Hillary Clinton has proven herself a dedicated centrist, and when the center moves left, she has shown, she can move too. When it comes to trade and globalization, she has shifted from being an ardent supporter of NAFTA to calling for a "timeout" on all such deals (although she recently signaled her support for the Peru Free Trade Agreement). Clinton may not have apologized for her vote for the Iraq War, but she has called for its end. Her plan, however, would begin slowly and would involve retaining a "reduced residual force," perhaps as many as 60,000 soldiers, to combat terrorism and train Iraqi military forces. As she indicated by voting for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment--which classified the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization--her shift on Iraq did not reflect a fundamental political reorientation. Indeed, a Hillary Clinton administration could see a revival of her husband's advisers and their procorporate neoliberal policies. Certainly the presence of familiar and high-priced pollsters and lobbyists in the upper echelons of her campaign, as advisers and donors, is a worrisome sign. (Both Obama and Edwards have declined lobbyist donations.) The experience Clinton touts is likely to frustrate the change she promises. To be sure, her election would represent a historic breakthrough for women, and a Clinton presidency even modestly responsive to an ascendant left would be far better than a Clinton presidency triangulating in the wake of the Reagan revolution. But there's little reason to believe it would make ample space for a progressive agenda.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080107/editors
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