Hillary Clinton and the new DLC platform
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., on Monday accused Republicans under President Bush of economic mismanagement and favoring the rich as she outlined a Democratic campaign agenda of tax breaks and incentives designed to make the costs of health care, college and retirement more affordable for millions of Americans.The former first lady delivered the keynote address at the centrist Democratic Leadership Council’s summer meeting, unveiling the results of the “American Dream Initiative,” a year-long effort she chaired on behalf of the DLC to produce a domestic platform that Democrats can take to voters this fall.
Click through to the article to read some of the details of what is being propossed. All in all, it isn’t bad and I could probably be persuaded to support Democrats that I thought actually bought into it. That is the rub of course.
I had been willing to support Hillary in 2008 before the Dubai Ports World fiasco and her, in my opinion at least, blatent demonizing of Muslims who actually wanted to be our allies. It seemed to me to be a pretty crass attempt to score political points at the expense of working toward a better world. Clinton’s stance on DPW was profoundly unserious, and betrayed a lack of seriousness on the whole ‘War on Terror’. It will take a lot for me to reverse that opinion of her.
One of the things that is central to the platform is the uneveness of the economic growth we have seen over the last few years. It seems undeniable that while wealthy people are experiencing signifigant gains, the poor and the middle class are, at best, keeping even. This is something I have been keeping an eye on, hoping that it was a temporary lag effect of a growing economy and wage growth would follow. So far, I haven’t seen any evidence that that has happened. Clinton’s propossals for Health Care and Education subsidies, at the expense of corporate welfare seems to have a great deal of merit. I am no fan of income redistribution, but if we are going to redistribute I would prefer it go to those who are less fortunate rather than corporations and wealthy people. Corporate welfare is at least as repugnant to me as the more traditional kind, and ‘welfare reform’ didn’t reach to that area.
On the whole, it is an encouraging platform. Given the viability of the ‘netroots’ and other far more liberal movements in the Democratic party I have my doubts as to whether such a platform will have much success in caturing the Democratic party as a whole. I suspect it would be fairly popular in a general election, but would have a very tough time in a democratic primary environment.
Clinton’s stance on DPW was profoundly unserious, and betrayed a lack of seriousness on the whole ‘War on Terror’.
Dude, this is Hillary Clinton’s entire M.O. I can’t think of a single position she takes that is based on conviction. Now, I’ve long been of the belief that in order to win elections, you have to get people who disagree with each other to vote for you, so some compromise is inevitable. It’s just that Hillary Clinton carries it to an absurd extreme.
I’m enough of a Democrat to vote for her in 2008 if she wins the nomination, but god I hope that she doesn’t run or someone beats her in the primary if she does.