Working the field, part VI - Clinton

Hillary Rodham Clinton

The former First Lady, junior Senator from New York, and more or less the focus of hatred for all Republicans and conservatives everywhere, is a unique figure in American politics right now. She has made it to the point that she is, almost certainly, going to be the Democratic Party’s nominee for President. This is when I’m supposed to list such things as “first woman nominee by a major party” and such … I’m not going to.

To be sure, Mrs. Clinton (I’m sorry … she said she prefers “Ms. Rodham Clinton”) has far surpassed Geraldine Ferraro’s achievement of being a woman put forward as VP. Having said that, ultimately, being female really shouldn’t matter.

She wants it to matter. To her, and to some of her supporters, it does matter that she’s a woman and stands a good shot at being the first woman elected President. That, however, has nothing to do with whether she’s capable or competent to be a President. If anything, her desire to be a prominent woman — rather than being content with being a person who is successful and a woman — calls into question her ability to focus on priorities of the Presidency.

I doubt that one would find Margaret Thatcher bragging about being a powerful woman. She was a woman who did her job — and became powerful and prominent for doing it well.

On to writing about Hillary Clinton …

I was very tempted to write, “I was taught that if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all,” and ending the post there. I was also tempted to use my brother’s joke (mentioned in a post below). Instead, I think I will deal with some of the world surrounding Hillary Clinton.

I don’t feel the need to go issue-by-issue through the Clinton agenda. Suffice to say, there is little overlap between her vision for our future and mine. But if you don’t know her by now, I’m not sure that there is anything I could say to tell you about her and her agenda. I’m also not going to run through her past accomplishments. Suffice to say, she’s done a lot of very impressive things. Some of us will look more favorably on some than others.

What I am going to say is that if she is a monster, there is an extent to which the Republican Party made her so. Hillary Clinton is known by various nicknames, including the simple perversion of her name into Hillarious. Ms. Rodham Clinton has been compared to Lady MacBeth and accused of all kinds of political opportunism.

There have even been attacks against her for staying with her husband despite his serial adultery and the shame and embarrassment he brought onto the Clinton family — Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, etc.. When she made her famous comment denying that she was just being like Tammy Wynette and standing by her man, I actually read an amusing op-ed trying to turn that into some kind of attack on country music fans.

Sean Hannity refers to his radio show as “The Stop Hillary Express.” Oddly, he will then rant that the Democrats don’t have an agenda, they just want to tear down President Bush because they hate him. Apparently, the irony is lost on him. He doesn’t seem to be troubled by the apparent lack of consistent principles, either.

Then again, I’ve never found intellectual self-reflection to be one of Hannity’s strong points.

I very much want someone other than Clinton to be elected. That being said,
I refuse to focus my time and energy on her. There is a whole election to face, and there are positives to address.

We failed to stop Bill Clinton from being elected and re-elected by beating him up and calling him names. He is still well-regarded in his own circles. Turning all of our attention and all of our wrath on her is going to make her look heroic, having to deal with so much to run her campaign.

Do we really want to offer her that issue, as well?

Conservatives have a seething hatred of the Clintons and virtually everything for which they stand — I find it difficult to forgive Bill Clinton for his disgraceful use of the Oval Office. However, most of the public does not. Looking petty and vicious only helps her.

We lost in 1992 and 1996. I wore black on the day after election day in 1992, much to the amusement of my professors. It’s time now to get over it, though, and deal with the realities of the day. On the issues where we can win, not on Bill’s indiscretions.

For character issues, we can point to Clinton’s charge that General Petraeus was lying, and her refusal to condemn MoveOn.org for the “General Betray-Us” ad. After all, that’s current. And it’s her.

Whatever they have in common, attacking Hillary Clinton through Bill is not a winning strategy. She should be blamed for her own  faults. No one is going to be persuaded by the guilt by association argument.