I’ve seen a lot of “if only we’d elected Hillary” whining lately, so it is good to see someone who supported Senator Clinton for the nomination in 2008 admit that’s a stupid argument. Rebecca Traister writes,
The empirical choice between Clinton and Obama was never as direct as those on either side made it out to be; neither was obviously more equipped or more progressive than the other. The maddening part, then and now, is that they were utterly comparable candidates. The visions — in 2008, of Obama as a progressive redeemer who would restore enlightened democracy to our land and Hillary as a crypto-Republican company man; or, in 2011, of Obama as an appeasement-happy crypto-Republican and Hillary as a leftist John Wayne who would have whipped those Congressional outlaws into shape — they were all invented. These are fictional characters shaped by the predilections, prejudices and short memories of the media and the electorate. They’re not actual politicians between whom we choose here on earth.
If she had won her party’s nomination and then the general election, Hillary Clinton’s presidency would probably not have looked so different from Obama’s. She was, after all, a senator who, for a variety of structural and strategic reasons, often crossed party lines to co-sponsor legislation with Republicans, who voted to go to war in Iraq, who moved to the center on everything from Israel to violent video games. You think Obama’s advisers are bad? Hillary Clinton hired, and then took far too long to get rid of, Mark Penn. And her economic team probably would have looked an awful lot like Obama’s.
Thank you. I would add, to those who believe a President Hillary Clinton would have been “tougher,” take a look at her senatorial career. If you can identify a single piece of unambiguously progressive legislation that she sponsored, fought for, and won, do let me know. And she spent eight years in the Senate.
And I’ll say one more time, if we want a more progressive president after 2012, stop navel gazing over President Obama and work to elect a more progressive Congress.
“And I’ll say one more time, if we want a more progressive president after 2012, stop naval gazing over President Obama and work to elect a more progressive Congress.”
I agree with this wholeheartedly and am doing what I can where I live.
Yeah, that Hillary would have been the 2nd coming of Roosevelt!
We’d have been lucky if she was 1/4 as good as Eleanore, 1/2 as good as Franklin, or 3/4 as good as Teddy.
And one Mark Penn pretty much cancels out Obama’s Rubin, Summers, and Geithner.
And let’s face it, it’s not like she would have moved Heaven and Earth to get Krugman, Baker, or Galbraith, instead of those three, to advise her on economics.
That, and the fact that the right was pumped and primed to go after her. Obama was a curveball, and not a white one, so they didn’t know how to react, or have a team ready to take him down like they would have with Hillary. How many more Vince Foster and Monica stories could the public have taken before they finally said, “You know, give me the that Maverick Geezer and that new Palin woman, I’m tired of hearing about the Clintons!”
Revisionist history is always the best.
And if only the Dodgers hadn’t moved to LA, I’d have been rooted for them instead of the Yankees. Or if only my Father had met Elizabeth in England after the war, I might have been a Prince.
Sheesh…
On Mahablog, you are a prince. 🙂
I like and respect Ms. Clinton immensely, but my gut (not usually the arbiter of my decision process) told Obama was more electable. So, that’s how I vote in the primaries. She would have faced the SAME Bush recession and bigoted, obstructionist Congress.
I knew there was no hope after Obama surrounded himself with former Clinton presidency hacks and kept on Bush-era hacks.
For me the single most telling moment was not calling on Helen Thomas first at the press conferences, as had been the custom until the Bush era.
I knew then that Obama was just another moderate Republican, just like the Clintons, and that there would be no actual challenge to the far-right.
Oh well, I am glad I didn’t vote for Obama.
Sometimes I just get really tired of idiocy. Goodbye.
Good post. I agree. Except it’s navel-gazing, not naval-gazing. Unless you were singing Anchors Aweigh, perhaps? 🙂
maha,
Aw shucks…
I’ve been wanting to say this for a long time… Hillary Clinton would not have been elected president. The Republicans spent some $40 Million to find anything at all on both or either of the Clintons during Bill’s presidency. What makes anyone think that any Republican would have voted for her? And there are Democrats who wouldn’t have voted for her. If by some chance she had been elected, they would have fought her in Congress, too.
At this point, the country is so torn, so ideologically divided, I don’t know how to bring the factions together or bridge the divide.
If Hillary had won the Democratic nomination, the GOP would have subjected Hillary Clinton to a tidal wave of misogynist vilification exceeding the vilification she experienced during her husband’s administration. It is the way they operate.