Letters to the Editor
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I Can't Stand Her
The only thing I find tolerable about Hillary Clinton is that she is married to Bill.
I am more and more impressed each time I see John Edwards. He has stopped the goofy smiling and I can actually hear a message coming out of him now. He is maturing. I don't think the smarmy "Breack Girl" slurs of has-been Karl Rove will work this time.
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Hillary the Spineless
I am one of her constituents and I write a few times a year to badger about basic civil right issues and the form letters I get back laying out her positions horrify me. When I wrote in about flag burning, I got back a convoluted letter explaining to me that she is opposed to the anti flag burning amendment (good), because she feels it should be outlawed without an amendment. What the fuck kind of logic is that? If she is not going to stand up for such a basic civili liberty as the right to burn the flag, honestly, fuck her. She'll never ever get my vote.
I am a history professor and am surrounded by a substantially left of center peer group. I live in NY. I am involved. I don't know a single person who likes HIllary or would support her. I know lots of people who voted for her while holding their noses, but none who are lining up to put Hillary signs on their front lawns.
I always wonder, hust who IS her base? Who is giving her all this money? It can't all be coming from Barabara Streisand, but I've never come across an ardent supporter even among NY democrats.
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Clinton and Obama
Leave it to the Democrats, given this golden opportunity, to settle immediately on two front-runners neither of whom has a prayer of being elected President. Personally I'd love to live in a country that's ready to elect a woman or a black man, but the U.S. today isn't that country.
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Pro-War Candidates Get No Money and No Vote from Me
I mean it. She voted for the war and has not changed her stand. If she did change her stand today I would be sure that it was just a ploy to get votes.
Go home Hillary, war-mongers are not wanted.
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The Republican choice for the Democratic candidate
I never did like carpetbagging politicians, especially those who have aligned themselves with the wealthy and powerful elite who are currently running the country into the ground. There had to have been someone out of all the tens of millions people living in New York state who were at least as qualified as Mrs. Clinton to represent them in the Senate.
The Republican corporate media machine is boosting Hillary Clinton as the Democratic presidential candidate because she is so unpopular with so many that is might even give their candidate a chance to win, even though burdened by the ignominious legacy of the Bush Administration. And if Senator Clinton wins, hell, she is sort of a Republican-lite anyway.
We need a clean break away from the Bush-Clinton-Bush political dynasties with their globalist ambitions. Let's elect someone who represents the people, not the top 0.1%.
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Hey tbc, I'll take the bait
I consider myself very liberal. Here's my wish-list. To humor you, I'll ignore the 800 lb. gorilla (Iraq).
1. Every citizen of the richest country in the world should have affordable, accessible healthcare.
2. Every child in the U.S. (citizen or not) should be fed.
3. Every Child (citizen or not) should have access to education.
4. We should abandon the "War on Drugs". It's a monumentally expensive and ineffective undertaking. Doesn't work, locks up people who are not true criminals.
5. We need to acknowledge that it is impossible to seal our borders. Gigundo corporations need the cheap labor, and starving Mexican families need the dineero (see below). Let them work here, pay them a fair (albeit low) wage, document and tax them.
6. We need to improve the quality of our neighbors way of life, so they don't risk their lives sneaking across our borders.
7. Tax relief for the middle class.
8. An end to tax breaks for the obscenely wealthy.
9. An end to the effort to idealogically slant the Supreme Court. The Court should be representative of the population of the country.
10. A real effort to promote alternative energy development and usage.
11. A complete halt to the rape of our nations parks and wild lands. I just visited the Everglades where the ranger showed me how the alligators were going blind because of the pollution runoff from the surrounding cane fields.
That's my short-list, there's much more. But I'm afraid of getting timed-out.
Chris
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I'm baffled by the vitriol
toward Hillary, as I always have been. People call her an "opportunist" and "calculating" and "a phony" on the basis of a record that could as easily be interpreted as "practical" and "cautious" and "informed" and "moderate." If trying to create opportunity, or seizing it when you see it, were a crime, most of the accomplished individuals in the country and ALL of the politicians would be guilty.
I see Hillary as a person who has been interested in government, policy and public service for her entire life--since her childhood. For instance, when she was a young woman just out of law school, working for the House judiciary committee, she was helping to draft the articles of impeachment for Nixon. It seems to me there's sexism and a sort of primitive fear in the way people describe her--they can't stand the thought of a woman who might be ambitious, or strategic, or even self-respecting. To be those things is to be like some Cruella DeVil of the Senate, ready to skin the vulnerable in order to adorn herself with their fur.
I'm not crazy about her occasional equivocations, nor her vote on the war, but I do think it's reasonable for her to have until this point occupied some relatively neutral territory. As a new senator, she's had a lot to learn and a lot of people to listen to and a lot of relationships to build. Now that she's a candidate, I'll expect more crispness to her positions. But all this harrumphing about how lame she is strikes me as just unrealistic and embarrassing.
I'm not sure I'll vote for her in the primaries, because I'm interested in Edwards and Obama and Richardson and I want to hear what they have to say. I'm certainly going to be evaluating BOTH the authenticity and the electability of all the candidates. In the meantime, I wish people would stop expecting Hillary Clinton to act like Joan of Arc or Audrey Hepburn or the Blue Fairy or their mommy. She's a public servant, and she's a pretty good one.