After the longest lead-in in history, Hillary Clinton has officially announced her bid for the presidency.
Okay. Fine. Whatever.
How do I feel about it really? Clinton is a compromise. She’s a good politician, in the sense that she knows how politics works, and how to work the system to her advantage. She is manipulative in both good and bad ways. She has done a decent job as my Senator in terms of representing the interests of New York.
But she’s fundamentally a false front. I don’t know if she’s as hawkish as she’s been on paper, simply because it’s impossible to know what she’s sincere about. I felt the same way about her husband when he was in office. The Clintons are people who work the game well, and leave sincerity at the door.
A year ago, I’d have applauded this, because a year ago, putting a Democrat in the White House mattered a lot more than which Democrat. But since the November elections, I feel that it won’t be a Sisyphian task to put a Democrat in the White House; I feel we can choose among our options. And I’m not convinced that Hillary Clinton is the best option.
I’m not convinced she isn’t, either. Don’t like her “moderate” noisemaking. Don’t like her hawkishness. But a politician who knows how to compromise and still get her way has advantages. Face and name recognition has advantages. And the very fact that she’s polarizing has advantages. The fact that Hillary pisses off a lot of people creates energy, gets people talking, garners media attention. And that can be good for a campaign. (Not to mention that the majority of people pissed off at Hillary are coming from a pretty misogynist place.)
So, I’ll wait and see. It’s a while before I’ll be voting.
I’m not convinced that Hillary Clinton is the best option. I’m not convinced she isn’t, either.
That’s more or less where I am. I’m not enthusiastic about her as some are, and I’m not averse to her as others are. If she’s nominated, I’ll vote for her.
Well, that’s the thing. I’ll vote for whoever’s nominated. In fact, I’ll do so with enthusiasm. I didn’t vote for her husband in the primaries, I didn’t like him, and he often enraged me (DADT, anyone?). But having 8 years of a Dem on the White House was a very good thing for this country, and indeed for the world (as compared to how the current administration has hurt the world).
Amen to that.
It’ll be interesting to see what she does, if anything, to try making amends with the liberal bloggers. And for some, there’s nothing she can do. It’s going to be a fascinating campaign.
Here’s at least one of those “some”. I’d be willing to wait and see if she exceeds my expectations, but frankly, it wouldn’t take much at this point.
I may vote for her if she gets past the primaries, but *very* reluctantly.
Even though I feel even a mediocre woman in office is great, considering just to be in office of anykind means you never allow anyone to know how you truely feel. I live in the Bible Belt and my whole family are now neocons, my parents were just facists: no joke. Someday I am going to write a book Can you love the facists and not facism, life in a conservative family. But I do not know if a really want to pay that much money in analyst fee. Hillary is not going to win If the Democrats want to lose they will nominated Hillary. I say this out experience and talking to many a bible-belter and california limbaughettes. YOU mention to them Hillary’s name and there eyes light up and not in nice mystical way coals of ember come to mind. You talk the avereage Joe in the bible Belt and the same thing happens. It is almost like bringing up to them that Osama bin Laden is a human being or Reagan was most likely demented during his reign in office. It makes you glad that it is still illegal for a civilian to kill people who bring up unpopular facts. She is hated and men and christian women are not going to accept her. They’ll lie and say her being a woman does not matter but to them she is too uppity. Imagine when she was the First Lady she wanted to talk policy instead of China Patterns. How more ball-breaking can that be….. And the worst of all in College She actually had a thought..//// For all we know she might be a Intellectual. No we would rather vote a president whose family has not been poor since 1830 with the belief he is a common man Than vote in a person who write a college theisis without paying an egghead to do it.
The fact that Hillary angers the right is well known, that’s what I meant when I said she’s polarizing. Dems don’t need the far right Christians and the Dittoheads to get elected, so the fact that they hate her is immaterial.
As much as I’d like to see a woman president, I don’t trust Hillary as far as I can throw her.