I know Hillary Clinton is a very divisive figure in the world of politics. Ever since the end of her husband's presidency, Hillary has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Her polished presentation (maybe too robotic in many people's opinions), ambition for power (seriously, Senator of NY?), and familiar last name (for those political dynasty-haters) have created a strong anti-Hillary movement. I myself must admit that Hillary has never been my cup of tea (maybe you could guess by my moderate conservativeness). After seeing her campaign in 2008 fail miserably, I felt pretty good about not having to worry about Hillary ever moving back into the White House.
With the state of affairs in this country today, I've given a lot of thought to who the future leaders of this country should be. Being someone who values moderate political actors (I like politicians who can stand up to their own party. After all, parties are more about themselves, not so much about everyday citizens), I've never been a big fan of both the far left or far right. Even though I consider myself a moderate conservative (on economic issues primarily), if the Republican party nominates a partisan, far right candidate I do not support, I will simply not vote for him. What matters to me most is that we have elected officials who will focus on the country's most pressing issues (not waste 15 months of dialogue on comprehensive health care) and be able to reach out to the people in order to gain support for legislation. Lately, even some Democrats are reconsidering if Obama was the best person to do that.
Like I mentioned in a previous blog post, I deeply respect Obama and admire the way he deals with criticism and the thoughtfulness he puts into most of his decisions. It's not Obama's fault this country is dealing with huge spending issues (but he could add to the already existing problems by further indiscriminate government spending) and unemployment is so high. There are serious flaws in our economy (we need to be innovative and take the lead back in manufacturing, exports) and society (the brightest young minds are not going into fields where they can even the playing field with foreign competitors) that have been brewing for decades. Americans became content with living in nice suburban homes and driving nice SUV's. Soon enough, other nations caught up as we lost our edge and jobs were lost in the process. The real change Obama should have been making tangible to the public mind was the change in attitude of competing with fellow Americans to an attitude of competing with the rest of the world. I'm not saying Obama didn't have this focus in mind, I'm just saying the discourse was too broad that many of his supporters used the message of change to give hope to their own selfish pursuits rather than to revitalize the world's greatest economy.
So what does this have to do with Hillary?
Reading a recent Washington Post article by Dana Milbank, I found myself envisioning what a Hillary Clinton presidency might look like. To be honest, this is something I would have been completely against before (prior to 2009), but with Obama struggling to find his niche in the executive role and the Tea Party manipulating elections nationwide, I began to entertain the idea of supporting Hillary in 2012 if she decides to run. Some say she's as liberal as they come, but in reality, I came into the 2008 primaries thinking Hillary was far more conservative than Obama (especially on foreign policy). Either way, the prospect of her versus Obama or a candidate right of the Tea Party assembly line, doesn't seem too bad to me at the moment. Maybe it's just misguided nostalgia for the mid-1990's but I honestly think now might be the right time for Hillary to give it another go.
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