Question

by

by hilzoy

I was just reading another story about Hillary Clinton’s nascent campaign for President, and I found myself going over a question that has puzzled me for a long time, namely:

All sorts of people have been writing as though the 2008 Presidential nomination is hers to lose. They have been writing this for years now. And I have absolutely no idea why. The David Broders of the world seem to assume, based on evidence known only to themselves, that she would be a formidable candidate with a lot of support. She does well in polls taken years before the first primary, but as the David Broders of this world must also know, these mostly measure name recognition, not actual support. (Here are poll results about the 2004 Democratic primary; a few organizations have results from Jan. 2003. Lieberman is winning by pretty substantial margins. Remember how well that translated into primary results?)

So what I’ve been wondering is: do any of you support Hillary Clinton for President? I’m not asking whether you would vote for her if nominated; I’d vote for her over most Republicans, but then that’s true of a lot of people. I’m not asking either whether you like or dislike her. I’m asking whether you would prefer to see her nominated over the other people who seem likely to run, and prefer her not just because all the rest are even worse, but because you think: I really want Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic nominee.

My hypothesis is that however many political professionals and op-ed writers think that a Clinton candidacy would be a winner, very few ordinary voters would answer ‘yes’ to the question I just asked.

For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t. As far as I can tell, she’s a fine Senator. But I do not want her running for President. Partly this is just because, while I assume the Republicans will demonize anyone we run, I’d rather not run a pre-demonized candidate and spare them the trouble. Partly it’s the war in Iraq: she voted for it, and that is, for me, a sign of either bad judgment or cowardice; and neither is a good reason to get people killed. Partly it’s because I don’t see what sets her apart from any number of other competent Senators other than her name, and I’d rather not perpetuate our current tendencies towards creating political dynasties. And partly it’s because there were a number of minor episodes in the Clinton’s lives that she seemed to be behind, and that didn’t impress me. They weren’t really big deals, but they seemed to me to indicate a serious lack of political judgment. (The one that stuck in my mind was when it came out that the Clintons had taken a charitable deduction on their taxes for, among other things, donating used underwear. Now: I have worked in places that receive donations of clothing, and no one donates old underwear. It’s a big problem for battered women: lots of donated dresses; no donated underwear. Not that they’d want used underwear in any case, but if any of you are wondering what to give to a shelter for battered women or homeless people, new underwear is always a good idea. — But if the number of people who donate used underwear is vanishingly small, the number of people who itemize it on their tax returns is smaller still. — As I said, not a big deal or an ethical scandal or anything, but not something that made me think: gosh, if only she were President!)

So: does anyone here have any actual enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton’s candidacy?

190 thoughts on “Question”

  1. Do you spend much time at dailykos? There’s a pretty loyal following of Hillary over there. But even on a democratic blog whose content is created by the masses, she has minimal support.
    My apolitical mother asked me recently about Mrs. Clinton. I’m not sure why she asked about her specifically, but I got the impression that as a housewife, Hillary represents everything possible – kinda like Bush represents everything possible for the simpleton except in a good way. I bet Hilary has a pretty loyal voting bloc in the mundane housewife living vicariously through Hilary. I also bet, if Hilary were to win the democratic nomination, we’d hear about the shy Hillary voters post-election, after President Clinton erased a 4 point margin over night. I bet a lot more people could relate to her than would be willing to admit, especially if she relaxes a little. Politicians have to be likeable before anything else is possible.
    Although I’m speaking for other people here; yeah, I think there’s a group of people out there that genuinely do support Hillary, and I think if Hillary valued personality more a lot more people would look forward to her campaign.

  2. 1) I hold no Senator’s vote for the Iraq resolution against them because I think Cheney/Bush would have preferred to go to war in defiance of Congress, with reference to Cheney’s history on War Powers Act and Iran/Contra. It would have been a horrible constitutional crisis in the midst of a full war. Since the war was inevitable, unless the Pentagon supported Congress, the Consttutional Crisis was perhaps better avoided.
    2) I favored HRC more when McCain and the Republicans looked more formidable. Her moderate hawkishness I considered a necessity, and still worry enough about another terroist attack or escalation in the current war or some other unpredictable foreign crisis that none of the ccandidates have established credentials or reputations to overcome the Republicans historical advantage on defense security issues.
    3) The relationship of HRC to the media is complicated. She is definitely part of the DC and neoliberal establishment. The attacks on Bill Clinton never lowered his polls or really diminished his effectiveness. Whereas the press really tried to destroy Gore, and did him damage.
    4) So I favor HRC on electability, competence, and toughness in an atmosphere that I expect to make the last ten years look easy and calm. I would prefer Gore, and Edwards and Obama are growin on me. Kerry is a loser.
    5) I don’t trust any of them on a progressive Economic or Peace agenda. Shoot, Pelosi is attempting to modify Sarbanes-Oxley, I hear, serving her corporate constituents. It is up to us.

  3. Zero enthuthiasm for her. Her politics are old-school DLC. Her positions seem to reflect calculation rather than conviction. Does she lead on anything?
    I have read that she has a significant fan base (though I have never met such a person). Her early lead is not just name recognition a la Lieberman in 1/03. She also has huge negatives — name recognition works both ways.

  4. While I may or may not hold a vote for the Iraq War Resolution against any particular Senator, my suspicion is that, by this time next year, it’s going to be a death sentence for anyone seeking the Democratic nomination for President. The war is only going to get less popular from here, and it’s going to be mighty easy for other candidates to stick those who voted in favor with a share of the blame.
    The only likely exception to this is John Edwards, who pretty convincingly admitted to making a mistake a long time ago. At this point, I think that it’s too late to perform a mea culpa, and I don’t think Hillary Clinton is capable is capable of saying, “I made a horrible mistake.” Full stop.
    Edwards, of course, has already fired a shot across everyone’s bow on the subject. Sure, it was McCain he just collared with the war, but don’t think that he hasn’t considered ways to do the same thing to hawkish Democrats.
    In other words, I don’t think Hillary is going to win the nomination.

  5. Zero enthuthiasm for her. Her politics are old-school DLC. Her positions seem to reflect calculation rather than conviction. Does she lead on anything?
    Eh. I think she makes a pretty good Senator. My problem is entirely different. I don’t think she has the management skills to run a sidewalk lemonade stand. I’m okay with her as long as she isn’t actually in charge of anything.

  6. I could itemize the reasons I don’t favor HRC for the Democratic nomination, but Hilzoy just did it. “Me too.”

  7. Any discussion of whether Hilary is electable that does not talk about gender is disingenuous.
    What makes her unelectable is that she is a woman. What makes her negatives so high is that she is a woman. Her policies mean *nothing*. She is not on a level playing field with the other candidates, and it is ludicrous to pretend otherwise.
    I would work for her, because I am so friggin sick of the Boy’s Club. But I also think she’s unelectable, because sexism in American life is just too pervasive for it to be otherwise. For a woman to be Commander-in-Chief breaks too many people’s brains.

  8. I suspect Doctor Science has it exactly right – look at the horror from the Boys’ Club about Nancy Pelosi, who is only two steps away from being Commander in Chief herself. The UK has had only one woman as Prime Minister, though over the past 200 years a woman has been head of state a majority of that time, and it’s notable that even now the default cultural assumption (shown in movies and novels) is that the Prime Minister will be a man.
    There is the added factor that, so far as the Republican party and the media are concerned, the Democratic candidate for President will be presented as unelectable even after he’s actually won an election. Avedon Carol pointed out last year that Al Gore seemed to be most people’s favored candidate, and certainly he’s already proved his electability in 2000, though he was prevented from taking office.

  9. I really don’t know. I don’t support anyone at the moment, because it is far to early to think about it (at least over here on the Pacific Rim) However, I think Dr. Science has an excellent point and I’m wondering if anyone sees it a possibility that Hillary would be vice president (imagining that she garners substantial support but it is not enough to overcome the negative opinions) Would this be an option (both in terms of personality and politics) and what do people think of it? In a sense, it would be a redux of some of the arguments for the Bush-Cheney ticket.

  10. My hypothesis is that however many political professionals and op-ed writers think that a Clinton candidacy would be a winner, very few ordinary voters would answer ‘yes’ to the question I just asked.
    I suspect that readers of the always-erudite Obsidian Wings are not exactly “ordinary”.
    Re “I don’t think she has the management skills to run a sidewalk lemonade stand” – Brad DeLong, who worked in the Treasury under Clinton, waxed eloquent on that subject. He also waxed any hopes he may have had for working win a Hillary Admin, but there you go.
    An excerpt:
    My two cents’ worth–and I think it is the two cents’ worth of everybody who worked for the Clinton Administration health care reform effort of 1993-1994–is that Hillary Rodham Clinton needs to be kept very far away from the White House for the rest of her life. Heading up health-care reform was the only major administrative job she has ever tried to do. And she was a complete flop at it. She had neither the grasp of policy substance, the managerial skills, nor the political smarts to do the job she was then given. And she wasn’t smart enough to realize that she was in over her head and had to get out of the Health Care Czar role quickly.

  11. That Brad DeLong entry was interesting, but I seem to remember it bouncing around the blogosphere and various people pointing to both extenuating circumstances and that HRC learned a lot from those mistakes. This is not to say that DeLong’s take is wrong, but I remember wondering if we want someone who has never had a chance to make a mistake, or someone who has made them and learned from them?

  13. The UK has had only one woman as Prime Minister, though over the past 200 years a woman has been head of state a majority of that time, and it’s notable that even now the default cultural assumption (shown in movies and novels) is that the Prime Minister will be a man.
    I suspect that’s because if you wrote a novel in which the PM was a woman, people would assume that the character was a disguised Thatcher. Partly because Thatcher’s been the only one, but mostly because Thatcher was such a divisive and well-known figure. Just as, if you created a US president who was an Irish Catholic, people would immediately make the link with Kennedy; or if you wrote about a centenarian senator, people would think you were referring to Strom Thurmond.
    If your female PM was right-wing, people would think she was Thatcher; if not, people would think you were trying to set her up as an antithesis to Thatcher.
    So, if you just want to write a novel and don’t want to make people think about Thatcher, you make the PM male.
    Douglas Hurd, incidentally, in his political thrillers in the 1970s, made the monarch male – to make it quite clear that it wasn’t Elizabeth II, but a fictional and highly political monarch. Michael Dobbs did the same thing.

  14. I should add that, although women are still a small minority in parliament, fictional female MPs are pretty common.
    And fictional black senior British military officers seem almost de rigeur on TV and film, despite their being basically non-existent in real life. See, for example, the James Bond films and “Doctor Who”.

  15. Clinton is my Senator, and I voted for her twice, and will probably continue to as long as she wants to run. I’d vote for her for President, too, since her opponent would be a Republican. But not with enthusiasm. And I would prefer another candidate — at this point almost any other likely candidate that the Democrats have.
    Her Iraq vote is the main issue. She said at the time (I’m going by memory here) that she considered herself to be giving the President the support he needed to credibly pursue the issue at the UN, rather than a blank check to do whatever he wanted unilaterally. But then when he went in anyway, she didn’t complain. That part was cowardice, which is bad enough, but I think that she too got caught up in the fever of Something Must Be Done. That calls her judgment into question.
    HillaryCare (from which I presume she has learned) and the dynasty thing are smaller issues, counterbalanced by her sex — I think it’s high time for a woman President.
    In general I disagree with Bob about crises — when you “avoid” them, are you really just postponing them? In this case, I think Congress would have rolled over and let Bush and Cheney do what they wanted even without a war authorization, but that by this point the illegality of the war would be even more obvious, leading perhaps by now to a double-impeachable moment and President Pelosi.
    The thing about crises is they cause issues to be resolved. That’s why, for example, Ford’s pardon of Nixon (and Nixon’s resignation itself, IMO) felt like such a slap in the face — it cut short the process of resolution.

  16. I remember wondering if we want someone who has never had a chance to make a mistake…
    Go, Obama!
    But seriously… I think Hillary is plenty smart enough to learn from her mistakes. However, I wonder whether her inner control freak will ever let her get comfortable in an executive post where responsibility must be delegated and stuff happens.

  18. Not me, either. Last time, I supported Edwards, even though I described him as having incredible half-hours, followed by disappearing from the political radar for months at a time. Since then, my appreciation of his skills is even higher, and I think he has shown the ability to grab the spotlight in a positive way (as the recent McCain slam showed).
    Of the top-tier candidates, Hillary is my least favorite, as I think she brings nothing to the table that any of the other candidates aren’t better at. She’ll still be formidable in the primaries, but I doubt she will win.

  19. Ranking who I’d prefer to be President:
    1) Feingold (grrrr)
    2) Gore
    3) Obama
    4) Edwards
    5) Richardson
    6) Clinton
    7) Kerry
    8) Clinton
    9) Warner
    10) Vilsak
    Ranking who I’d prefer to be the Candidate:
    1) Feingold
    2) Obama
    3) Warner
    4) Richardson
    5) Gore
    6) Clark
    7) Clinton
    8) Edwards
    9) Vilsak
    10) Kerry (Run John Run!)
    So, um, no.

  20. OT: How nice – Mischa riffs on Ann Coulter (surprise)

    Remember how the Dhimmicrats, fueled by bloodlust and communist fervor, steadfastly refused to do so, rendering the word of the United States forever suspect, if not indeed meaningless?
    Remember how the starved South Vietnamese forces, after a heroic and hopeless fight, were defeated by the Dhimmicrats’ faithful communist allies of Hanoi?
    Remember the millions of innocent people that were brutally murdered as a result of the Dhimmicrats’ betrayal?
    All of those innocents were murdered by the Democrat Party.
    And now, just as we’re involved in another war that they desperately want us to lose, they’re back in power.
    That is bad news for us, and it is seriously bad news for millions of Iraqis.
    Deja vu all over again.
    And that is why this world will never be a better place until every last socialist on the surface of it has been exterminated. Just as any other disease, they need to be purged from the body of mankind. Because if they’re not, they’ll keep popping back up, and every time the Socialist death toll will rise.
    It is time for the vile, hateful, diseased religion of Karl Marx and all of its pathological mutations to be laid to rest permanently.
    Because if we don’t get rid of it, we’ll keep seeing history repeating itself.

    All inspired by Coulter’s declaration that the Democratic party is ‘a vast sleeper cell‘.

  21. I think she can win the general, and would be better than anyone the Republicans can possibly nominate. I think a great many supporters are motivated by belief in both points. And the wish, should she win, to have backed a winner. For this latter reason, talk of inevitability of her nomination is, to an extent, self-fulfilling.
    I’m not a devoted follower at this point. Each of the potential nominees has strengths and weaknesses, and it’s early. None are obviously better than Sen. Clinton — well, if I had a magic wand, I’d put the former VP in the race. The good news is that most of our potential candidates broadly agree on most of the issues that matter, and so any of them are going to draw from the same pool for positions like Sec of State, Treasury, Labor, and the like. And the federal bench. Inasmuch as hiring is the most important thing a pres can do — followed closely by listening to people hired — I’m not afraid of any of them at this point.
    I certainly don’t have to listen to anyone, anyone, who has ever supported the current Pres in any way, on things like experience, temperament, intelligence, seriousness, character, policy positions, etc.

  22. I stopped paying attention to Misha quite a while back. I’m not sure why I ever started, to tell the truth. He’s always turned up to 11.
    I mean, I completely get his desire to eliminate even the possibility of totalitarian socialist states, but I think that such sentiments really ought to be informed by what’s going on now, and scaled appropriately.
    Still stuck on 11, though.

  24. I mean, I completely get his desire to eliminate even the possibility of totalitarian socialist states, but I think that such sentiments really ought to be informed by what’s going on now, and scaled appropriately.

    Er, so if circumstances changed, you’d support the extermination of EVERY socialist on earth (soldier or civilian, man, woman, child, me)?! Because that is what Misha meant when he demanded the extermination of “every last socialist” on earth (presumably including the ‘murderous’ Dhimmicrats): genocide.
    😉

  25. I am convinced the only people who truly want Hillary Clinton to run for president, and the ones who constantly tout her as the “frontrunner”, are the Republicans–and Dick Morris of course. Have you ever seen him on Fox news touting her campaign? He absolutely loathes her, but just loves the idea of her running for president and is sure she will literally stab anyone in the back to achieve her desires.

  26. Er,
    no.
    I am convinced
    It’s that reactivating-the-base thing. Hilary is, to implant a completely Brillo-worthy image, Sean Hannity’s wet dream.
    Not technically insane until these kind of guys notice that it’s not working, probably.

  27. No. At the moment, of the potential candidates (eliminating people like Feingold and Warner who have already dropped out), I prefer Gore, Obama, Edwards, and Clark to Hilary. And it’s not close.

  28. Freder:

    I am convinced the only people who truly want Hillary Clinton to run for president, and the ones who constantly tout her as the “frontrunner”, are the Republicans–and Dick Morris of course.

    I think the positive attention Obama appears to have garnered from the center-right (if one uses the blogosphere as a yardstick) is at least slightly discomforting to the RNC leadership.
    As Slart said, Hitlery is a more familiar, polarizing figure who would embolden many GOP stalwarts (and possibly alienating a number of progressive Dems at the same time.)

  29. People: I am Hilary with one L. Ms. Clinton has two Ls. (Her spelling is right; mine is wrong, for a woman.) I very much doubt that I am Sean Hannity’s wet dream.
    Thanks. We now return you to your regularly scheduled commenting.

  31. No. My memory is that she was also responsible for the “admit nothing and stonewall” approach to the issues relating to Whitewater–since these were overblown, more disclosure would have been better in the end. I assumed this was her legal training overcoming any political sense–so she may have improved. I’d certainly admit she has done an OK job in the Senate–but so?

  32. Re: Edwards, his wife has popped up commenting on various blogs. I’ve only seen it once and I’ve forgotten where, but I find it interesting, especially in light of Ezra Klein’s analysis of his announcement (note our own Bob McManus in the comments with some contrary thoughts)

  33. People: I am Hilary with one L. Ms. Clinton has two Ls. (Her spelling is right; mine is wrong, for a woman.) I very much doubt that I am Sean Hannity’s wet dream.
    The one-l Hilary, she’s quite bright,
    The two-l Hillary, provokes the right
    Someone there is no need to pillory:
    The non-existent three-l Hilllary

  34. hilzoy,
    “Her spelling is right; mine is wrong, for a woman.”
    These days, no such thing as wrong spelling for names, especially female names, exists. When we were considering names for our kids, we bought a book which includes lots of weird spellings. My all-time favorite was changing the name typically written “Michaela” to “McKayla”, as if one were honoring a long-dead Scottish ancestor.

  37. HRC is my least favorite candidate for the Democratic nomination. Her health care work was a disaster, but she did not learn anything from it. Instead, she seems to have been scarred by the experience and now backs the insurance/pharma lobby on everything. In that sense, she has learned a lesson (never buck the industries) but it is the wrong lesson.
    Iraq is a giant strike 2; if she had done anything in the last few years to demonstrate that she appreciates how wrong her position was, I could overlook that, but she hasn’t.
    Hilzoy, I think the one base of support that HRC has that you may not be seeing is her ability to raise cash. She has significantly more on hand than other D candidates, and in the minds of most pundits, nothing says electable like sacks full of cash.

  38. While not taking up the mantle of HRC defender, noting the ‘admit nothing and stonewall’ approach reminds me of this
    Perhaps ABC’s most egregious journalistic misstep while chasing the Whitewater story came during a December 1995 “Nightline” broadcast, which cast an extraordinarily damning light on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s explanation about previous Little Rock billings her law firm did on behalf of Jim McDougal’s Madison Guaranty. Did Clinton, or a young lawyer named Rick Massey, do the work? After ABC’s crude bit of editing of a 1994 press conference held by Clinton, “Nightline” viewers saw Clinton tell reporters: “The young attorney, the young bank officer, did all the work.” Next the screen showed handwritten notes taken by Hillary Clinton’s aides during the 1992 campaign: “She [Hillary] did all the billing,” the notes indicated. The “Nightlight” telecast all but labeled the first lady a liar.
    What viewers did not know was that ABC not only had taken Clinton’s response out of context but had edited out 39 words from Clinton’s 1994 press conference response to create a damning scenario. As Conason and Gene Lyons noted in their book “The Hunting of the President, “ABC News had taken a video clip out of context, and then accused the first lady of prevaricating about the very material it had removed.”     link
    I’d just note that I’m not sure any approach can deal with that kind of reporting.

  40. I am a proud 4-time Clinton voter. I think Hillary has been an excellent Senator and I would love to see her as Majority Leader, but no, she’s definitely not my #1 choice for President.
    My impression, though, is that there is significant enthusiasm for her candidacy, much of it among low-information voters. Some of these people mentally pencil in Hillary because hers is simply the name they’ve heard bandied about for so long; some are Bill fans who would love to see him back in the White House in any capacity (even if he has to sleep on the couch); some are understandably excited about the idea of a woman holding the office; and so on. I guess the primaries will sort this out. Recent polls which have shown her ahead of McCain head-to-head are encouraging.
    On a personal note, back when I was a low-information voter myself, Hillary came and spoke at my law school back in the 1992 primary season. In person, I thought she was an absolutely electrifying speaker, and she definitely won a lot of support for her husband that day. But I don’t think she does as well on TV, for whatever reason.

  41. My own first choice, by a long way, is Gore. Regrettably, I think he has no intention of running.
    I’m more or less undecided about the active people, though I lean towards Edwards.
    I don’t have strong views either way about HRC, except the usual concern about her very high negatives hurting her ability to win. Yes, she’s very calculating, but what serious candidate for President isn’t?

  42. George H.W. Bush
    William J. Clinton
    William J. Clinton
    George W. Bush
    George W. Bush

    To be followed by
    Hillary R. Clinton? That no longer looks like a statistical error, nor a democratic republic.

  46. Anybody checked out Bizarro World today?
    i was chuckling at the antics of Mr Lucifer Cornblossom, earlier. he’s about to get Blammed for Moe’s inability to read minds as clearly as Moe thinks he can.

  50. Boy am I in trouble.
    I am very far from excited about HRC (which is how I avoid the spelling problem). Her economic policies will be far too DLC/neo-liberal/Rubinesque to suit me. In many ways, I vastly prefer Edwards…my rhetoric in Ezra’s threads were partly just because I became bored with Edwards enthusiasm. I expect HRC to make a deal on Social Security.
    But she is a fighter, without illusions or ambitions about universal approval. We need big tax increases. We are almost assured of fragile economic conditions. I think HRC is capable of raising taxes in a recession while ensuring a safety net, thereby say lowering GDP a point and increasing employment a point. Like Carter, Reagan. So far, it looks to me that the only people Edwards is willing to anger are the wonkish free-traders.
    And the war is hell. This is not Vietnam;at some point I think “they” will come back to America. If a)we pull out of Iraq by 2010, and b) lose 5000 people in a terroist attack (or lose the SA oilfields;or have an Islamist revolution in SA,etc), HRC is the only one I trust to act sanely under a mountain of pressure. Maybe Clark or Gore or Kerry. I do not have yet that confidence in Edwards or Obama.
    Maybe the best move is to pull out of the ME and let Israel and whatever just happen; go Manhattan on Energy, slash and burn the defense budget, and build fortress America…turn into Denmark. I am for that. Edwards doesn’t have the nerve for that either.
    And I cannot emphasize enough:all the good stuff comes from the bottom-up, pushing really hard and mean. The Presidency is third on my list of priorities, after the grassroots and Congress.

  51. I was talking about economics last night, how economists seek equilibrium and have difficulty with catastrophes. I fear too many people assume conditions next year of 5 years from now will be roughly what they are today.
    I expect catastrophes, radical changes and discontinuities that require radical decisions and radical politics. Just me.

  52. It wasn’t that one MB, it was one where there was some talk about where people went to school and was a bit more civil. Atrios also posted something about how this was an unreported story, so I assume that she was around a lot more. I tend not to go into comments unless I’m following links and even then, not so often, so I may be assuming too much, though.

  53. “All sorts of people have been writing as though the 2008 Presidential nomination is hers to lose. They have been writing this for years now. And I have absolutely no idea why.”
    As I understand the argument (maybe via Mark Schmitt) this is (was?) a simple combination of her having the black vote wrapped up and plenty of cash. (Maybe this included the claim that many women would vote for her as well, and there are of course other ideas too – e.g. that she’s inoculated against smears). I thought the above was, if in fact held by the cognoscenti, part of the strategic basis of Obama’s candidacy.
    I dislike her candidacy on JM‘s grounds, plus the likely freak-out on the far right wouldn’t be fun.

  54. Emphatically no.
    Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see a woman in the White House, and I’d love to see Bill back in a place where he at least has some input on policy through having her ear. And she is certainly a very intelligent person, which is more than can be said of the Boy King. She’s also vastly preferable to any of the potential Republican offerings, even McCain.
    But in the primaries: not only no, but hell no.
    I have a friend. A very liberal, very intelligent friend. He is a natural Democrat in every possible way but one: he hates nanny-statism. I don’t much like it either, and I suspect a lot of Democrats don’t, I’m just under no illusions about how much worse the Republicans are when it comes to legislating a narrow morality.
    In 2000, this friend voted for Bush over Gore for two reasons: Gore’s wife Tipper, and Lieberman on the ticket. Tipper, as most of you know, co-founded the PMRC, and Lieberman’s support of legislating censorship and control over entertainment media is fairly well-known. Hillary has a history of backing similarly noxious legislation against entertainment media (movies, television, video games), and this–along with the way that she’s triangulated on Iraq and helped move the center further to the right–are what make her a deal-breaker for him. If she wins the nomination in 2008, and the Republicans nominate a moderate, he’ll vote for the Republican.
    Anecdotal, perhaps, but his is not exactly a minority view amongst Democrats.

  56. I’m opposed to HRC precisely because, like Bob, I also expect radical discontinuities. I have no trust in her character at times of crunch, and no basis on which to form a judgment about the sort of thing she’d probably do.

  57. Any discussion of whether Hilary is electable that does not talk about gender is disingenuous.
    What makes her unelectable is that she is a woman.
    I think this has truth and is a very important concept, but that it overstates the case. I think even Republicans would support the right kind of woman for President — note the buzz about Rice (which is only buzz, but indicative of a point of view). For the bigoted about women, HRC is the wrong kind of woman.
    But bigotry aside, there are plenty of non-sexist reasons to not like HRC (and yes, even by the non-bigoted Republicans). However, in close elections, all it takes is an added measure of bigotry by a slice of the electorate to make someone unelectable. But that does not mean that bigotry is the sole or even dominant reason why people do not want her as president.
    JFK was brilliant for tackling the religious bigotry issue head on and spinning a negative as a positive (are you voting against me because you are prejudiced against Catholics?) I expect HRC to try to do the same thing, although not as successfully.

  58. The problem with Hillary:
    1) As a President — she is no leader. She is not telegenic, not warm, and appears to have little gift for winning people over even in person. Worse, she has no vision — her positions are mostly her husband’s warmed-over stump speeches, and Bill was notorious for having shopping lists instead of themes. I don’t know of any matter on which she has taken a strong and unpopular stand, nor has she articulated any particular view of America. In the words of an old Doonesbury strip, she seems to think she should be President because she is “best qualified to wing it.” Even if she were (which I doubt), it would not be enough: a President should have a clear & reasonably self-consistent vision of where she wants her Administration, and the country, to go. Say what you will against George W, and I have said plenty, he has taken unpopular stands and changed the country tremendously. Hillary does not seem to have any desire to do that. Few Presidents achieve ambitious agendas, but I think much better of those that have them. Hillary does not.
    2) As a candidate, she would be the single best GOTV ploy in history — for the wrong side. Little old Republican ladies would rise up and drag their dialysis machines to the polls for the chance to vote against Hillary. I have not seen this level of bilious loathing for a politician since Nixon. Meanwhile, as our “one-l” Hilzoy suggests, few people on the Dem. side are passionate about her, so many would just stay home.
    No.
    Let me rephrase that: GOD, NO!

  59. Was that really you?
    let’s just say i’ve consulted with Mr Cornblossom and he finds it interesting that he can only get a blank page from redstate.com.
    as to whether i am Mr Cornblossom or not… i’m sure Moe Lane, if he still has privs here, could pretty easily tell if we’re posting from the same address.

  60. Catsy, I agree that a lot of Democrats find that sort of social legislation offensive or off-putting. With all due respect to your friend, I suspect few Democrats are stupid enough to think that even a “moderate” Republican would be less prone to legislate morality than she would be, but surely many people would stay home rather than vote for Hillary, for that reason.

  63. I like Hillary. I think she is a fine Senator, and would make a great Majority Leader of the Senate some day.
    Yes, I would vote for Hillary if she is the nominee. NO, I would never list her as high on my list of choices, and I would go to the polls and vote for most anyone else in the primaries. (Probably John Edwards at this point, but maybe General Clark…)

  64. I’m against Hillery because its seems she’s been forced on us by people that don’t wish us well. I’m for Hillery so that we can bookend a Bush like the Bushes bookended Clinton. I’d prefer Bob McManus though he can be something of a downer sometimes.

  65. No. No enthusiasm for her, and I endorse Jackmormon’s observation at 11:23 AM. I’d like to see Gore nominated (not that it has any chance of happening).

  66. Not for the nomination, no. Better Edwards or Gore or Bill Richardson (though he’d have to lose a little weight to be taken seriously, God only knows why).

  67. Hillary would be a disaster for the Democratic party, which is why so many Republicans desperately want her to run. The GOP has been campaigning against her husband practically nonstop since 1992, after all, and this would let them attack him and his wife at the same time.

  68. There is a significant constitution of the public that believes Hillary is the antiChrist, or at the very least Satan’s third cousin. The vitriol against her is like nothing I have ever seen, and for little reason I can tell (the fact that she actually took an active role in the White House, perhaps, rather than staying home and pruning violets).
    OTOH, Democratic support for her seems to be apathetic at best. You know you are likely to have a losing candidate when the reponse to her tends to be a sigh and “Yeah, better than [opposing party’s candidate], but I wish we’d have picked someone else.” People are more likely to stay home.
    I myself am tentatively favoring Edwards and Obama — that is, I can see myself being enthusiastic about either, and don’t really prefer one over the other at this moment. But Hillary? Eh. And I think many folks share the same response.

  69. I can forgive HRC for voting for the authorization–after all I don’t know for a fact that she did so out of moral cowardice. It’s remotely possible that she was genuinely bamboozled by Bush bullshit. However, I can’t forgive her for how long it took her to repudiate her vote or the weaselly way she did it. And now, while just about every Dem that has pretensions to leadership, has repudiated the surge, she has not. Waiting to see which way the wind blows. Waiting for it to be absolutely safe to come out against the surge. Sheesh.
    I think she is insincere and unwilling to buck the conventional unwisdoms of the Beltway and I think those qualities make her a poor candidate.

  70. I’m no fan of HRC. Her triangulating on issues like flag burning and her incredibly awkward outreach on morals issues make me believe that she has no moral center; she just wants the power.

  72. I’d probably vote for her over whoever the Republicans are likely to put up in 2008 (assuming it will be McCain, Giuliani, or Romney), if I bothered to vote at all.
    An interesting point about how sexism might affect the vote. I’d add that whoever our first female President is, she’s going to be under an inordinate amount of pressure. Baseball fans in the audience doubtless recall the pressure Jackie Robinson faced as the first black player in the major leagues; not only did he have to face off with horrific racism, he had to prove to the world that blacks could play baseball as well as whites. Of course, he proved that in spades (Robinson’s brilliance as a player is often overshadowed by his performance as a barrier-breaker, but he was one of the all-time great ballplayers).
    It doesn’t seem unreasonable to assume that a female President would face similar pressures, though; if she were to come up short, the sexists would have a field day claiming it proved they were right all along. Granted, they’ll claim that anyhow, but how those claims are received will rely heavily on actual performance. As if being President doesn’t carry enough pressure already.

  73. I’m with hilzoy — I think Hillary’s clout is overrated. She’s got money — so did Steve Forbes. She’s got Bill, a significant but depreciating asset. She knows how to run a national campaign.
    Normally, that would be enough to be a lock on the nomination. Now, all she has a lock on, is second place. Either Edwards or Obama could give her serious problems as both of them have no where near the disenchantment in the base.
    I wish she’d stay out and let Edwards, Obama, or Gore take the Dem pennant more cleanly. And I think she has the potential to be one of the best Senators in 50 years — her talents are perfectly suited for that body.

  75. And why is that, Slart? I expect that somebody (actually, probably many somebodies) will have responses to that; it’s part of why I decided to post it.

  76. Not sure what slarti meant, but perhaps a more care in choice of words would have been a good idea, Andrew 🙂
    he had to prove to the world that blacks could play baseball as well as whites. Of course, he proved that in spades

  78. I feel compelled to add, btw, that I think we’re well overdue for a female President and that, yes, there’s tremendous latent sexism in the country with regards to that office — as well as religionism, ageism, lookism and a whole passel of subtle and not-so-subtle bigotries that we as a country are resolutely in denial about — and that yes, once she takes office there will be tremendous and unfair pressure on her to prove she’s As Good As A Man.
    I’m still only lukewarm on Hillary, mind, but that’s because I don’t really like her politics and policies. I’d probably still vote for her over a Republican, mind, but I wouldn’t be particularly happy about it.

  79. I’d definitely vote for her over a Republican, but in the primary I’d vote for almost anyone over her — definitely Obama, Edwards, Gore, Clark, but maybe not Kerry, and definitely not Lieberman (if his delusions grew enough that he decided to run again). There are a few I don’t really know enough about to judge, I guess.
    I keep hearing there are a lot of Hillary supporters out there, but I don’t know where they’re hiding. Somewhere in the “real America” perhaps.

  80. Oh, ****. I play bridge; that particular connotation never even crossed my mind.
    Let’s get Sebastian and then maybe we can get a fourth somewhere.
    OT, but I don’t think black players really had to prove much, at least to people who were familiar with Negro League stars.
    Sorry to embarrass you, though.

  81. Ixnay on the Intonclay. I’ve never been convinced that she had any leadership ability — only ambition.
    I’d prefer Clark or Edwards, Richardson, or Obama with Clark as VP (since I don’t see Clark getting the nomination outright…not enough of a crony). Please not Clinton.

  82. Bernard,
    No harm done. While I concur that from a purely objective standpoint, the Negro Leagues had nothing to prove (Negro League teams that played white teams won ~66% of the games prior to integration), from the perspective of the racism that existed at the time, I think it’s quite fair to say that Robinson was under tremendous pressure to disprove the prevailing, incorrect, wisdom. Had Robinson not been such a great player, it’s not inconceivable integration could have been set back quite a few years as racist owners used that failure as a rationale to continue keeping blacks out of the game. (I’ll note here that this is the point I’m making about a female President as well; objectively, I cannot think of any plausible reason why a woman could not be just as capable a President as a man, but there are certainly plenty of people in this country who disagree with me based on emotion, and emotion is a lot harder to overcome than logic.)

  83. I was a bit surprised to see Richardson’s name several times above. I have the vague sense he’s not the sharpest pol out there, maybe due to his time running DOE – is that unfair?
    I’m not likely to vote based on my guess at which candidate is smartest, but I might impose a cut-off.

  84. I’ve seen the polls showing that Clinton has plenty of support, and, like others, I haven’t ever met an enthusiastic Clinton supporter. However, I don’t think that means anything. My friends and relations are not a representative sample of the US electorate. I’m inclined to believe the polls.

  85. Why in the world would the folks at RedState decide that Jane Harman as the new DNI is a good idea? I mean, I think she is vastly preferable to any choice that the administration would make, but were they paying attention the last few months of the last session? Harman, while perhaps not the right choice for head of a Democrat led intelligence committee, showed that she isn’t nearly the friend of Bush’s policies that they seem to think she is.

  86. No enthusiasm for Hillary here. She tends to make bad decisions, and stick to them. And like ‘Francis’ says, the triangulation just snuffs out any budding warmth.

  88. “Oh, ****. I play bridge; that particular connotation never even crossed my mind.
    Let’s get Sebastian and then maybe we can get a fourth somewhere.”
    Count me in.

  89. Rilkefan- I’d say Richardson mostly on strategic grounds, in that he would represent a step away from the prevailing power center in the Democratic party and an embrace of the Western strategy in opposition to the Southern strategy. I think he is more centrist and more of a swing threat.
    Can’t say much about him as a candidate, otherwise.

  91. Jackmormon,
    The system I play differs from his (mine’s more of a simplified Precision), but I am used to tournament bridge games.

  93. Matt Austen: consider the polls in Jan. 2003, which, as I said (since I looked them up!) showed Lieberman leading. And since I was pretty seriously following the primaries, I remember pretty clearly how pitifully that turned out.
    I honestly don’t think she has much real support at all, outside pundits and political establishment types. She’s not the last person I’d vote for in the primaries — I’d vote for her over Kucinich or Kerry, for instance — but she’s certainly the last of the people who are presently thought to have a snowball’s chance in hell.

  95. Bridge…haven’t played that since I was 14 or so. Can’t recall what system we used, though; it was whatever my parents used. They were avid bridge-clubbers for quite a while.

  96. I learned bridge in college, and played again a few years later when an old college buddy wound up in graduate school at the same place/time as I. We played basic Kaplan-Sheinwold, and scored what would have been a few* master points (*in the single digits) if we’d bothered to register them.
    But that was more than 30 years ago, and since then I’ve rarely played. I still read the bridge column regularly, and I suspect my play of the hand has not deteriorated too much. But my bidding would be hopeless without not just review, but actually learning conventions new since my time. (“New” including conventions known then only by experts, but now widely spread.)
    Nevertheless, if this game ever materializes, count me in. I will style myself as the HRC of social bridge, the player “best prepared to wing it.”
    (Oh, and just to swerve back on-topic, I don’t have the anti-Hillary animus of some here, but neither am I bubbling with enthusiasm. Probably wouldn’t vote for her in the primary [depending on her opponents], but certainly would in the general election, against any conceivable Republican.)

  97. Bridge has become insanely hot in the department here, with a regular group meeting at least once, and sometimes as many as five times, a week. I haven’t really participated, alas, so I’ve had to downgrade my skills from mediocre to “pathetic-but-interesting”.

  98. Well, if people are interested, I know you can play via Yahoo Games. Who would like to set up a time to get together and give it a shot?

  99. I’ll put myself up as player least prepared to wing it, but willing to do so anyway.
    Kind of like the rest of my life, really.

  100. Beyond “…I’d rather not run a pre-demonized candidate and spare them the trouble.” there is also the fiasco of health care in the early days of the Clinton admin — Hillary’s doing for those too young to remember.
    I like Hillary but I am with you on this one: why the annointment? The only reason I can think of (understood broadly) is advertising dollars — the media likes a good fight.

  101. I agree donating underware is something you can’t be proud of. But why imply this was her idea? Just because you “have a feeling” doesn’t mean this is the truth.
    Otherwise I wouldn’t prefer Hilary over other candidate. She seems to be overwhelmed with her own role at times and this leads her to bad decisions. Maybe being a woman is part of the pressure, but in my opinion that is one of her advantages.

  103. Late to the party. But just thought I’d register my complete lack of interest in suppoting Hillary for prez.

  104. Jackmormon wrote: “George H.W. Bush William J. Clinton William J. Clinton George W. Bush George W. Bush – To be followed by Hillary R. Clinton? That no longer looks like a statistical error, nor a democratic republic.”
    Perfect excuse for me to link to Tim Kreider’s Presidential Timeline. I agree that there’s something creepily dynastic about the idea.

  105. Actually, no.
    For Bush the son to follow Bush the father is creepily dynastic.
    For Hillary Diane Rodham, who had a career and ambitions well before she married a man who later became President of the United States, to become the first woman President, isn’t creepily dynastic – it’s just a lesson in how women should never be sandbagged into adopting their husband’s surname.

  107. Even if Hillary changed her name back to Rodham, it seems pretty creepily dynastic, particularly as, just as in the case of President George W. Bush, Senator Clinton would not be a viable candidate for President if not for her relationship to a prior President.

  108. Andrew: Even if Hillary changed her name back to Rodham, it seems pretty creepily dynastic
    Nope. It can be something else, if you can think of a word for it – husband has job, 8 years later wife also gets job – but it can’t be dynastic, creepy or otherwise. (If Chelsea Clinton became President, that would be creepily dynastic, just like it was when George W. Bush became President.)
    particularly as, just as in the case of President George W. Bush, Senator Clinton would not be a viable candidate for President if not for her relationship to a prior President.
    Oh, come off it. Hillary Rodham Clinton may or may not work as a Presidential candidate – that’s not exactly something I feel equipped to judge – but she had, by October 11, 1975 (wikicite) already accomplished more, unaided, than George W. Bush had managed with the help of his father and all his father’s rich friends. George W. Bush had quite literally nothing going for him except that his father used to be President. Hillary Rodham’s accomplishments prior to her marriage to Clinton might not ever have led her to the Presidency, but she is way more qualified for it than George W. Bush was.

  109. I agree that there’s something creepily dynastic about the idea.
    This is the only thing I have against HRC. But yeah, it is a fatal flaw (to me anyway) to the extent that I will not vote for her unless there is a Bush on the other ticket.

  110. I know I’ll regret asking, but when did you gain the authority to decide what opinions people are authorized to hold? As far as I’m concerned, you’re free to disagree with the terming of a second President Clinton as ‘creepily dynastic,’ but since it’s a subjective question, your opinion is no more valid than anyone else’s.
    but she is way more qualified for it than George W. Bush was.
    When did this become the issue? All I said was that HRC wouldn’t be a legitimate candidate for President if not for who she was related to. In this respect, and only in this respect, she and President Bush are comparable. You’re disputing something I never said.

  112. Well, if people are interested, I know you can play via Yahoo Games. Who would like to set up a time to get together and give it a shot?
    Count me in, as long as it works on a Mac, which some bridge sites don’t.
    Let’s work out details via email.

  113. Since when can’t dynasties include the succession of spouses?
    Because a “dynasty” usually means “multiple generations,” both in terms of descendants and time in power. A spouse isn’t that.
    With the Bushes, you’ve got a paterfamilias as President, a son as Governor and President, another son as Governor (and who was clearly meant to try for the Presidency until George made “Bush” synonymous with “no damn good”), and a nephew who was being groomed for politics until he ran into legal trouble.
    With the Clintons, you’ve got Bill and Hillary. Roger sure isn’t going to run for anything, Chelsea’s shown no interest in a political career (though that could change), and there isn’t anyone else.
    I’m not wild about Hillary, though I don’t dislike her as much as most. My main beef against her is that she’s unimaginative, and an incrementalist. Those aren’t, in and of themselves, bad – but we’re headed into an era of huge challenges, made worse by the Bush/GOP fiasco, and I don’t think an unimaginative incrementalist is what we need.
    The next few Presidents will have to deal with either an America in decline or an America trying to rediscover its possibilities for greatness. Who gets elected will determine which path we wind up on.

  114. Jes: I think it’s creepily dynastic. Why? While I agree with you that HRC had accomplished more before marriage than GWB had before 40, and moreover that while he has accomplished more now, the world would have been a much better place had he remained a failed and drunken oilman, I really don’t think HRC would be a plausible candidate were it not for her being married to — well, in keeping with my time-saving initials strategy, WJC. She’s be a very good first-term Senator without the various astonishing qualities that make Obama plausible — the alarming charisma, the genuine policy record, the truly intriguing take on civic life.

  116. I think #2 is appropriate here.
    “a powerful group or family that maintains its position for a considerable time”
    Granting that the Bushes have maintained their position a lot longer than the Clintons, I see no reason to expand the corps of long-running American dynasties beyond the current two (Bush and Kennedy).

  117. I really don’t think HRC would be a plausible candidate were it not for her being married to
    I don’t know that this is really fair. She’ll have as much time in the Senate as John Kennedy, and instead of his 6 years in the House, she has 8 years in the White House, and as a participant in policy. Not necessarily in a good way, as I and others have argued, but still as a participant.
    Emotionally I react to the family thing too, but it’s easy to find other reasons to criticize somebody that you don’t like anyway. If I really thought she was the optimal candidate, I wouldn’t let her family connection stand in the way. Since I don’t, I’ll base my criticism on substantive issues.

  119. Hilzoy: Having now read CaseyL’s comment, I’ll add: if dynastic is the wrong word, substitute another that includes spouses.
    Is there one?
    I know I’ll regret asking, but when did you gain the authority to decide what opinions people are authorized to hold?
    See CaseyL’s comment. I disagree with the word “dynastic” to describe Hillary Rodham Clinton becoming President because it’s the wrong word. It would be the right word if it were Chelsea Clinton running for President. Oh, and I really hate it when people attack me for expressing an opinion in these terms, Andrew: I’m so sorry (not) that I’m not humble enough to suit you, but I find it creepy that you seem to want me to express my opinions only in a properly submissive fashion.
    Granting that the Bushes have maintained their position a lot longer than the Clintons, I see no reason to expand the corps of long-running American dynasties beyond the current two (Bush and Kennedy).
    And I see no reason to have any dynasties, frankly: the kind of oligarchy the Bush clan represents ought to be anathema to a democracy. (Kennedy clan omitted because I don’t know enough about them.) Nor do I see it as a valid reason to bar a woman from a job because her husband once held it.
    All I said was that HRC wouldn’t be a legitimate candidate for President if not for who she was related to
    She’s not related to Bill Clinton: if she were, she couldn’t have married him.

  120. KCinDC: Amos, you’re assuming she’d be in the Senate if she weren’t a Clinton.
    Is there any reason to suppose that she wouldn’t be? She set her political ambitions aside because she couldn’t run for office when she was being First Lady – but she certainly had them before she married Clinton. Which again strikes me as an excellent reason for women never to change their names on marriage – no matter what it does to other people’s Christmas card lists, Marbel. Hillary Rodham isn’t a Clinton: she just married one.

  121. This is really purely just one of those gut things, but HRC strikes me as someone who wouldn’t have gone into electoral politics very far without WJC. I find it easier to imagine her solo in the civil service somewhere – possibly Secretary of whatever it is health and human services is called at the moment.

  122. Bruce: This is really purely just one of those gut things, but HRC strikes me as someone who wouldn’t have gone into electoral politics very far without WJC.
    And this is based on your feeling that someone who, at the age of 22, was named valedictorian, graduated with departmental honors in Political Science, was the first student in Wellesley College history to deliver a commencement address (which apparently received a standing ovation lasting seven minutes), which was “controversial in that it criticized Republican Senator Edward W. Brooke, who had given his remarks before her”, served on the Board of Editors of Yale Review of Law and Social Action, was awarded a grant to work at the Children’s Defense Fund in Cambridge, Massachusetts, traveled to Washington to work on Senator Walter Mondale’s subcommittee on migrant workers, worked in the western states for George McGovern’s campaign, and joined the presidential impeachment inquiry staff advising the Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives during the Watergate Scandal.
    You looked at her early career and decided that this is obviously the career of someone destined to solo in the civil service somewhere, yes?
    One problem women have in careers where they’re always “the first” or “the only” have is that many people not actively sexist, but merely reflecting without thought the sexist values they live with, just can’t imagine a woman doing the job that woman wants to do. And I suspect that is where your gut reaction is coming from… because to me, I look at her early career and I think, this looks like the early career of a promising young politician.

  123. And – none of this should be considered an endorsement for HRC for President. No way. I have no idea if she herself would make a good candidate for President in the US. I just slightly object to the idea that, if she’s capable of running for President, she should be forever barred from the job just because she got married to a man who already had it.

  124. Yes, Jes. I think her early record isn’t stunningly different from, say, Donna Shalala, or Madeleine Albright, to grab a couple more or less at random, mixing private legal practice with appointments of various kinds. Of course the career of Sandra Day O’Connor reminds me that one can have a run of electoral politics and end up heading in a different direction, too.
    What I’m really saying is that I didn’t think at the time and still don’t think that she had anything like her husband’s real affinity for campaigning. She’s learned how to do it effectively enough in the right circumstances – winning means having done something right, most of the time – but at what strikes me as a high cost in personal integrity. She became a trimmer. She might have done better and ended up doing the country a favor had she focused on a path that let her retain and mature her early much more liberal outlook. Not that anyone twenty years ago should really have foreseen this administration coming, but on the general principle that the Democrats needs more articulate voices on the left wing to help pull on the center, and it could well be that a life that sort would have worked out well for her.
    All of which is to say that I think she’d be a lousy nominee for president for reasons entirely apart from Bill.

  125. Fairly argued, Bruce, and I don’t know enough about how US politics works to dispute you on this. I know it’s much more oligarchical than in the UK, where HRC’s early career is in fact what you’d expect of a promising young MP who might well become a Minister. She reminds me of Cherie Booth, in fact, whose political career was wrecked by her husband becoming an MP… though of course she hasn’t done badly in her alternate career as a lawyer.

  126. Jes, do you really believe that being married to Bill and the name recognition that resulted had no effect on Hillary’s political career — that she’d still have been able to come into New York as an outsider and be elected to the Senate? I’m not denying that she’s talented and has experience, but there are lots of talented people with experience, and politics is not just about who’s most qualified for the job.

  127. Jes: to be clear, I don’t think HRC or anyone else should be barred from holding office because of who they are married to, who their parents are, etc. I do think that it’s something to throw into the scales, and given a choice between two otherwise decent candidates, I would choose the one who was unrelated to anyone else, at least at this point in time, when we seem to be in danger of dynasticism* (= dynasticism plus spouses.)
    Imagine if, at some time when the UK was still negotiating the transition from a powerful monarchy to a parliamentary system with a royal figurehead, the heir to the throne had run for PM. One might think: certainly, if the heir was far and away the best person, I’d vote for him or her, but in a close race, his or her heir-dom would tip the scales against.

  128. She’s not related to Bill Clinton: if she were, she couldn’t have married him.
    Jesurgislac has probably never actually been to Arkansas. Not that that’s a bad thing.

  130. Jes, I think that there’s more wobble room at some points in American political careers. In retrospect, too, I think that the term “civil service” wasn’t what I was necessarily looking for, but I cant’ right now think of what it was. I don’t mean to envision HRC as Eddie Izzard playing Sir Humphrey.

  132. Amos, you’re assuming she’d be in the Senate if she weren’t a Clinton.
    I’m with Jes in at least recognizing the possibility, given her ambitions and talents. Out of three hundred million people, only a dozen or two are viable presidential candidates in any given election. So if we were to rerun history since, say, 1945, with people free to make different decisions, then sure, the odds would be against her being in that group, as they are against any one person. But she might have been in it anyway, and if she hadn’t, it wouldn’t be because of lack of qualification.
    She’s certainly more qualified to be in the Senate than her opponents have been. (“What’s your qualification to be Senator, Mr. Lazio?” “I’m not Hillary Clinton.” I was proud of my state that year.)
    I don’t like her go-along, get-along centrist politics, but I think she’d be as good a President as her husband, which to my mind is not saying that much except in comparison to what came after.

  133. where HRC’s early career is in fact what you’d expect of a promising young MP who might well become a Minister
    Though I think it is the case that the process of standing for Parliament is a lot more open than going for senator or even representative is.

  134. Bruce Baugh: I don’t mean to envision HRC as Eddie Izzard playing Sir Humphrey.
    Oh. Dear. God.
    …..
    I don’t know whether to write to the BBC suggesting a remake of Yes, Minister, or scrub my brain frantically.

  135. Jes: Why choose? Do both. 🙂
    (I must say that I am very pleased to have knocked you for that much of a loop. I do try, once in a while, to subvert discourse a lot.)

  136. What HRC will have problems with is her image of saying opposite things out of both sides of her mouth simultaneously.
    I think she’s triangulated herself into extinction. My feeling is that there isn’t a single word that comes out of her mouth, including “a” and “the”, that hasn’t been checked against a poll first. Who IS she? What does she honestly believe in? Is there any wall against which, backed up against, she won’t waffle on?
    I have my doubts, and I don’t think I’m the only one.
    My own preferences are for Gore and Clark. Obama? Great at speaking, but comes off presently as a lightweight (although I like several things he’s said.)

  137. I (as a complete outstander of course) do not fancy HRC too much, because of her politics (Iraq, the flag burning amendment). But I agree with Jes that, like TB’s wife Cherry (Cherie?) she could have had a political carreer of her own based upon her own steps in those directions.
    I also agree with Jes that she was sandbagged into changing her name to Clinton, because she wanted to keep Rodham but it wasn’t politically convenient. I was ranting a lot about it at the time, actually.
    I do not agree with Jes that women never should take their husbands name. That would be hard, since I took my husbands name 😉 – but it was a point we both discussed before we took the decision.
    Frankly, I feel that in the US becoming a politician is allready something that is very hard for someone who is not rich or well connected. Oligarchy is a closer description than dynasty imho.

  138. I have found that she has an unexpected following here in SE Ohio, from people who are hospital techs, or Wal-Mart workers, or people like the guy that fixed my furnace. They like her, they can’t wait for her to run. Why? I get answers like, “She’s a fighter.” “She’ll fix health care.” “We need someone besides these damned guys in suits, they’re all the same.” “She’s smart.” “She’s done a good job for her state.”
    And this just left me gaping. Semi-rural Ohio likes Hillary, at least the people I talk to do. And I do not bring up her name—they do.
    Jobs are scarce here, schools are bad, not funded right, it’s horrible. We’re sinking. The last 2 elections were f-d up here.
    People want a change. I tell these people, “She’s not far enough left for me.” And they look at me like I’m an idiot….so I’ve just shut up about that.

  139. dutchmarbel: my mom took my dad’s name, partly because it was the 50s, but also partly because her parents — at the time, mostly her Dad — were sort of prominent, and much as she liked them, she wanted to have a more anonymous name and to be taken or left in her own right. When my Dad got to be, not famous, but at any rate possessed of a name that was recognizable within a certain limited circle, she caught a certain amount of flak for having taken his name, which always struck me as pretty ironic. And another of life’s little lessons about not assuming one knows why people do stuff.

  140. hilzoy: we considered changin my husbands name right before I took it, but the only easy combination would be ‘nobel’ and that seemed pressumptious.
    I still like the idea of both parties changing their name into a third name though.

  141. KCinDC: Jes, do you really believe that being married to Bill and the name recognition that resulted had no effect on Hillary’s political career
    Yes: being married to Bill Clinton clearly had, if anything, a negative effect on Hillary Rodham’s political career. The “name recognition” that resulted seems for the most part to be a downside, and being “First Lady” of Arkansas and then of the United States prevented her from running from higher political office any earlier in her career. And, if she hadn’t married Bill Clinton, people would not now be arguing that whoever gets to be President of the United States in 2008, it shouldn’t be her.

  142. Marbel: I still like the idea of both parties changing their name into a third name though.
    The silent elephant in the corner whenever women change their names to their husband’s surname on marriage is always “It’s the expected thing to do” no matter what other reasons they may give (or have). No matter what good reasons a man might have for changing his surname to his wife’s, it happens very, very rarely. As for the issue about who married into whose family when children take their mother’s surname instead of their father’s…. oof.

  143. Sorry, Jes, but Hillary Clinton would not be a Senator from New York today if she had not been First Lady for eight years. She might have made it into politics via another route, but her husband allowed her to shortcut a lot of steps en route to Washington. You’re right that, had she not been Mrs. Bill Clinton, nobody would be concerned about dynasty issues, but the flip side of that is that if she hadn’t been Mrs. Clinton, she wouldn’t be a viable candidate for President. She’s a smart lady, but she’s an iffy campaigner at best, and given her rather notorious unpleasant streak, I suspect she would have crashed and burned in electoral politics if she’d gone it alone from the start.

  144. Andrew: Hillary Clinton would not be a Senator from New York today if she had not been First Lady for eight years.
    How smart you are, to know about things that never happened.

  145. Jes, why is it any less legitimate for Andrew to express an opinion about the parallel universe where Hillary never married Bill than for you to do it (especially since you haven’t explained how on earth you think having been first lady hurt her in the race for New York senator)?

  146. KCinDC, I have no idea what would have happened if Hillary Rodham had split up with Bill Clinton in 1974, and spent the next thirty years furthering her own career rather than his. Neither does Andrew. Possibly she’d have ended up the Secretary for Defense or some other appointive post (NB: I’m still getting a grin out of the thought of Eddie Izzard as Sir Humphrey, Bruce.) Perhaps she’d by now be a three-term Senator for Arkansas. Maybe she’d be governor of Illinois. The idea that Andrew can know that she wouldn’t be Senator for New York makes me wonder if he’s got access to wikipedia from an alternate dimension and hasn’t told us.

  147. re: name changes in marriage. In most of the US when a (hetero) couple gets married the woman can change her name with a simple (and free) indication on the marriage license. Voila, c’est tous.
    If the man wants to change his name he has to go to the court house and fill out a legal name-change form and pay a fee to do it. He also has to explain his choice to potential employers and schools and to government bureaucrats whenever they do a routine background check.
    I know lots of men who have considered changing their names at marriage. I know only one who actually has.

  148. Me: The idea that Andrew can know that she wouldn’t be Senator for New York makes me wonder if he’s got access to wikipedia from an alternate dimension and hasn’t told us.
    And that would, actually, be very cool. How many versions of Star Trek did they do in this alternate universe? Did they all have beards? *thinks aimlessly about making beards joke, decides against it*

  149. And (WRT my previous post) I know that women have to change IDs and passports and such when they take their husband’s last name after marriage. I’m not minimizing that. I’m just pointing out that the system actively discriminates against the husband doing that as well.

  150. Nous, in the UK, anyone can change their name at any time, perfectly legally, so long as there is no intent to defraud. I know two or three people personally who have done so, beginning with the easiest piece of documentation to change – their driving licence. The bank will want copies of your new signature.
    The government will want to be sure that you’re not changing your name just to dodge taxes, or if you apply for a passport under a changed name, you need to have either made a public announcement (a newspaper advert will do), or a statutory declaration, or a deed poll: either of the last two require some legal advice, but not necessarily a lawyer. Or, of course – if you change your name on marriage or civil partnership – a copy of the marriage/partnership certificate will be sufficient evidence.
    But it’s the same for both women and men. No legal discrimination: no extra process men have to go through but women don’t.
    I’m surprised the legal system in the US is so different. I would have thought the principle that anyone can use any name they choose providing they have no intent to defraud anyone, would have withstood the exportation of the UK’s legal system across the Atlantic.

  153. The idea that Andrew can know that she wouldn’t be Senator for New York
    I think it’s perfectly reasonable, in ordinary conversation, for someone to say they know something wouldn’t have happened (or won’t happen) as a way of saying they regard it as wildly unlikely.
    I “know” that if I flip this coin ten times it won’t come up the same all ten times, even though it might.
    And yes, it is wildly unlikely that HRC would be a Senator from New York had she not been married to Bill. There are more than a handful of smart, ambitious, industrious, people in the world who would have given her a battle at every stage.

  154. Andrew: You haven’t heard of Wikialt, the wiki for counterfactuals? Too bad, it’s a handy resource.
    There is in fact a website called wikialt, registered with http://www.networksolutions.com. Hm.
    BY: I think it’s perfectly reasonable, in ordinary conversation, for someone to say they know something wouldn’t have happened (or won’t happen) as a way of saying they regard it as wildly unlikely.
    True, but as inaccurate as saying that President Hillary Clinton would be “dynastic”.

  155. It’s easiest in the UK (changing names) which is why we seriously considered it (my husband is Brittish and could have changed his name right before the wedding).
    Deciding wether one or the marrying parties takes the other parties name is as easy of men as it is for women in the Netherlands – sometimes both parties are the same gender of course.
    My medical records, study records and passport are always in my maiden name, they have to be. Taking the name of your partner (or adding her/his name to yours) is not an official namechange in the Netherlands. Official name changes are hard and cost money – you can get officially married for free ;).
    In all likelyhood we can decide tomorrow that we will both use my maiden name without consequences. Except for the children. For the first child you decide which last name it gets, and all following children have that same name.
    In my passport I do have ‘married to Noyce’ in addition to my own, maiden, name. Having ‘married to Bellinga’ printed in my husbands British passport is harder and I have no idea wether he could have that done easily in a Dutch passport. I assume it wouldn’t be too hard, but I can’t check unless he becomes Dutch 😉
    One of the reasons we decided to go with his name and not mine is that he couldn’t properly pronounce my maiden name and his family was even worse. My first name is hard enough for them 🙂

  156. Humpty Dumpty strikes again. But using the dictionary rather than Humpty Dumpty, calling the combined (notional) Presidencies of Hillary and Bill Clinton ‘dynastic’ is a perfectly reasonable use of the term.

  157. As someone said here recently, Jes:

    But if you’re trying to say “All of that you’ve said is just your opinion”, yes, you’re right, I never pretended it was anything else. Surely we don’t have to begin each opinionated comment in a blog with “In my opinion”?

  158. KCinDC: touché.
    Andrew: the American Heritage Dictionary says the definition of a dynasty is “A succession of rulers from the same family or line” – not applicable unless you argue Hillary Rodham married into the Clinton family. “A family or group that maintains power for several generations: a political dynasty controlling the state.” Not applicable: the couple are from the same generation. Your dictionary may well include a definition that applies to husbands/wives as well as descendents – so which dictionary defintion are you using, Humpty?

  159. So I guess we can no longer refer to the Oakland A’s of the 1980s, or the Chicago Bulls of the Jordan era, as “dynasties,” all because Jesurgislac turns out — contrary to every indication she has ever given, ever — to be a linguistic prescriptivist. But only if she doesn’t like your politics.
    Noted, and moving on.
    (I mean, “[X] Dictionary defines [Y] as . . . ” is one of the weakest, most easily mocked forms of argument around. Really.)

  161. Phil: So I guess we can no longer refer to the Oakland A’s of the 1980s, or the Chicago Bulls of the Jordan era, as “dynasties”
    *grin* I’m guessing that these are sports teams, and that “dynasties” is metaphorical, not literally referring to offspring following their parents into the same team? I’m okay with metaphor, oddly enough: I’m just not seeing how a wife and her husband can by themselves be referred to as a “dynasty”, except as a justification for why Hillary Rodham Clinton shouldn’t be President.
    And people have brought up reasons that sound very sensible as far as I can tell why she wouldn’t be a good candidate: I just can’t see that “her husband was President” is one of them.

  166. Penalizing HRC for her family connection may be unjust, but it mitigates the injustice of discrimination against candidates who have no family connections, and moves us closer to a society in which family connections are irrelevant in politics.

  167. KCinDC: Penalizing HRC for her family connection may be unjust, but it mitigates the injustice of discrimination against candidates who have no family connections, and moves us closer to a society in which family connections are irrelevant in politics.
    Ah, if only someone had thought of that in 1999, and suggested that George W. Bush was an improper candidate for President because his father had been President. Curiously enough, “creepily dynastic” doesn’t seem to be used to explain why Jeb Bush can’t be President – just Hillary Clinton. (Arguments that Jeb Bush shouldn’t be President in 2008 tend to rest on the unpopularity and failing ratings of George W. Bush, not on the “creepily dynastic” argument.)
    Are you saying she didn’t?
    Did she? Does US marriage law work like that – severing the woman completely from her birth family and tying her irrevocably and permanently into her husband’s family? Or is it just perceived that way because all too often a woman does change her surname to her husband’s on marriage, either by courtesy or legally?

  168. Andrew: “a powerful group or family that maintains its position for a considerable time”
    Mea culpa. You did. And I suppose to an American, the period 1992-2016 is “a considerable time”…

  169. Jes, first, the comment was a joke, drawing a parallel to the affirmative action discussion. Second, people argue against Jeb Bush all the time for “dynastic” reasons. They even argued against GWB because of that. In fact, most of the time the dynastic objection to HRC is combined with the one to the Bushes: let’s have a moratorium on Bushes and Clintons. There are of course plenty of other reasons to oppose all three, but “creepy dynasticism” is also a component.
    And of course I said nothing about “severing the woman completely from her birth family and tying her irrevocably and permanently into her husband’s family”. By virtue of her marriage, HRC is part of the Clinton family, just as WJC is part of the Rodham family. That’s how marriage and families work, in the US or the UK.

  170. I have to admit, if I could have stopped GWB from getting elected by promising to never elect HRC, I’d have taken that in a heartbeat, though my view may be the victim of hindsight.

  171. Re: ‘a considerable time,’ that is, naturally, subject to taste. 1992-2016 is a 24-year slice, which would mean that the Clintons were a major political force for a bit more than 10% of the history of the republic. To get into a truly dynastic situation, I concur that we’d need Chelsea to join the fun and extend it to at least a 30-plus year run, but among American families who have had a sustained effect on national politics, a 24-year run would put the Clintons pretty well up the list.
    Off the top of my head, you have the Adams, who were a factor in U.S. politics for over a century, so I think they’re secure in the top spot, and the most clearly dynastic, as you had the father-son Presidents as well as later relatives in national government into the 20th century, IIRC. After them I suppose would come the Kennedys, who have apparently leased a Massachusetts Senate seat in perpetuity (1952-????), as well a Presidency, a New York Senate seat for a time, and assorted House seats. I don’t know enough about the Harrisons to place them in the narrative; you did have two of three generations in the White House (albeit, one for only 30 days), but I don’t know how significant the rest of the family was in national politics. The Bushes are probably behind the Kennedys, although I suppose it depends on how you score things. More Kennedys have been elected than Bushes, but assuming we start from when George H.W. Bush was VP, that’s six out of seven Presidential elections with a Bush on the ticket, which is impressive (and somewhat appalling from the perspective of getting some new blood into the system). Then there are the Roosevelts, although they’re an interesting case since Teddy was a Republican and FDR was a Democrat, so a multi-party dynasty, but they were prominent in American politics for about fifty years, so they probably edge the Kennedys for second place on the list. Doubtless there are other American families that had dynastic elements, but those are the ones that spring to mind, and of them, the Clintons would (in theory, since HRC isn’t even the nominee yet) sit fourth. (I’d rank those I listed as Adams, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Clinton, Harrison) So, as I noted, dynastic considerations wouldn’t be enough to cause me to vote against HRC in and of themselves, but given the Clintons rise opposite the Bushes, I can see a certain desire to move in new directions.
    Dang, that’s damn near a post in itself. 😉

  173. Andrew,
    Where do the Tafts come in — great great Secretary of War (under Grant), great grandfather President and US Supreme Court Chief Justice, grandfather longtime Senate leader for Republicans, father Senator (1 term) current generation Govenor?

  174. Another problem with calling the Roosevelts a dynasty is that the relationship between FDR and TR was pretty distant — fifth cousins, I think. Then again, Eleanor Roosevelt (a Roosevelt before she married FDR) was TR’s niece, so maybe that saves it.

  175. Dan,
    Good question. I confess that I was wholly unaware of the Tafts (I had heard of the President and the current governor, but I didn’t realize they were related, and I didn’t know one was Secretary of War under Grant.) That might put them in second place, I think, or possibly even first, since their longevity outstrips even the Adams, although I think the Adams were a more significant national force at their peak, so it’s a question of longevity vs. peak effectiveness.

  177. And I never would have pegged Jesurgislac as such a chauvinist. 😉
    I got really very giggly over my discovery that the building I stayed in when I visited the Grand Canyon was built in 1935 and was a historical building. In all my life, I’ve never lived in a house that new: “historic” is a term reserved for buildings that really have some age on them. Like, two or three centuries. 😉

  179. I would have thought the principle that anyone can use any name they choose providing they have no intent to defraud anyone, would have withstood the exportation of the UK’s legal system across the Atlantic.
    This is still true in the US.

  181. 1992-2016 is a 24-year slice, which would mean that the Clintons were a major political force for a bit more than 10% of the history of the republic.

    Good lord, have I slept for nine years? On the upside, OW is still here. On the downside, there’s no telling when I get the date right, next time I write a check.
    Checks do still exist, yes?

  182. The name change is one where both are really kind of right. You can change your name informally, without doing it in court, if you don’t defraud anyone and you can persuade people like bank accounts and the motor vehicle bureau to go along with it. But mostly that’s impossible, so you need to do it in court.
    (This is personal experience — my husband and I hadn’t quite figured out who was going to be named what when we got married. He was Mr. X, I was Ms. Y, and on the marriage forms we both kept our names. By a year later, we’d both settled on Mr. & Ms. X-Y, and managed the name change informally, by whining at people until they issued us the ID we wanted. But it was a major hassle, and might have been easier to do it in court.)

  183. Jes, what nous asserted was that the situation in the US was something that seems pretty similar to what you describe in the UK, except possibly that it’s easier in the US for women to change their names on marriage. Or are you saying that people in the UK can change their names without interacting without dealing with a government office?

  184. KCinDC: Or are you saying that people in the UK can change their names without interacting without dealing with a government office?
    Yes.
    I can decide, tomorrow, that my name is going to be Slarti Bartfast McPhee. I can put an advert in a newspaper to that effect (the person formerly known as That So&So Jesurgislac who lives at xx Cliche Street, is now to be known as Slarti Bartfast McPhee, still resident at the same address). That’s all I need, legally.
    It will (according to people who have done it) be easier if I start by writing to the driving license people to notify them that I have changed my name and would they please re-issue my driving license, because they’ll do that no questions asked. I can then take the new driving license to the various banks and building societies that hold my accounts, tell them that I have changed my name and here’s my new driving license, and they will promptly change all my accounts for me: I will need to provide a set of new signatures. But banks are legally required to accept a name change on request: the driving license just convinces them that you’re serious.
    Once I have my new bank account, I notify my employer, who changes my details at work – I could do this before I changed my bank accounts, but if I were planning this, I’d do the bank accounts *first*.
    If I decide I intend to leave the country under my new name, I may need to produce my old birth certificate, and I’ll certainly need to be able to produce a proof of residence under my new name (a recent utilities bill addressed to my new name at my address, for example, plus a recent bank statement). Then I’ll have a passport under my new name.
    But, if I don’t have a driving license and don’t feel the need to get a passport, the only government department I have to interact with about my name change is the Inland Revenue, and if I (like most people) just pay tax via my employer, it’s actually my employer’s problem to make sure their accounts with the Revenue are straight, not mine. If I were a freelancer, it would doubtless save ever so much trouble to buy a deed poll form, fill it in, get it witnessed, and send that to the Inland Revenue as proof of name change.
    But yes: anyone in the UK can change their name at will, and they don’t need to deal with a government office to do so. It’s a free country, you know. 😉

  185. I pretty much did exactly that in the US, but you’re not really supposed to be able to. But with a marriage certificate showing that I had been LizardBreath X and had married a man named Mr. Y, the motor vehicle bureau gave me a drivers licence in the name X-Y, and did the same for my husband, and with those, we changed all the rest of our ID. But they weren’t really supposed to do that, and certainly would have refused if I’d been changing my name to Starchild rather than X-Y; at which point we would have had to go to court.

  186. It occurs to me that all the people I know who changed their names (who did not change their name on marriage/civil partnership) did so five to ten years ago, and it’s entirely possible in Blair’s new paranoid control freakery Britain that it’s more difficult now. But the law is the same as it was – I looked it up before I answered. Any new difficulties will be bureaucratic/paranoid, not legal.

  187. Nous was right, and so am I. 🙂
    You may have more bureaucratic hoops to jump through in the US, but the legal standard remains the same; you can change your name to whatever you want as long as you’re not out to defraud anyone.

  188. Jesurgislac: Worth writing one, I think.
    No doubt, but it will have to come with someone who has the time to do the research. I’m so busy with work right now I probably shouldn’t be jumping into these discussions at all. But if I didn’t have a big mouth, I never would have gotten into blogging at all.

  190. For instance, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (born Antonio Villar) and his wife, Corina Raigosa, combined their names when they were married in 1987.
    made me smile. Clumsy phrasing.
    As I said; I’m in favor of both changing names, but it might be difficult with difforces now that I think of it.
    Related trivia; I read that Islamitic women always keep their own name – or rather their fathers name.

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