I know that many of you are getting tired of all these Hillary threads, but seriously, this is a reality that activists who want a REAL alternative need to address while we still can. Yes, we need to focus on the 2006 midterms. Yes, we need to get rid of Diebold and BBV. But if we don’t address 2008 and this nonstop Hillarymania *NOW*, we’ll be allowing elitists and the MSM to coronate the Democratic nominee, and thereby set the national agenda. We’ll be handing their talking points for the next eight years to them on a silver platter.
Here’s why we need to be concerned: we all know that not one single person has declared a presidential candidacy for 2008 - - yet, every time Hillary opens her mouth, she receives a prominent headline at Yahoo! News, a New York Times op-ed endorsing her “inevitable” candidacy, and O’Reilly/Hannity appearing as guests on
The View to talk up Hillary in front of the housewives of America. If those of us who plan to be active in the 2008 presidential race don’t turn this tide around while we still can, the behind-the-scenes power players will have funneled all of their money to Hillary’s presidential war chest and will give her their commitments to work on her presidential campaign before one vote is even cast in the 2006 midterms. The more gullible voters (those who
aren’t political junkies) who end up participating in the Democratic primaries will blindly fall in line behind Hillary’s candidacy.
In my experience at DU, there seems to be a divide amongst: the pro-Hillary faction who seem convinced that she is some progressive crusader and the Democrats’ only chance at taking back the White House; vs. the anti-Hillary faction who believes she is only a lightning rod to GOTV for rabid wingnuts in red states and have hostility toward her for supporting the war in Iraq; vs. the “realists” who think Hillary is a good senator but don’t believe that ANY woman could get elected at this point in time. The latter two groups frequently consist of Clark, Edwards, and Warner supporters.
The pro-Hillary talking points on behalf of Miss Inevitable seem to regularly consist of variations of the following:
1.) – Hillary is tough-as-nails, she’s charismatic, vibrant, congenial, and has “spunk” - - she can draw in tons of young voters, especially young women
2.) – Hillary has impressed Republicans in upstate New York, and forged good relations with her Republican colleagues in the U.S. Senate
3.) – Hillary has the widest name recognition out of any other possible candidate
4.) – Hillary will outfundraise anyone who tries to challenge her for the nomination
5.) – Hillary has the country’s smartest/shrewdest political advisor just a phone call away (her husband, Bill)
6.) – Hillary will bite back at the Right-Wing Hate Machine and counter that slander by invoking nostalgia of the Clinton years she was a part of
7.) – Hillary is moderating her positions and doing what she needs to do, as a woman, to realistically become our country’s first female commander-in-chief
8.) – Hillary is the most qualified and the most experienced (although no one ever bothers to explain HOW or WHY) out of all the Democrats who could run
9.) – Hillary is the strongest electable candidate we have with the best shot of winning; no one else stands up to the right-wing and endures Republican propaganda the way Hillary has
10.) – If anyone can weather the propaganda storm, Hillary can; she’s had everything but the kitchen sink thrown at her, and none of it has stuck. She’s “been there, done that”
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While I think there are many qualified women out there who could be elected president, I don’t think Hillary is one of them. I think she could definitely beat Frist, Allen, Brownback, or Sanford, but I don’t believe she deserves it or has earned the honor of being our first woman in the White House. A Hillary presidency wouldn’t bring this country together in a way that would be productive or beneficial. In fact, it would only tear us as a nation farther apart.
The following are the counter-talking points that I think really need to be HAMMERED whenever the media, the pundits, and Hillary’s supporters chant the manta of, “She’s in like Flynn, no one else has a shot at the nomination in 2008 if Hillary runs, all the other Democratic presidential hopefuls should just pack up their bags and bow out of the race right now.”
Here are the points about a hypothetical President Hillary that NEED to be emphasized, over and over again, for as long as it takes:
1.) – Hillary at the top of the ticket will drive the Far Right to mobilize voters exponentially compared to 2004, including more anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-speech, anti-voter initiatives on statewide ballots all across the country
2.) – Hillary at the top of the ticket in 2008 will hurt Democratic incumbents running for reelection in the red states – for example, Tim Johnson, Mary Landrieu, and Mark Pryor, in South Dakota, Louisiana, and Arkansas, respectively
3.) – Hillary at the top of the ticket in 2008 will hurt Democratic challengers who run against otherwise vulnerable Republican incumbents as well as Democrats who run for open-seat races – for example, Becky Lourey, Drew Edmondson, Patricia Madrid, John Cherry, Ruth Ann Minner (if Biden retires), Deborah Coleman, Thurbert Baker, Bob Andrews, and Beth Edmonds, in Minnesota, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Michigan, Delaware, Oregon, Georgia, New Jersey, and Maine, respectively
4.) – President Hillary would reinforce the image of the United States as an elitist presidential family dynasty (Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton)
5.) – Even if elected president, Hillary would encounter reinvigorated resistance from a Republican majority in Congress – watch as newly-minted GOP leaders such as Cornyn, Alexander, Santorum (if he’s reelected), Talent (if he’s reelected), and Liddy Dole rail against the liberal Dragon Lady, setting the stage for a Republican midterm sweep in 2010
6.) – I’ll admit that Hillary would nominate acceptable candidates for the U.S. Supreme Court; but a newly-reenergized Republican Senate would take every opportunity between 2009 and 2012 to hinder and demonize a majority of Hillary’s judicial nominees – keeping many of them bottled up in committee, while filibustering the others (and if they manage to eliminate the filibuster before ’08, they’ll just bring it back to suit their own agenda when a Democrat becomes president) – with the public’s short attention span, the GOP Majority would most likely get away with this
7.) – If Hillary is the Democratic nominee, it will look like she only ran for the U.S. Senate in New York (after establishing residency there only one year earlier) solely with the intent to use that seat to become president
8.) – HOW is Hillary the “most qualified” Democrat to run? I mean, seriously - - someone please explain what evidence demonstrates that Hillary has more experience or is more qualified to be running the country than Bill Richardson, Mark Warner, Blanche Lincoln, Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, Phil Bredesen, or Wes Clark? Being a former First Lady does NOT make you most-equipped to be president.
9.) – Polls show Hillary Clinton as the Democratic frontrunner for president – polls also are manipulated by opportunistic polling firms, sensationalistic media outlets, Republican pollsters with shady agendas, and political consultants who have a stake in making money off of Hillary’s “celebrity status.” Should same-sex marriage remain illegal just because polls show that most Americans oppose it? Should Joe Lieberman have been the 2004 Democratic nominee just because polls in early-2003 showed him leading the pack of possible contenders?
10.) – Whitewater, Travelgate, etc. - - not only will these scandals resurface (as “new information” or “breaking news,” of course), but plenty of additional scandals we haven’t even heard of yet will also “coincidentally” pop up after Hillary takes office. Whether they have merit or not is irrelevant - - those scandals will dominate the news and sidetrack any domestic or legislative agenda that President Hillary would hope to pursue
11.) – “Oh, but they’ll do that to any nominee” - - yes, but with Hillary it will be much harder to combat, because she can’t whitewash over her past (the Clinton stigma) and maintain the squeaky-clean image that other Democratic presidential hopefuls could
12.) – It is naïve to think that Americans in red states will suddenly fall in love with Hillary Clinton just because she begins talking about religion and saying that she opposes gay marriage. Putting her in the White House will reverse any gains made by Democrats in red/purple states in 2006, and have negative repercussions for 2008, 2010, and 2012, and beyond
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Hillary’s problem is NOT that she’s a woman (because I believe a woman CAN get elected) - - it’s that she’s a Clinton! She wouldn’t be a New York U.S. Senator today if she hadn’t married Bill Clinton.
Hillary should remain in the U.S. Senate for as long as the people of New York want her there. She can realistically do much more good by remaining as a power player in Congress (unfortunately, I’m afraid she won’t settle for that).
We can’t just cross our fingers, hold our collective breath, and assume that 2008 will bring *BOTH* a Democratic victory in the White House along with a Democratic net gain or sweep of Congress.
We shouldn’t sacrifice long-term advancement of progressive issues in exchange for the short-term gratification of “sticking it to” the wingnuts by electing Hillary president just to send them into conniptions of rage. In the long run, a President Hillary would do much more harm than good.
In my ideal world, the Democrats would pool financial resources (including all the money I’m *CERTAIN* that HillPAC is planning on using to help other Democrats nationwide during the 2006 midterms *cough!*) to target the Pennsylvania, Montana, and Missouri U.S. Senate races along with the Florida, Minnesota, Alaska, Georgia, Arkansas, Massachusetts, Vermont, and California Governor’s Mansion’s in 2006 - - while talking up a Blanche Lincoln (
http://www.lincoln2008.com) presidential candidacy for 2008.
Unfortunately, I’m not running the DLC or the DNC.
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