So in today’s Washington Post Charles Krauthammer has an OpEd piece on Hillary Clinton.
Unsurprisingly it includes the idea that he wouldn’t vote for her at least twice. Explicitly. But the column essentially lists the things he thinks she’d do that he would like to see happen and that he thinks would please conservative voters. Mind you, he says she’d do them for the wrong reasons, mostly political expediency, but he does think she’ll do them and he’ll be pleased with them.
So what the hell is up with that? It’s essentially a half-hearted endorsement of Clinton as someone who will please his readership (the more conservative folks reading the Washington Post, in this case) but caveated with ‘oh, I’ll never vote for her’.
Either he thinks she’s the best or he doesn’t. But this split personality thing is enough to make me a conspiracy theorist and think he’s trying to sabotage her getting the nomination.
Sorry to sound mean, but IMHO, the only reason he has a job at the Post is because he’s in a wheelchair and they could always use a token conservative. He’s about as insightful as a lead brick (with half the personality), and judging from that article, more full of shit than a Christmas turkey.
Having said that, without question, Hillary Clinton is the most conservative-friendly Democratic candidate. Just goes to show you even a stopped clock (Cabbagemallet, not Clinton) is right twice a day.
Krauthammer is dead on. From a conservative POV, Clinton is actually the most acceptable Dem candidate, despite the widespread and inexplicable visceral hatred of her on the right.
And I suppose that leads in to another issue: Is she a feather blowing in the wind or is she pragmatic concerning what the electorate wants?
I realize there are people who want a candidate to stand for something and go do it no matter what the public thinks. But there’s a strong argument for a politician whose main goal is to do what the public wants. Responsiveness is not a sin. Yet Krauthammer seems to be arguing that it is.
Yeah; I’ve always disagreed with people criticizing politicians for checking public opinion before making a decision. Hello! This is a democracy! Regnat Populus, and all that. We elect people to do our bidding; they work for US.
Of course, that’s naive as hell; we all know they work for Halliburton, General Dynamics, RJ Reynolds and ExxonMobil. :o
Ewwww. Remind me not to come to your house on Dec. 25.
I just can’t see any significant number of conservatives ever backing Hillary. Although arguably the most conservative Dem running for President, she’s to the left of most if not all of the GOP presidential field (except Mitt Romney, when he was running for Senate against Ted Kennedy). Conservatives as a group have such a visceral hatred of Hillary 'n Hubby that her palatable views on a relative handful of issues will never, ever bring them around to supporting her. Ain’t gonna happen.
When he was president, Bill Clinton ended welfare and ran budget surpluses: two things conservative Republicans have ostensibly wanted for years. Unfortunately, with those goals achieved (and the Cold War being over), the Republicans could no longer use those issues as ammo against the Democrats. That fact no doubt galled many Republicans to no end during the 90’s and just made them hate the Clintons even more. I suspect a lot of the right-wing’s irrational and excessive hatred of Hillary has a lot to do with the fear if she’s elected president, she might–like Bill–do something they’ve been advocating all along so that they’re left with one less arrow in their quiver.
I will give Clinton credit for his genuine achievements (for instance, he was far more pro-trade than nearly anyone else in his party). But these aren’t significant achievements of his in my book.
Welfare reform was a priority of the Republican Congress - Clinton resisted it for an awfully long time. And the surplus was a weird fluke born of a general good economy fueling revenues and spending restraint brought about by divided government.
Now, these things were certainly good (though the surplus was becoming problematic as the economy slowed) but I don’t know if you can give Clinton credit for things that were either accidental or a legislative achievement of his ideological opponents.
While this is in some ways true, my own spin-analysis is that Krauthammer and other right-wingers saying pseudo-nice things about Hillary are also trying to 1) reinforce the impression of her (well-deserved, incidentally) as someone with few principles who’ll say anything (or next to nothing) to get into power, and 2) increase suspicion of and loathing for her on the part of left-leaning Democrats who already resent and mistrust her. A big split among Democrats would be lovely for Republicans, who have such a field of turkeys vying for the nomination (Fred Thompson!?) that only major upheaval among Democrats would give them a fighting chance in '08.
Can’t go wrong by examining such in the light of ego-masturbation. Clinton is, ideologically, the best of a bad lot from the conservative point of view. If she is nominated, Chucky pats himself on the bag for his prescience and for his effect on the Dems, who clearly heeded his sage wisdom, and thus avoided disaster by nominating that flaming Trotskyist, Pretty Johnny. He also gets to suck up some of those “non-partisan” points, by showing clearly that he is not the partisan whore I think he is.
Conservatives may not vote for Hillary, but if they are comfortable that she won’t be a disaster, they might stay home on election day - especially if the Republicans choose an uninspiring candidate to run against her (and so far, all of them are uninspiring).
I think that’s basically what Krauthammer is saying - don’t vote for Hillary, but don’t be scared of a Hillary presidency. I suspect he doesn’t like any of the Republicans in the field either, and maybe even thinks it wouldn’t be bad for Democrats to have the reins for a cycle or two, so long as they don’t put a left-wing nutbar in office.
There’s a pretty good message in there for Democrats - Hillary is electable. Nominate someone like John Edwards, and you’ll be doing the best thing for the Republican ‘get out the vote’ machine that you can. And the Democrats need the Republicans to sit home on election day - especially in the south and in Florida. Democrats need to pick up a couple of red states.
Frankly, I think the ‘high negatives’ problem that Hillary has will go away. Once the two candidates are chosen, people will focus on the current race and forget the past baggage.
Hillary is the most electable candidate the Dems currently have running. Don’t pull a 2004 and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by nominating someone who terrifies or disgusts Republicans.
That’s the exact opposite of the conventional wisdom so far. Up until now it’s been gospel that Hillary will motivate the right to get out and vote against her more than any of the Dem frontrunners.
I still tend to believe that version of it, and it’s only one of my many problems with Hillary.
I still wonder why I never hear people saying that the Republicans need to nominate someone palatable to Democrats.
She had high negatives in New York when she started her campaign the first time around. She erased them through hard work. I think she has that capability. She’s extremely smart, and has learned lessons from the past. Once she gets to the general election campaign, she won’t make gaffes that scare Republicans, and she’ll make a lot of overtures to them. She knows she has the Democrats locked up - her job will be to win over independents and Republicans.
But they do. You just aren’t paying as much attention to the Republican side of things. There’s lots of talk about Rudy’s liabilities in the primaries being big advantages when he gets to the general election - his pro-abortion, pro-gay history will help him win over moderates and independents. Likewise with Romney, who can be counted on to backpedal away from his more conservative statements of late and campaign on his record as a moderate governor of a liberal state.
Both sides are fighting for the center, which is where elections are won and lost. The bases in both parties are screaming for candidates who are not palatable to the center. Hillary is leading in spite of the base, because she has an awesome political machine behind her and huge amounts of money. She’s a juggernaut. The Republicans don’t have anyone like that, so they’re struggling.
A small hijack, but Krauthammer is hardly the Post’s “token” conservative columnist. They also publish George Will, Robert novak, and Michael Gerson, just off the top of my head.
As well, Krauthammer is most noticeable for his conservatism in foreign policy issues. On other issues, he’s not so much in the neo-con/social conservative tradition, as this summary from the Wiki article on him indicates:
I will be the first to admit that neo-con is a term so much abused that it no longer has much of a definition, but I don’t think it was ever synonymous with social conservatism.
Indeed, the original neo-conservatives were pretty socially liberal - they just rejected the developing liberal weakness in the face of Communism. Some of them remained Democrats for a long time, and some never left the party.