Hillary Clinton 2016

April 17, 2015

I’m sure Hillary Clinton has gotten and will get many more prominent endorsements for her 2016 presidential run. However, by endorsing her Mark Rubin Writes makes her the first candidate it has ever endorsed for the presidency.

Truth be told, I have some issues with the notion of President Hillary Clinton. I wrote Hillary Clinton 2016? on April 19, 2014, just about a year ago. In the piece I noted the dynasty thing, the co-presidency (although eight more years of Bubba feels pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good), and her seeming inability to inspire and lead. Now, a year later, the blog endorses Secretary Clinton for President of the United States of America, and that begs the question, Why?

Seth Stephens Davidowitz wrote Just How Nepotistic Are We? for the New York Times on March 21, 2015. His findings are deeply troubling, and reinforce the concerns I had and still have about the notion of another president named Clinton. (One of my Right-Wing friends observed, the other day, that he does not recall any talk about the dynasty thing when the Kennedys were dominant. I’m not sure about his recall—he’s the worst historian I know—but I take his point and, painfully, told him so.)

As for having a co-presidency, we definitely live in interesting times and, on this one, I am less concerned than I once was. Our nation has survived six-plus years with one party committed to presidential failure. It will surely survive eight years with a former president—a highly successful one, by the way—who offices in the East Wing.

As for the leadership thing, I still worry lots. I just do not know how well Secretary Clinton connects with regular people, whether she has a vision for America (and, if so, what it looks like), etc. The campaign will inform us. While I expect we’ll see a new and improved HRC, I worry here to, for I here reports—behind the Wall Street Journal firewall—that the Clinton campaign intends to avoid the mistakes it made in 2008. Good, but anyone who focuses heavily on avoiding past errors may not be forward-thinking, and that’s not good.

Secretary Clinton is wicked smart, and a very hard worker. Good! Her record in the Senate should not be forgotten, either. Meredith Shiner captures the successes in The Hillary Clinton record: In the Senate, she reached across the aisle, but the old ways there are no more for Yahoo! Politics. Ms. Shiner correctly notes the fact that the Senate has changed much in the past 10 years, but Secretary Clinton’s track record tells me she’ll be up for the effort, and if she fails there’s no reason to think anyone else would have succeeded. (Frankly, with some of the views in the Senate, I have my doubts about how working relationship between the Congress and many potential Republican presidents.)

Having explained away my doubts—more or less—I want to reiterate my belief that a woman in the White House matters. Men have had the privilege of leading out nation for more than 225 years. It’s time for a change!

But, as the infomercial people tell us, there’s more. I committed to the Hillary 2016 run a few days ago, after reading Jonathan Chait’s New York magazine piece, Why Hillary Clinton Is Probably Going to Win the 2016 Election. Mr. Chait’s analysis includes graphs, charts, and lots of references, but he closes with this paragraph:

The argument for Clinton in 2016 is that she is the candidate of the only major American political party not run by lunatics. There is only one choice for voters who want a president who accepts climate science and rejects voodoo economics [a term attributed to the first Bush who appeared on a national ticket, 35 years ago], and whose domestic platform would not engineer the largest upward redistribution of resources in American history. Even if the relatively sober Jeb Bush wins the nomination, he will have to accommodate himself to his party’s barking-mad consensus. She is non-crazy America’s choice by default. And it is not necessarily an exciting choice, but it is an easy one, and a proposition behind which she will probably command a majority.

That’s my case for electing Hillary Clinton in 2016.

[Note to my R friends: You’re not crazy, and I’m not saying you are. It’s your party leaders who a just a little, and sometimes more, meshuggeneh.]

 

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