Hillary Clinton’s Atlantic interview shows she’s not inevitable

[n2doc]

1. The most important unanswered question about Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign (which she more or less confirmed to Jeffrey Goldberg in an Atlantic interview) is how she's changed since 2008. The answer is that she hasn't — at least not on foreign policy.

2. Read the interview and you quickly see Clinton's strength as a candidate: she is more fluent, informed and authoritative in affairs of state than any of her plausible challengers. In the 2008 race, she famously posed the 3am phone call test: did voters trust her or naive, inexperienced Barack Obama to answer the kinds of calls that wake the president at 3am? She lost that campaign, but her subsequent experience as Secretary of State has only widened her lead on that question.

3. Read the interview, however, and you also see Clinton's weakness as a candidate: she is more hawkish than the post-Iraq Democratic Party. She is upset that she lost the internal administration debate over whether to intervene in Syria. She's focused on the expansive ambitions of radical jihadists. She takes a hard line on Iran's nuclear ambitions. She's frustrated that Obama thinks more about the dangers of action than the dangers of inaction. She's dismissive of Obama's shorthand foreign policy principle "don't do stupid stuff". She wants the country that defeated fascism and communism to develop a grand — and more interventionist — strategy to guide its leadership of the world. She sounds like a Democrat from 2002 rather than 2014.

4. She presents Democrats, to a surprising degree, with the same choice they faced in 2008. There's no doubt that Clinton is more prepared to answer that 3am call. But they may not like the call she makes immediately after. There are a lot of liberals out there who would prefer a nuclear Iran to a war with Iran. Many of them believe, rightly or wrongly, that President Obama quietly agrees with them. Clinton does not agree with them, and they're going to know it.

more
http://www.vox.com/2014/8/12/5992793/hillary-clintons-interview-shows-both-how-she-might-win-and-how-she

[BillZBubb]

1. Hillary is going to have to do some serious backtracking or she has problems

She sounds like the pro-war faction of the Democratic party, circa 1968. That is not a good thing.

[still_one]

6. I think so. "David Axelrod Hits Hillary Clinton Over Foreign Policy Dig"

David Axelrod lashed out at Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, taking her to task for her recent comments criticizing President Barack Obama's foreign policy doctrine.

"Just to clarify: 'Don't do stupid stuff' means stuff like occupying Iraq in the first place, which was a tragically bad decision," Obama’s former top adviser wrote on Twitter.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/12/david-axelrod-hits-hillar_2_n_5673182.html

[Skidmore]

11. If she backtracks now, I would be reluctant to believe that

anything she says to the contrary is trustworthy. In the past few days, she has reminded me of why I did not vote for her before. She has seriously blown an opportunity to present a liberal set of positions.

[WillyT]

2. K & R !!!

[Thinkingabout]

3. Much said about any potential candidate is pure speculation. Sometimes it is an opinion by the

writer. There is a resource to look at the candidates on the issues and if they have voted on issues what their vote was. Is there going to be a perfect candidate, probably never, are we able to predict what each and every situation will occur during the administration, no, so to judge ANY candidate by what has or has not happened will not produce the perfect candidate.

Hillary on the issues

http://www.ontheissues.org/Senate/Hillary_Clinton.htm

[tblue37]

4. With respect to this point,

"She wants the country that defeated fascism and communism to develop a grand — and more interventionist — strategy to guide its leadership of the world. She sounds like a Democrat from 2002 rather than 2014," I think she sounds more link a PNAC signatory than like a 2002 or a 2014 Democrat.

[betterdemsonly]

5. I thought points 5 through 8 were more interesting.

exerpt points 5-8

5. I remain skeptical that Rand Paul can win the Republican nomination for president. But if he does, it will set up a race in which the Republican is significantly more dovish than the Democrat. That will scramble political coalitions in unusual, and possibly significant, ways. For instance, Millennials have swung hard towards Democrats in recent years, but they're also much more dovish than older generations. Seniors, on the other hand, have become more Republicans, and are also more hawkish. "This is insight into the kind of president Clinton would be, not just the kind of candidate she would be"

6. There is a pattern that has emerged in almost every recent interview Clinton has given: liberals walk away unnerved. She bumbled through a discussion of gay marriage with Terry Gross. She's dodged questions about the Keystone XL pipeline. She's had a lot of trouble discussing income inequality. I initially chalked some of this up to political rust. I am quickly revising that opinion.

7. In general, people underestimate the convictions politicians have and overestimate the cynicism of their positions. The interview with Goldberg is being analyzed as a calculated gamble on Clinton's part to distance herself from the Obama administration, and perhaps it is. But it matters because it's also much more than that: this is what Clinton really believes. It's what she believed before the Obama administration, it's what she fought for inside the Obama administration, and it's what she believes after leaving the Obama administration. This is insight into the kind of president Clinton would be, not just the kind of candidate she would be.

8. Political campaigns are decided not just by what candidates say but by which of their statements supporters believe to be true. One advantage Obama had in the Democratic primary was that even when he rhetorically moved towards the middle his liberal base didn't really buy it; his repeated assertions that he opposed gay marriage were never taken very seriously by his supporters, for instance. Clinton will have the opposite problem — and, potentially, the opposite advantage: She has clear and substantive disagreements with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, and so her efforts to move to the left during the primary will often be viewed skeptically. But those disagreements will make it harder for Republicans to paint her as a liberal who's exactly like Barack Obama.

[truedelphi]

7. On every point you are making here, it should be pointed out that many voters have

Already decided that Hillary Clinton is not the candidate for them on account of what she and Bill Clinton did to the nation while they had those eight years.

NAFTA. Bah humbug.

Promoting Monsanto and Gm seeds and foods. Again Bah humbug.

Ignoring the need to liberalize the drug laws so that they reflect the views of most Americans. Yes, Bah humbug.

And finally, the ways that both Hillary and Bill are firmly on the side of the Big Banks and Financial firms and not with the middle class: Bah Humbug squared!

[Octafish]

10. Bill Clinton signed the repeal of Glass-Steagall into law...

...repealing the New Deal legislation that separated taxpayer-backed Big Banks from the Wall Street casino.

http://www.cftech.com/BrainBank/SPECIALREPORTS/GlassSteagall.html

[truedelphi]

17. Yes he certainly did sign it into law, and

that signature came about not too much before he retired from the Oval Office, and not too much before the huge checks began to come to him every damn time he stepped in front of a Corporate sponsored podium and gave a speech.

A quarter of a million bucks per speech is a rather nice "quid pro quo," ain't it!

[Octafish]

19. Phil Gramm spearheaded the deregulation and legislation...then went to work for beneficiary UBS...

It's so nice, Buy-Partisanship, they now specialize in all kinds of Wealth Management, like.

http://financialservicesinc.ubs.com/revitalizingamerica/SenatorPhilGramm.html

[riverwalker]

8. This article was a reality check

and hit me like a bucket of ice water. I had lukewarm feelings to begin with, now I find her repulsive.

[CJCRANE]

9. She should have just done her job well and ran on her record.

Blaming your old boss is usually a no-no in a job interview.

[DCBob]

12. I was on board with Hillary but now im having second thoughts.

She just reminded me of one of main reasons I supported Obama over her back in 2008.

[LordGlenconner]

15. A credible opposition will have to emerge

Otherwise none of this is going to matter. If no credible opposition emerges she will waltz to the nomination.

By credible opposition I mean someone who can raise loads of cash, is able to articulate ideological differences clearly and has some gravitas, not necessarily in that order.

It's still early though. Way early.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

13. Hillary has a lot of baggage in that unstoppable train to justify and make palatable.

Relying on "not as bad" may produce a No Sale in 2016.

[DonCoquixote]

14. one big turd in the article

" In the 2008 race, she famously posed the 3am phone call test: did voters trust her or naive, inexperienced Barack Obama to answer the kinds of calls that wake the president at 3am? She lost that campaign, but her subsequent experience as Secretary of State has only widened her lead on that question. "

No, if anything her famous 'we came, we saw, he died" speech about Libya and her 'assad must go" makes her someone I do not want to answer that 3.a.m call, because it will mean war. I will never elect RandPaul because his DOMESTIC agenda is little more than genocide disguised as tax reform, but as far as foriegn policy, he comes at least willing to try peace.

[cheapdate]

16. Americans generally, Democrats included, are more hawkish than the typical DUer.

She gains more support than she loses for her hawkish ways. But she does lose some support.

The conventional wisdom is correct here. Clinton will be a formidable candidate if she runs. She leads every potential GOP candidate by appreciable margins, some by double-digits, in every credible poll.

Americans will turn out to vote for her in big numbers.

[betterdemsonly]

20. Given that Obama has taken a hit in his own approval ratings

everytime he appeared to be making hawkish moves, mostly under the influence of Clinton's neocon friends,I think your view is seriously delusional.

[cheapdate]

21. Really?

You've followed the president's approval ratings and you've observed that it rises and falls in response to whether his moves in foreign policy are hawkish or dovish?

I suppose you observed a noticeable positive bump in December 2012 when the last combat brigade left Iraq and you probably observed a negative bump when he announced a new military partnership with Australia?

Anyway, I'm not delusional. Quite the opposite. The strength of a hypothetical Hillary Clinton candidacy is not a delusion. As much as anything can be a "fact" in the shifting world of politics, it's a fact. You can ignore the consensus view of every, serious and credible national opinion survey if you want to.

But the reality is this. At this moment, Nate Silver has the GOP at a 60% probability of taking the senate in November. You can ignore that one too, but that's the reality. And Hillary Clinton, warhawk and corporation-lover that she is, bests every GOP candidate by a wide margin in every major nationwide opinion poll that has polled on that question.

If she runs, and she hasn't committed one way or the other, she'll likely win both the nomination and the office. If she doesn't run, the next president will probably be a Republican.

[Motown_Johnny]

18. and without inevitability she has very little going for her

Americans just don't vote for our top diplomats when it comes to electing a Commander In Chief, so the Sec. of State experience really isn't helpful.

She already ran on being First Lady for 8 years, and that didn't work. She ended up claiming to have dodged sniper bullets in Bosnia, flip flopping on NAFTA and trying to explain why her health care reform attempt failed.

All she really has is her time in The Senate. Her Iraq War vote, and the impassioned speech she gave urging others to vote for war, overshadows it. Not exactly something you want to base a Presidential bid on.

I will admit that she has done some good work to advance women's rights both here at home and abroad, but that is really about it.