Posted on 08/09/2006 12:37:11 PM PDT by presidio9
Her recent calls for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's resignation notwithstanding, conventional wisdom says Sen. Hillary Clinton is moving to the political center as she prepares to run for President in 2008. When, in June, she was booed by a roomful of liberal activists for repeating her support for the war in Iraq, some even suggested she had engineered a "Sister Souljah moment" to dramatize her newfound centrism. At first blush, such positioning would make sense. A rightward shift seems to be just what Hillary, who is broadly perceived as a liberal, needs in order to broaden her appeal.
But there's a problem: Clinton is sliding right on all the wrong things. Rather than countering the perception that she's a big government left-winger, she's simply adding pieces of the agenda of the big government right to her portfolio.
Consider some stances she's taken over the past year or so. In July 2005, Clinton called for federal legislation to prohibit the sale of "inappropriate" video games to children and teens. She has supported federal legislation to outlaw flag desecration (though not a constitutional amendment). She has declined to back same-sex marriage.
And of course, she voted to give President Bush a blank check to invade Iraq and has consistently opposed a hard timetable for withdrawal ever since.
Yet as Clinton moves right in these ways, she continues to embrace nearly every big government cure-all imaginable. In the 108th Congress, she introduced 211 bills to increase spending - more than any other senator - and only three bills to cut spending.
Clinton voted against the Central American Free Trade Agreement and for a windfall profits tax on oil companies. And in an attempt to do for education what the country wouldn't let her do for health care, she wants the federal government to guarantee "every student with seven fundamental resources needed to learn, including: instruction from a highly qualified teacher, rigorous academic standards, small class size, up-to-date facilities, and textbooks and updated computers."
Such positions are unlikely to appeal to the millions of Americans who want more personal freedom and a less powerful federal government - like the 28 million Bush voters who, according to the University of Michigan's National Election Studies, support gay marriage or civil unions, or the 17 million John Kerry voters who think "the less government the better."
It looks like Hillary Clinton aims to run for President as a big-government centrist. It's not clear there's a market for that combination.
Everytime the hildebeast's name is mentioned, I keep thinking the following:
"You can fool all of the people some of the time. You can fool some of the people all of the time. But you can't fool all the people all of the time."
In a similar vein: "You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose."
This is all wrong, I will fix it:
...conventional wisdom says Sen. Hillary Clinton is pretending to move to the political center to try and fool as many people as possible as she prepares to run for President in 2008.
Thank you for fixing that.
"Centrist"?????
The big question, after Lieberman, is can Hillary win primaries if she's opposed by an antiwar candidate - which Algore would be? And Algore doesn't have to explain away any pro-war votes, like Kerry has to.
The Dim anti-war moonbats are loose again. In 1968 they forced an incumbent Democrat out of the race, forced Bobby Kennedy to turn anti-war and so wounded Humphrey he couldn't win. In 1972, the moonbats ran off Muskie, the "moderate" establishment candidate in favor of the anti-war McGovern, splitting the party and handing 49 states to the Republicans.
Don't underestimate the capacity of the Democrat left for political suicide. Hillary! just might be their roadkill this year.
Poor Hilary, the events of yesterday and their presumed fallout must have her strategists doing the "Exorcist" head-spin.
What to do? Which way to pander?
John McCain is the Dems Great White Hope. They are setting him up for the spoiler job in '08.
If he actually wins the Repub nomination the MSM will pounce on him with glee. He has soooo much baggage, the libs will find it easy to discredit him and/or make him go berserk on the podium.
If he fails to get the '08 nod, the MSM will groom him to go third party.
It's almost a win-win for the dems.
She's not a "big government centrist" - SHE'S A SOCIALIST!
It was a big mistake for this sludge of a rather dumb woman to call for Secretary Rumsfeld's resignation. Where did all that crap about her being the "smartest woman" in the world come from? Every time she opens her shrill mouth in this household we all cringe. To our complete disgust, she is also our Senator here in NYS.
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