Issue #45
Last Update October 2, 2006
National GOP's Favorite Candidate by Gert Innsry February 2, 2006 Although Democrats seem to be lukewarm about Hilary Clinton running for President, the Republican party seems to be doing all it can to promote her candidacy, treating her as front-runner and attacking her at every opportunity. Appearing frightened at the thought of confronting another Clinton, GOP spokesmen are trotting out the shrill accusations they used to pound her into submission early in the Clinton Administration. The picture they paint is of an angry, domineering virago whose policies would ruin the country. Yet, to paraphrase Shakespeare, methinks they do protest too much.
Clearly, Hilary would be a weak Presidential candidate. She has accomplished little in the Senate during her term of office. She has kept a low profile, supposedly to avoid damaging her party as a polarizing figure, but her record, what there is of it, contains little that shows promise of leadership, or even a consistent alternative program. She is perhaps fatally compromised, with Democratic voters and as a Bush opponent, by her continued support of the Iraq war, where her stance has been “right war, bad execution.” She has defended the Patriot Act, and has even waffled on women's issues, lately attempting to straddle the abortion issue.
As a senator, she has been outshone by Charles Schumer, not regarded as one of the Senate's most articulate spokesmen. He, at least, has brought some pork home to New York State, and has spoken out at times against Bush Administration excesses. Clinton's only real success has been winning the affections of enough upstate voters to get herself reelected. Democrats have begun muttering about giving Hilary a primary fight, so little has she spoken out when straight, incisive criticism of the President and his cronies was needed.
Why then does the GOP inveigh against her and pull out their arsenal of gender smears and innuendo? Why does Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman waste time stating that she “seems to have a lot of anger”. Some of it, of course, is reflexive Clinton bashing, displaced from Bill to Hilary, but most of it is a calculated strategy for 2008. They hope, by reverse psychology, to project Hilary Clinton as the inevitable Democratic Presidential candidate at a time when Republicans are most vulnerable to the backlash of an angry electorate, or at least identify the Democratic Party with the image they have created for her. They know they can beat a weak candidate like Hilary. They probably can't beat anyone else with a backbone.
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