacing a tarnished two-term president. Both went hard after their parties' major donors early, sucking all the money, media, and oxygen in 1999 out of what could have been competitive races, sewing up their nominations long before the first primary ballot had been cast. Gore had only to beat back a mild, quixotic challenge from Bill Bradley; Bush forced a host of lesser candidates out before beating back a similarly doomed dissident campaign by John McCain.

Textbook stuff, then. Except that Hillary and her many handlers haven't noticed this is not 1999; a lot has happened since the end of the'90s. George Bush's disastrous reign, for one. The Internet, for another. And, most critically for Hillary Clinton, a desperate yearning on the part of Americans of all political stripes not for a triangulating "centrist" in the Clinton mold, but for someone who can show themselves as both attuned and responsive to the national mood and capable of authenticity and bold leadership. Hillary Clinton could not be a less appropriate candidate for 2008.

She is hoping, ala 1999, that this won't matter; that she has and will have enough major donor money lined up, with little enough left for competitors, that by the time voters and caucus-goers get to actually choose, there will be no choice, just as there were no real party nomination choices in 2000. We've already seen this principle in action; at this preposterously early date Russ Feingold, Evan Bayh, and now John Kerry have all dropped their Democratic bids. But their departures owe more to the unexpected fundraising presence of Barack Obama. Obama, and to a lesser extent John Edwards, are both likely to survive to primary season, and both are presenting messages far more likely to resonate with the party faithful than Hillary Clinton's overcautious, made-for-1999 persona. .....(more)

The rest is at: http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=21930

[Captain Hilts]

1. FDR triangulated. About US particip. in World Court, about anti-lynching bill, etc.

I'm still glad he was president.

That's the way politics works.

[Larkspur]

3. FDR helped put America back to work; Hillary favors shipping jobs overseas

Hillary was in India a couple years ago telling them that she would not stop India from taking good paying American high tech jobs away from Americans.

[Strawman]

2. I don't know if anyone has legitimacy for very long these days

Seriously. Which one of these candidates is really going to bring everyone together with inspiring authentic rhetoric and then parlay that into groundbreaing policy changes in office? None of them.

And the moment we build them up we'll be pissing and moaning about something like the size of their house a moment later.

Maybe the appeal of Hillary is that there is nothing too naively hopeful left in the prospect of an HRC administration. Her public image has already been trashed from every end of the political spectrum, she's been thwarted in her ambitions to deliver on bold liberal promises like health care, and she's been burned by being too cautious and conservative like she was on the war. Yet she is still standing. In some way I think alot of people relate to that.

She might actually underpromise and overdeliver, and she knows what she's dealing with, what's possible, and where the pitfalls lie in getting there. I think that's the appeal of Hillary Clinton. I don't see myself voting for her in the primary because even when I am generous like this in giving her the benefit of the doubt, I still think she has compromised too much. More than she really needed to.

I evaluate candidates on two criteria: the attractiveness of their promises and their capacity to deliver them. Hillary is among the worst in the Democratic field in category one, but maybe at the top in category two. She is capable, battle-tested and she makes promises that are modest to the point of bland, but ones that she might have a better chance at actually keeping if she is elected.