Hillary Clinton's popularity ... explain it to me.

Great Debates
1

( I speak as an outsider… and many of my views are similar of many South Americans.)

So she’s a democrat and a woman… that should make any politician somewhat popular. She is also has a good standing with many voters. Her surname is well known. Her “suffering” with her husband’s “personal” life notorious…

Still I can't see why she is so popular. She seems like a bossy and hard headed woman. She lacks charm in my opinion. Milking her stay at the white house and her personal problems came across as very political and cynical. Still her standing and reputation in the US grow.

I would support her too if as a democrat I thought she had a chance of taking Dubya down.... but otherwise I find her popularity and political power hard to understand. Anyone care to explain where, why and how she gets so much limelight and good standing with the US public ?
2

Big name, best chance to be the 1st female President, left of center, but generally not to far left, centrist compared to most Democrats.

I don’t really know that her standing has grown. I think she’s basically in the same place she was in 2000, no better no worse.

3

FWIW, I think she garners respect for how Chelsea turned out.

4

You really think so? She certainly has the rep of being left of center wrt most Dems. Perhaps that’s a legacy of her failed attempt to nationalize the health care system.

5

I think her popularity with the American center-to-left is mostly due to backlash from the right’s nigh-irrational hatred for the woman.

I know I don’t think much of her as a politician, yet I’m often compelled to defend her against some pretty outrageous attacks from her opponents. When was the last time you heard so many jokes about the size of a male politican’s ass? Or had someone put a politician’s facial expressions while watching a speech under a microscope?

She’s hated, for reasons the center-to-left cannot grasp or will not accept. Yet she remains strong. That, and sympathy for the whole Bill situation, goes pretty far to explain her popularity.

6

Really? So you don’t think her socialist health care plan was a far left idea?

7

“Milking her stay at the white house and her personal problems came across as very political and cynical.” Please explain further how you reached that conclusion. It does seem to many of us that her, well, notoriety was created by the right-wing haters, not by her. The sympathy backlash Menocchio mentions is certainly real, as well. She is widely seen as a strong yet still altruistic person, more so for having been tested by such intense attacks.

Lord Ashtar, your use of loaded words obscures what might have been a useful point. You don’t even know what the program would have been, so calling it “socialist” and “far left” is not only spin but ignorance. Every broader poll I’ve seen in recent years, starting well before the task force, does show that some form of national basic health care guarantees is very broadly supported.

8

As a New Yorker, I can give you a bit of background about her political history in New York State.

First, let me give a brief and general overview of the geography and politics of the state. New York City is located in the southeast corner of the state, with Long Island projecting out to the east of the City. The New York City suburbs are generally considered to be Long Island (Nassau and Suffolk counties) and Rockland and Westchester counties to the north of the City. North and west of Rockland and Westchester is generally considered upstate. New York City is heavily Democratic, and the rest of the state is heavily Republican. Most New York State Republicans (such as Governor George Pataki) are much more liberal politically than most national Republicans.

Hillary Clinton, then an utter outsider, was widely speculated as being the Democratic candidate for Senator and then announced herself as such. Throughout the process she had little opposition from the Democratic ranks. She was obviously criticized for being an out-of-stater, but she was personally and politically acceptable to many Democrats.

Rudolph Giuliani was considered by the media as being the primary Republican candidate, and he was coyly indecisive about his candidacy. At this time his popularity as Mayor of New York City was in a steep decline and he was suffering from personal setbacks including prostate cancer and a nasty, public divorce. Eventually he decided not to run, but his potential candidacy had kept the field clear of other strong candidates.

With Giuliani out of the running, the Republicans settled on Rick Lazio as their candidate. Lazio was a young Congressman from eastern Suffolk County. He did not appear to have achieved personal distinction in Congress, and was widely perceived as being aligned with the strongly conservative Congressional Republicans.

Recognizing her weaknesses, Clinton concentrated significant resources on campaigning in upstate New York. She went on a heavily publicized “Listening Tour” where she visited many small hamlets upstate that hadn’t seen a statewide politician in years, if ever. Through her efforts upstate, she tempered her image as an outsider by showing that, at least in the campaign, she was willing to recognize upstate interests. Both upstate and downstate she ran a strong, focused campaign.

Lazio, almost an accidental candidate, appeared to have little substance or focus in his campaign. Instead of pushing his own agenda, he relied significantly on simply not being Hillary Clinton as his campaign emphasis. Also, he concentrated almost exclusively on the City and its suburbs. He was virtually unknown upstate and did little to make himself known there.

Perhaps the decisive factor was Clinton’s efforts to solicit the traditionally-Republican upstate compared Lazio’s failure to do so. Although Lazio was a life-long New Yorker, a political life lived exclusively on eastern Long Island was seen by many upstate as being nearly as divorced from upstate interests as that of someone from out of state entirely. Further, Clinton was perceived as a person with ideas, energy and substance while Lazio appeared to be a bit of a lightweight and perhaps a tool of the national Republicans, who were more conservative than many New York Republicans. In the end Clinton won the election.

Since the election, Clinton is generally perceived to have been a strong, effective Senator for New York.

9

I need to lean heavily on how incisive Billdo’s post is.

I was born and spent the majority of my life (well over 40 years) in a small city (~30,000) in far upstate New York. During my years there (1948-98, with about five years away scattered in there), we had: no U.S. Senator visit, two brief visits by a Governor, and not even non-campaign visits from our Congressman until a local resident was elected in the early 1990s.

When Hilary ran, she made several visits to my home town, and she’s been back at least once since election. The city is about 65% Republican – but I suspect strongly she’d carry it again if she runs for reelection in 2006.

Political stance to one side, she uses the same formula as Jesse Helms: show you care about your constituents, by being present to them and listening to their views and concerns.

10

A nitpik: the Buffalo area is overwhelmingly Democratic. It’s socially very conservative, because of its entrenched old-school Catholicism (Buffalo is supposedly far more Catholic than Salt Lake City is Mormon), but politically very liberal. It’s like a blue-collar Boston; lots of union labor, and lots of colleges. Conservative fundies are the equivalent of an urban legend; they’re often talked about, but never seen.

You’ll often hear about Republicans in local office. Don’t let that fool you. There’s an entrenched Democratic machine in Buffalo, and many Democrats that can’t get party support register as Republicans to get onto the ballot for a local election.

11

Never underestimate the power of giving people the opportunity to express their views to you, even if it’s just letting them vent. The British National Party (who are, by many reports, a thinly-veiled white supremacist party) has gained seats on some local councils by virtue of the fact that their candidates were the only ones to go door to door and talk to voters.

12

. . . You say that like it’s a bad thing!

I like her because many of her political and social views jibe with mine. I ignore her personal life, as I try to do with all politicians. For instance, I think GW Bush is a very nice man, probably an enchanting dinner companion. But I disagree with many of his political views.

13

In a male politician, this would be regarded as being authoritative and firm in his beliefs. In other words, positive characteristics. Do you have a problem with women pursuing careers in politics?

14

Yeah, uh huh. Poor Hil.

Remember Linda Trip and Katherine Harris? The vicious attacks made strictly on their looks ought to give the Left pause when pointing fingers.

15

Part of the problem is that the right suspects Hillary of hiding her true beliefs for political purposes. When she first followed Bill into the White House, she came across as being VERY liberal. Not just her health care plan, but the entire first two years of the Clinton presidency was a litany of failed attempts at very liberal policies. The early cabinet was fairly radical, and Hillary said a lot of fairly radical things.

After a number of legislative setbacks and plummeting popularity, the Clinton administration turned around and moved over to the right. Welfare reform, some spending restraint, etc. The health care plan was shelved. The more radical members of the cabinet left and were replaced by moderates.

But the right HATED Hillary. Part of it was her perceived hypocrisy. The Clintons ranted about the ‘greed and excess of the 1980’s’ during the campaign, pointing fingers at the Savings and Loan scandals as a premier example of this. But then it turned out that they were just as greedy as anyone else, having questionable real estate deals, deducting used underwear from their taxes, etc. Hillary claimed to be for the ‘little guy’, but one of her first demands when they got into the White House was to fire the entire White House travel office, all of whom were career civil servants, and replace them with their own cronies from Arkansas. And what’s worse, to cover the blatant political element of this, they accused the travel office of fiscal malfeasance, a charge that several of the employees spent their life savings fighting (and which were eventually found to be untrue).

Then there was Whitewater, which led to the conviction of several close associates of the Clintons, including Susan McDougal, who was jailed for taking the 5th amendment rather than testify against the Clintons. During this time, an unusually high number of witnesses suddenly found themselves unable to remember any details of the events, and many documents went inexplicably missing, including a bunch of files from Hillary’s law firm which were supposedly lost and were later found by a maid in the Clinton’s rooms in the White House.

So, after all of this the right had a white-hot burning rage for Bill and Hillary.

But why is she so respected? For several reasons. First, the left responded to the right’s attacks (many over the top or unfounded) by deifying her. If the right hated her so much, she must be an angel. So many on the left overlooked some of her more questionable activities, saying that it was just Republican smears.

But here’s the big thing - Hillary is respected because she has earned respect, IMO. All of those early scandals aside, a fair observer has to admit that Hillary is a hell of a politician. Since she has been in elected office she has been fair, effective, and truthful. The right accused her of using New York as a springboard back into the White House, and she said she wouldn’t run in 2004. And despite enormous pressure to do so, she has kept her word. She has worked tirelessly for her state, and I’ve never heard another Senator on the right or left say a bad word about her.

Furthermore, that political tin ear she had ten years ago has vanished. She is an amazingly astute politician. When the 9/11 attacks happened, she said all the right things and did all the right things. When other Democrats started attacking Bush for his handling of the war, she defended him. More recently, when she was in Baghdad she didn’t use the opportunity to Bash the Bush administration, sensing that this would be a very bad time and place to do that. Instead, she supported the troops, and reiterated the administration’s line that the U.S. was staying until Iraq was peaceful.

She’s certainly earned my respect, and I disliked her greatly ten years ago. Now, the cynics would claim that this is just a show, that deep down she’s still far to the left but biding her time. Me, I believe in judging people based on their actions, and it’s hard to find fault with much of what she’s done in the last three years.

16

Actually, I do know what she wanted to do. She wanted every single person in the country to have full health coverage, and she wanted to pay for it with taxpayer money. If that doesn’t sound socialistic to you, perhaps you should go look up the term.

Also, it doesn’t matter whether polls show that the idea was well suppported. Support for the idea doesn’t change the fact that it was a far left, socialistic idea.

Come on, ElvisL1ves. You’ve been here long enough to know that non-sequiturs don’t work around here.

17

If an idea is popular enough, it isn’t “far” anything. Popular opinion defines the center, which defines left and right. Clear?

It might (or might not) be interesting to know just how much, if anything, government can be allowed to do before you will label it “socialistic”. But perhaps that’s a different thread.

18

No, it isn’t clear at all. Are you saying that if the majority of Italians supported Mussolini, that would make their country centrist and not far right?

The majority of French people support socialism. Does that mean France isn’t tilted to the left?

There are standard definitions of ‘right and left’, and of socialism and fascism. You can apply objective analysis to figure out where a policy fits in that spectrum. It has NOTHING to do with what the majority of people approve of.

19

By their own standards, yes indeedy. By the rest of the world’s, no, but that wasn’t the point our friend was raising - he is calling Sen. Clinton’s assumed ideas “far left” and even “socialist” by US standards. They are not, and, by world standards, are even less so. Clear?

20

No, it’s not clear. “Socialism” has a defined meaning.

Now, if you had just said those policies are ‘centrist’ relative to that nation, I’d have no problem with it. But when a defined term like ‘Socialism’ is used, it has an objective meaning outside of its relative popularity within a country. Let’s not engage in newspeak here.