Posted on 12/04/2004 4:48:02 PM PST by NYC GOP Chick
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
HERE was the old Hillary Rodham Clinton, the one who said she wasn't "some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette," who led a failed and ridiculed effort to overhaul the nation's health care system, who so inflamed a nation's passions that her book "It Takes a Village" became a punch line at political rallies and on late night television.
And there is the new Hillary Rodham Clinton, the reserved junior senator from New York who was elected after making a "listening tour" of the state, a member of the Armed Services Committee who supported the invasion of Iraq, and a lawmaker who has won praise from Republican colleagues.
But now, Mrs. Clinton's persona is again evolving, propelled as much by the intense feelings she has engendered in her career as first lady as by her own drive and ambition.
There are a lot of people, Democratic people to be sure, who want Mrs. Clinton to run for president in 2008. In a Gallup poll taken in November after the election, 25 percent of respondents chose her as their preferred Democratic candidate; John Kerry came in second at 15 percent.
It is a counterintuitive notion, that a party badly beaten by what many interpreted as a rejection of liberal political values, would endorse a woman who has come to embody those very liberal ideals.
But some Democratic political operatives say it could work. The theory, said David Axelrod, a Democratic political consultant based in Chicago, is that while a polarizing figure like Mrs. Clinton may motivate the opposition, she could also expand the Democrats' base. "If you accept the premise that we are a polarized country then part of the challenge is to maximize your base," Mr. Axelrod said. "I think she, as much as anybody, is in a position to do that."
Could she really cast aside the baggage from years in the spotlight to become not merely the first senator since John F. Kennedy - or the first Northeasterner of any party since Mr. Kennedy - to be elected to the White House, but America's first woman president?
For many Democrats, certainly, she is the only personality, the only larger-than-life figure in the party with the drive, the ambition and the name recognition that might be able to lead the party out of the wilderness of political defeat.
Here is a summary of the thoughts of three political professionals, including a skeptical Republican, who were asked what advice they would give to the senator.
David Axelrod
Mr. Axelrod was an adviser in the presidential campaign of Senator John Edwards of North Carolina.
PRIORITY Get re-elected. Create a vision for the future. She must help the party redefine itself by focusing on issues, like globalization, as they relate to the middle class. She should dive into health care as an offensive and defensive maneuver. This issue will be used against her. She can’t run away from it. We’re hurtling toward a crisis and she can say, ‘‘I may not have approached this in precisely the right way, but I had no doubt then or now that health care is a crisis we have to face.’’
ABORTION Exit polls show Americans are moderately pro-choice. She should promote adoption and, yes, abstinence as part of an array of options through which the government reduces the number of abortions.
GAY MARRIAGE Sixty percent of the voters said that they supported civil unions or gay marriage. It’s not the killer issue some have painted it as.
TERRORISM If you’re trying to be the first female president, a premium will be attached to proving yourself as thoughtful as anyone on this issue. She’s got a wonderful platform on the Armed Services Committee.
CHANCES There is a caricature of her out there, and she needs to introduce America to the real Hillary Clinton. But she’d be the person to beat if she ran. Once you have the nomination anything can happen.
SUGGESTED THEME “Keeping America and the middle class strong in a changing world.”
Joe Trippi
Mr. Trippi advised Howard Dean, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination this year.
PRIORITY Define yourself as not New York and as not a senator. If she’s the nominee, it has to mean something to be the first woman. She should be the first viable reform candidate of either party — the first to reform the system, the way money, lobbyists and government work — to give people more power. She is uniquely positioned to do that. She has such a large following, she could promise not to accept any donation over $500 and still raise enough money to be competitive. She could counter the Republican talk of religious values by focusing on civic values and personal responsibility. When was the last time anyone running for president talked about the common good, civic virtues and the duties and responsibilities of citizens, not just their rights? That is our moral language.
CHANCES It would be pretty hard to stop her from getting the nomination. And if she gets the nomination and the country is still polarized, she’s in the hunt, because the election will be decided by three to five points.
SUGGESTED READING ‘‘Restoration of the Republic,’’ by Gary Hart. The book talks a lot about why Americans feel so distant from their government. It is a very republican idea, and I mean that with a small R, to devolve power back to people and away from Washington. The Republicans do it by dismantling government. She needs to do it by taking the power back from lobbyists.
Kieran Mahoney
Mr. Mahoney, a Republican-Conservative political consultant and pollster from New York, is a longtime adviser to Gov. George E. Pataki.
PRIORITY She needs to confound the expectations that she is, in fact, completely liberal. This will be difficult because she no longer operates on such a large stage. Even as a senator and well-known former first lady, she will find it much harder to make the same kind of coast-tocoast impression she did while in the White House. The media and the religious right both overemphasize the importance of social issues. But if you look at the ad dollars spent against Kerry, 90 percent went to economic matters and foreign affairs. Those issues matter much more. She would need to be supportive of President Bush on an important issue at a crucial time. Or she would have to publicly break with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party in such a way as to draw national media attention. It could be along economic lines—like tax reform or Social Security privatization. There is much greater tolerance than the Democratic Party realizes to break with the populist economics of F.D.R.
CHANCES She covets the nomination and she is probably as big a frontrunner as anybody since Mondale in 1984. But any Republican with a modicum of appeal to the center of the electorate would beat her fairly handily.
SUGGESTED SLOGAN “Make History.”
I'm gonna assume that none of you is sick enough to want photos!
Hillary Clinton has as much chance of Being POTUS as I have of being Ms. USA. Case closed.
I'd destroy it, before it grew its body back.
"Hillary, who's as BUTCH as they come" --- Camille Paglia, 2000
You beat me to it.
How about the one with her and His Slickness slowdancing on the beach?
You gotta supply the 3-D glasses.
If one gets hold of that ear, one should twist it violently, and then put it in the meat grinder.
No, please no!
No pictures!
Hillary is laying low for a while. but she cant stay that way long, her ego demands she be in the limel;ight.
We were all hoping she and Bubba would dissappear, but no such luck. we will have to beat her badly , First in the Senate , then as a Presidential candidate to really get rid of her.
Why do I keep thinking of Vincent VanGogh?
You offering to pay for the retinal restoration?
See how they are tripping over themselves to offer her assistance in the "remodeling effort" for 2008?
I used to think she couldn't get herself elected as a senator from New York.
I'd use it for an ashtray.
under no circumstances should Bubba be allowed anywhere near the White House ever again, so Hillary 2008 is a no go.
Every time I've seen her in person, her hair was greasy, too!
Oh well, I wonder how dinner will taste on the way back up!
She is a no-go because of her Marxist "It Takes a Village" doctrine. This battle-axe truly believes that she is smarter than the rest of us and that she knows best how to run our lives, spend our money, raise our children and just make every decision (major and minor) for us -- and she wants to do it!
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