In a bitterly divided and partisan nation, is there anything conservatives and liberals can agree on? Yes: Hillary Clinton, please don’t run for president. Lone Star liberal Molly Ivins kicked off a wave of anti-Hillary commentary with a column last week that began, “I’d like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.”Oh, wait, Suellentrop didn't take a position anyway. He's really only collecting links -- to Ivins and Goldberg and also to Arianna Huffington and Josh Marshall. I guess I should just copy his links and talk about the same subject myself. If so, should I put a "via Suellentrop" link? It's kind of screwy to do that if it doesn't get people to the post but just gives them a little experience of exclusion. And the main reason you do a "via" link is to send a fellow blogger some traffic. How can I be guilty of denying a blog something it's already denying itself?
Sen. Clinton’s primary shortcoming? Ivins believes she isn’t liberal enough: “Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone. This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.”...
Conservatives are delighted about liberals’ newfound anti-Hillary animus. National Review’s Jonah Goldberg attributes the sentiment to Sen. Clinton’s recent moves to the right. “To be honest, I never understood what they saw in her in the first place,” he wrote in his weekly Los Angeles Times column. “[T]here’s something oddly satisfying in the possibility that Clinton being herself is politically disastrous. And, if she’s really just playing one more role according to some classically Clintonian political triangulation, there’s something equally satisfying to the prospect that even her fans aren’t falling for it anymore.”
A TimesSelect blog doesn't function in the blogosphere, but maybe that makes some sense for TimesSelect folks. They aren't really ready to read blogs, and it's nice to have a trusted voice to categorize and summarize what's being said by various commentators on the web, some of whom might actually even be bloggers. Look, I found Josh Marshall and Arianna Huffington for you!
Anyway, what do I think of these voices on the left and the right who are saying Hillary shouldn't run? Is the opinion trustworthy because it's on both sides? Not at all!
Those on the left don't like her -- as Suellentrop acknowledges -- because she's not far enough to the left. They ought to know that an excessively left candidate is doomed, but they don't want to face that horrible reality. These people were against Bill Clinton too, back before he actually did that thing that Democrats seem almost never to be able to do, win a presidential election. On the right, you've got folks who've loathed Hillary all along and who, of course, don't want the Democrats to win an election.
So how should Hillary hear these voices on the left and right who don't want her to run? As strong encouragement! But she's got to find a way to keep her hawkish credentials, or we'll be stuck once again with a Democratic candiate with an incomprehensible attitude toward national security who will push those of us who vote almost entirely on that ground to go with the Republican again.
But maybe it's already too late for Clinton. She's already lost too much credibility catering to the Ivins crowd. Being the front runner, she's got them at her all the time, making demands -- demands that she sacrifice all her potential to win in the end. Poor Hillary! If she finds a way through this ordeal, maybe she is good enough to be President.
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The link doesn't bypass the TimesSelect wall; it informs you that you must be a member to read the article. I think that putting op-eds behind the wall and encouraging bloggers to link to articles behind the wall is NYT's lame attempt to make money directly from the blogosphere rather than from advertising.
Those on the left don't like her -- as Suellentrop acknowledges -- because she's not far enough to the left.
Reread Ivins, this is not why people dislike her. I will give you a hint -- reread her 3rd and 4th sentences.
I enjoy your advice to her that if she ignores her base, you will consider her to be presidential material.
word verification word: non4rgumnt
Ivins' 3rd and 4th sentences are, "Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone."
But does anyone really believe that the left would like her if she took unequivocal, non-straddling positions that offended the left?
Ivins' is saying, "I will not support you if you don't take clear positions." And everyone knows that she will not support someone who takes clear non-left positions.
So Ann is absolutely right:
Those on the left don't like her -- as Suellentrop acknowledges -- because she's not far enough to the left.
Quxxo: I do understand what she wrote but I nevertheless make an inference. Yes, Clinton has to dance around to stay in the middle, in range of victory, when she's got people demanding that she cater to them. And then you can just complain about the dance -- ooh, she's triangulating, Dick Morrisily -- but the inference is there. You've got your head in the sand if you can't see it. I think you can see it, though, but you just feel bad when anyone points at it. So great, happy sliding to another loss in '08. I'd step back and laugh if I were a Republican, but I'm not.
"But maybe it's already too late for Clinton."
"If she finds a way through this ordeal, maybe she is good enough to be President."
Actually, I thought this was an excellent piece, and that your conclusions are absolutely right! First of all, it's never too late for anyone (well, almost anyone). It wasn't too late for Nixon when he lost to Kennedy, and it's not too late for Hillary. Life unfolds in strange and mysterious ways. But she needs to find a way to educate liberals that it is alright to be a hawk about national defense. And she needs to convince the skeptical center that she is a "real" hawk, and not just doing this for political advantage. That's going to be a tough assignment (given how many people hate her both on the moderate left and the right), but as you say ... this is where she has a chance to prove her metal. And although the situation is not identical, it is also not all that dissimilar to the tortuous path that John McCain would have to travel, in catering to the various factions on the right, center, and left. Being a thoughtful centrist is a hundred times more difficult than being a screaming and inflammatory right-wing or left-wing zealot. But this country needs the thoughtful centrist, a hundred times more than it needs the zealot.
Is it no longer possible in our country to find two nominees for President that don't come out of the gate already having 50% of the country loathing their very existence?
Quxxo: I do understand what she wrote but I nevertheless make an inference. Yes, Clinton has to dance around to stay in the middle, in range of victory, when she's got people demanding that she cater to them. And then you can just complain about the dance -- ooh, she's triangulating, Dick Morrisily -- but the inference is there.
Hmm, well you have a point, and as I recall, you were and are a strong backer of Kerry when he did similar dancing. And when Kerry takes a strong position that appears to be contrary to what you think of as public opinion, say calling for a filibuster, I notice that you are the first to not mock him or describe his attempts as futile filibuster-fomenting.
What Ivins is calling for is leadership. Taking a stand and doing the right thing and letting the chips fall. Gore, Kerry, and Clark are walking this walk. It is time for Hillary Clinton to join them if she wants to see the public rally behind her.
The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn it. It's about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.
If no one in conventional-wisdom politics has the courage to speak up and say what needs to be said, then you go out and find some obscure junior senator from Minnesota with the guts to do it. In 1968, Gene McCarthy was the little boy who said out loud, "Look, the emperor isn't wearing any clothes." Bobby Kennedy -- rough, tough Bobby Kennedy -- didn't do it. Just this quiet man trained by Benedictines who liked to quote poetry.
Take a look at the polls Ivins cites,
What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.
The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?
And take a look at the poll project that MyDD has funded and undertaken. As a blogerian and a non-Republican you should be linking to MyDD's project as a blog of non-journalists that is undertaking real journalism, and finding real data.
Their results would surprise you (but not Ivins)
verification word: st4ndndlvr
Whoops, I made an unspeakably egregious error in my previous post. There is no way I should have left out Governor Howard Dean or Representative John Murtha.
I am sure you will agree with me Ann, as non-Republicans, that we owe a lot to Dean and Murtha for their straight talk, accurate and prescient.
Watch Dean on Blitzer's show about warrantless wiretaps, OBL, Al Qaeda and true American leadership
May I respectfully suggest Ann, that the polls indicate that you may be the one who is out of touch with the people?
verification word: yearrgghh!
I spent a lot of time trying to find what Molly Ivins had to say about Bill Clinton, back when he ran in '92. It's weirdly hard to find anything! I used NEXIS too, so it was a deep search. Oddly, I found a Washington Times article about her book, "Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?" saying that it called Bill Clinton "a Republican wannabe." But a search for "ivins and bill clinton and republican wannabe" only turned up the WT article. And a search inside the book at Amazon not only didn't find the word "wannabe" in the book, it didn't even turn up a reference to Bill Clinton! Didn't Molly Ivins write about Bill Clinton in the '92 election? She was a very prominent political columnist then, and this book, a collection of her columns, was a best seller.
Her 2004 collection of columns has a lot of references to Clinton, including one asserting that all the comedians would commit suicide if Bill Clinton got elected -- you know, because George H.W. Bush was such great material for comedians, while Clinton.... it would just be so hard to find something to laugh about there.
"Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone"
Offending people is a great way to win elections!
You don't win elections by appealing to Molly Ivins. Or to the quxxos of the world.
quxxo,
It's good to see that you are now agreeing with Ann. And by copying much of Ivins' column, you show the other half of Ivins' argument.
Ivins says--and probably actually believes--that unashamed left positions are wildly popular. That they are more popular than tortured centrism. So taking unequivocal left positions will be more likely to secure a victory than running as a moderate.
Thus, someone who ran on Ivins' platform would succeed both morally and practically. Hillary, on the other hand, fails morally and would fail practically.
It is a wonderful, feel-good argument. Alas, it reminds me of a comment someone made recently about libertarians and leftists. "Both are outside of the American mainstream, but only the libertarians seem to realize it." (Someone then responded that the capital-L Libertarians of the Libertarian Party are equally deluded.) http://volokh.com/posts/1138467777.shtml
Ann: I don't know if this what's going on, but regarding the inability find Ivins' columns from the early '90s:
I think Ivins at that time was still writing her columns as an employee of a newspaper (Dallas Morning News, maybe)???
Many newspapers, even bigger ones, even chains were shockingly slow to convert their "morgues" into digital databases, for want of a better term. When they did go that route, they often did go back very far. I think--think--this is also true for syndication services.
That may be why you can't find them.
(When I left daily journalism in '94, my old paper hadn't even thought about this yet, which is why, though I wrote hundreds and hundreds of articles, there's nary a one on the Internet, at least that I've ever found. )
And I'm sure Ivins did write about Clinton in that era. It would shocking if she hadn't.
And, of course, it's "often didn't go back very far.
Quxxo, I went and read the MyDD polls. What part are we supposed to be surprised at exactly?
Anyway I hope Hillary runs and not because I think she'll lose, I actually think she'll be a tough candidate to beat. She has shown some willingness to find a more moderate ground and might bring discussion back towards the center instead of the partisan blather common today on both sides.
There was a little consternation after the last election when some poll indicated that "values" had been an issue.
Many politicians ran around saying "where do I get some of those values"?
Well I agree that values were important and a principal determinant of some of my votes. But I could vote, and have, for a pro-choice or anti-choice politician, someone who is fervently religious or is not, someone who opposes or supports gay marriage.
I do care a lot about honesty. That is a value in itself. The poltician's response of "got to get me some values" is the antithesis of that.
Bill Clinton, and Hillary Clinton to a lesser degree because she isn't as good as it, always reminded of the Samuel Goldwynn quote: "Sincerity is everything. If you
can fake that, you've got it made."
Well, Hillary is too clumsy about it, and we are too experienced. She can't fake it anymore.
Geoduck: We don't use the caucus approach here in Wisconsin. And I don't need to register as a Democrat. I've been registered here as a Democrat since I moved here in 1984. Before that, I've been registered in New York, Michigan, and New Jersey -- always as a Democrat. I would have liked to have been able to vote for Joe Lieberman in the '04 primary, but I didn't get the chance, because he was eliminated by the time our primary occurred. I tend to think that any decently hawkish liberal will be gone by the time I get a chance to participate, unfortunately.
I am not familiar with any polling that shows the decisive numbers she cites. I just spent quite a while looking, too. I don't think those numbers are honest unless I can see the poll and review the methodology.
What struck me in the article was Ivins' citation about Eugene McCarthy. Did he have courage? I guess he did. Did he win? Well, since I don't recall his Presidency, I guess not.
The point is, the strategy Ivins' is advocating has been used in the past. It has not worked. One definition of insanity is trying the same things over again expecting a different outcome.
The Dems have a real problem on their hands right now. This push by the far left is very dangerous to the party's continued viability. I am not seeing anyone but Lieberman taking a stand against the extremes. An he is being treated as an apostate by the left because of it.
In the NYT defense, I do wonder whether the person who cited the article remembered that he was behind the Times Select wall. I run into links to pay material every once in awhile.
This could be a function of the mindset that everyone who is anyone and knows anything of course has access to the TimesSelect stuff because they, of course, all subscribe.
Or, it could be part of a lame attempt by the NYT to increase TimesSelect revenues - but my vote is on the former.
wv: Canadian Union Catalogue Task Group (CUCTG) - anyone else have the situation where you get what you think is a good word verification word, and then have it not work after you have blogged about it?
I am a bit surprised that Ivins has a political philosophy other than virulent anti-Bush (regardless of which one) feelings. I lived in Austin during GWB's early time as governor, and sounding little different than than she does now. It is almost as if her primary target went national, and she followed.
The other thing I remember about her is that she seems to have effectively popularized the term "shrub" to refer to our current president, at least among the left in Austin in the later 1990s. I find this a bit humorous, given that the son has done so much more with his presidency than his father did (and, got reelected).
I'd love to see Hillary run on her hawkish values. Then we can ask her about things like her well documented quote that "Bill and I hate the military" and the support-the-troops way she kept the enlisted men lined up in the Iraqi sun for an hour and a half while she and her entourage ate a private breakfast.
Please, the only positions that hideous woman is likely to move toward are the ones she thinks will get her elected... and she'll stick to them until about 12:03 a.m. November 5th.
Hillary has a great deal in common with Nixon, IMO. Not all the bad qualities, either.
Hillary is intelligent and well educated, so was Nixon.
Hillary has shown extreme shrewdness and the ability to calculate the mid point of polar positions with micrometer like precision, so had Nixon.
Hillary is a great moneyraisers for her party, so was Nixon.
Hillary is well known for having a cold analytical personality, but exhibited great temper to close friends and associates, so was and did Nixon.
Hillary is lustily hated and sometimes underestimated by her opponents, so was Nixon.
Hillary has a loyal and zealous band of advisors and disciples, so did Nixon.
Nixon's success depended on his remarkable ability to knit together a base of disaffected, immoderate, "out of the mainstream" folks at one end of the political spectrum with middle america into the "silent majority".
If Hillary can do something similar to what Nixon did in 1968,she will be President in 2008.
As Anne said, if she can do that, she will have proven her mettle, and probably deserves her victory.
Offtopic, but related, and definitely fascinating, is this article, Palace Revolt -- They were loyal conservatives, and Bush appointees. They fought a quiet battle to rein in the president's power in the war on terror. And they paid a price for it. It describes lawyers and law professors and their fight to keep the administration within the bounds of the constitution and the law, specifically regarding the torture memos as well as the warrantless wiretaps.
Very interesting, and some describes some conservative lawyers and law professors that I know we all agree are heroes as they fight to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Ann, do you know these guys?
verification word: le4drshp
Bill Clinton got away with being a triangulating centrist because he was so incredibly charismatic and well-spoken. He made it seem like he truly believed what he was saying and he could explain it in terms everyone understood. I'm not convinced that Hillary has that kind of charisma. I believe that swing voters in the last election picked Bush because he is resolute. Even if he's wrong, most voters would rather have him as president than someone who appears wishy washy. Unless the Republicans nominate someone weird like John McCain in 2008, I don't think Hillary can win the general election.
I don't get why the right is happy that Hillary is losing support on the left. I believe Hillary can't possibly win, because nobody trusts her; therefore the Republicans should want her to be the Democratic candidate.
ricardo - Do people say "prove her metal"? Isn't it "mettle"? But "metal" is almost better because the word's a synonym for "steel." Watch, the language is changing before our eyes!
Like "the dog wagging it's tail" is probably going to become standard because it matches the possessive construction for nouns -- "wag the dog's tail."
. . . I have am not in the least predisposed to vote for a Democrat or to vote for a Republican. Just give me someone I can respect, someone with a there there. Of the four politicians I feel that way about on the current scene, three happen to be Republican: McCain (with some doubts instilled by those who say he's a grandstander), Rice, Lindsey Graham, Obama. The last two aren't running in 2008, but I hope one or both will eventually. Hopefully not against each other.
verification word: fufrzim
(Yiddish for cheerleaders' pompoms?)
I have to agree with alikarimbey. I want the first female president to be exemplar. I will not vote for Hillary no matter what her politics are because
(1) I would never vote for a woman who stays with a man who repeatedly cuckolds her.
(2) I would never vote for a woman who rode to power on the back of a man and would be nothing if not for that man.
This is the last type of woman I would want as the first female president. As a woman I would be embarrassed if she were elected.
reader_iam: "When I left daily journalism in '94...."
So reader_iam is also writer_iwas? ;-)
Molly Ivins demands an ideological purity that not only guarantees unelectability, it fosters a replay of the violence that erupted from the far left in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Disaffected by the pedestrian American voter, who repeatedly failed to embrace their apocalyptic world-view and demands for egalitarianism (When do we want it? Now!), disengaged from the electoral process. Instead, they chose violence. The SDS, the Weathermen, SLA, and Black Panthers, to name a few, arose to smite us.
Ivins seems unaware that her leftism will usher in illiberalism. Here we go again.
Verif. Word ~ xjzexjd:Term describing a former rapper and former lawyer.
We concluded that we'd try to save our marriage. I don't know Hillary's motives for staying with Bill.
My opinion is that trying to save one's marriage is one thing while staying with a habitual philanderer is another. I would also bet that number one is related to number two: she's decided that riding on that back is worth more than self-respect. I really can't abide that and would find it impossible to support her as a candidate.
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