Hillary Clinton is far ahead of the pack among "mainstream" voters in terms of poll results and about neck and neck with Obama in fundraising.
As those who have read me will know, I'm no fan of Hillary. I feel she panders too much to the center on too many vital issues and posits only the most tenuous of positions on others. I'm deeply disappointed on her Iraq war vote and subsequent refusal to back away from it. I find too many of her answers on critical issues like healthcare to be little more than meaningless rhetoric, with no specific plans or intentions stated. On healthcare she offers only a restatement of a problem that we all know to be well defined and a few plattitudes like "I have the scars" regarding the healthcare debate without offering any substance on what she would do about it if elected.
Jump with me for a further diagnosis of what ailes Hillary on healthcare and what we should do about it.
I've said before that at one time she was in my humble opinion, the shining star of the democratic party. A real advocate for change, particularly on healthcare. Hillary was well beat up by lobbyists and special interests over her crusade on healthcare. She clearly learned a lesson since then, but what lesson did she learn?
Evidently, she has learned the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" lesson. If you take a look at who the biggest recipients of big healthcare and big pharma dollars are, you find her topping the list among presidential candidates.
As I understand it, she is among the biggest recipients in all of Congress, if not the biggest. If memory serves correctly, I believe only GW Bush himself has received more healthcare welfare than Hillary has.
Having said all of the above, as it was Nixon who went to China, I'll offer my own praise for Hillary. If nothing else, I'd like to be fair and balanced in a NON-FOX sort of way.
To that end, healthcare and her original Iraq vote aside, from a progressive perspective Hillary Clinton's voting record in congress is impressive.
Her debate performance has been top notch, and I believe there is little doubt among the objective that she has the experience, the intellect, and the mental toughness to be a highly competent executive.
It's clear that she is running an excellent campaign. Many would say her negatives are too high, and I would agree with them. But I do believe the greatest portion of those negatives comes from people who would never vote for a democrat anyway, so I for one am not overly concerned about it.
Although we are still early in the process, even the most jaded of observers must admit that at least as things appear right now, she has an excellent shot at obtaining the democratic nomination. Her momentum has never let up and appears to even be building slightly.
Those of us who do not support her (and I count myself among them, I am an avowed Edwards supporter, with Kucinich as a second choice) must if nothing else, face the reality that she may well end up as our nominee.
To that end, we must begin to pull her off the fence on the biggest foreign policy issue (Iraq) and the biggest domestic issue (Healthcare). While Hillary pays lip service to the notion of putting an end to the Iraq war, her stated intentions belie her view of the practicality of doing so.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton foresees a "remaining military as well as political mission" in Iraq, and says that if elected president, she would keep a reduced but significant military force there to fight Al Qaeda, deter Iranian aggression, protect the Kurds and possibly support the Iraqi military.
(emphasis mine)
"Fight Al Qaeda"? That's what we are supposedly doing there now. How is this an end to war? Al Qaeda is very much on the upswing, and a continuted "siginficant military force" will not reduce tensions. I've heard very little challenge in the debates thus far to this position, and very little discussion here on Dailkos about it as well.
I believe the dialog must begin and be held. She must be challenged on Iraq. I don't mean her refusal to repudiate her own vote, to the general public her "If I knew then what I know now" approach is reasonable and a losing battle if we challenge on that point. The real issue is her intentions going forward.
Additionally, her stance on healthcare is at best milquetoast. Her website offers only a restatement of the problem and an assertion that she has credibility in dealing with it. But dollars speak louder than words, and $848,872 in receipts from the healthcare industry does more to reveal her true inclinations than all the meaningless rhetoric and plattitudes that her campaign can spew.
I for one have been sensing a growing presumption here on Dkos that Hillary will be the democratic presidential nominee. Hand in hand with that I have also noticed a sort of capitulation towards that eventual outcome and even a level of aquiesence to it. Perhaps it's just my own personal interpretation, and yet, while Dkos and the progressive blogosphere has been hostile towards her, she is an invitee and planned speaker to Yearlykos.
I urge all Kossacks who will be attending (sadly I can not join you) to challenge her on these two issues. Don't let her get away with the non-answers she has been giving thus far. Please ask her if she will push for true universal healthcare and what the details of her plan are. We need to hammer her on that incessantly until she gives a full and complete answer. Ask her why we should trust her when she has accepted nearly a million dollars of PAC money from the Healthcare and Pharmacy industries. What is the quid pro quo? And let her not insult our collective intelligence by telling us that there is none.
Challenge her on how leaving 50-75 thousand troops in Iraq will actually bring about peace, or at the least how it will insure that our soldiers are not continuing to die for years to come. Like it or not, we may well be stuck with her. We need to make sure she realizes she is also stuck with us. She needs to understand that without us, she may not win in the general election.
We need to let her know that we will not accept pandering and vagueries. I for one would like nothing better to be able to jump on her bandwagon in the general election and work my tail off to get her into the whitehouse. But without at least a complete and coherent answer, I can not, and I am pretty sure that goes for a lot of the progressive blogosphere as well.