Doing the Hillary Dance
Conniff, Ruth
Political Eye Ruth Conniff Doing the Hillary Dance "VX/Thats a nice proW gressive legislator like Representative Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin, doing endorsing Hillary Clinton for...
...She cracked jokes at her own expense...
...But looking back over the last several decades, I don't see any reason for that optimism...
...It's being able to figure out a way to either minimize their clout or still move forward with things they may oppose...
...She flattered the bloggers...
...Any "serious, credible candidate" is going to have to raise a lot of cash, she says...
...It's not exactly heart-stirring, but there is a cold, hard sense to this theory...
...I wish she had reached the same conclusion I did back then...
...As her "inevitability" grows, progressives are doing a dance with Hillary—trying to square her less-than-thrilling stance on the war in Iraq, among other issues, with their inclination to support the frontrunner...
...Even on the Iraq War, Baldwin gives Clinton a pass...
...Don't tell anyone," she said, "but I actually read blogs...
...The bloggers wanted to like her...
...The Clintons chose to go behind doors with the health care industry and try to cut a deal, while the industry groups organized a coalition to sink health care reform," he says...
...Now a member of Iraq Vets Against the War, he doesn't want to see the blogosphere hijacked by the Democratic Party...
...Stauber's caution makes sense...
...Her last vote opposing funding for the war in my mind confirms that...
...In the end, the idea that Hillary is smart enough, seasoned enough, and tough enough to win back the White House for the Democrats—and crafty enough to push a progressive agenda past the Republicans and all the powerful interest groups—convinces progressives like Baldwin to back her...
...As Stauber sees it, the idea that the Democrats, if only they can get elected, will end the war is "just the blue Kool-Aid talking...
...Quite obviously Senator Clinton and I reached different conclusions when we were asked to authorize the use of force in Iraq," she says...
...out of Iraq...
...But Hillary has yet to unveil her plan...
...Reppenhagen found relief from the skewed mainstream media coverage of the war online, and has hope that the Internet could be a powerful tool for getting the U.S...
...A prime example, says Stauber, is the Clinton health care "debacle...
...As stiff and off-puttingly centrist as she can seem in a large forum, in a smaller group of bloggers, Hillary warmed the crowd...
...Hillary has a staff of Washington insiders, including Howard Wolfson and Mark Penn, who have thoroughly worked the revolving door between government service and private industry— Ruth Conniff is the political editor of The Progressive...
...John Stauber of the Center for Media and Democracy, who helped host the coffee and tried, unsuccessfully, to get the anti-war vets onto the YearlyKos agenda, concurs...
...Hillary's pragmatism—the idea that she knows how to play the game, both to get elected and to get things done—is perhaps the central argument for her candidacy...
...I find myself saying, 'Oh come on,' sometimes...
...The only way change comes about is through well-organized movements that hold politicians accountable," he says...
...Nor is Baldwin put off by Clinton's massive fundraising, or her ties to big business...
...Baldwin remains sanguine about Hillary...
...I can do anything.' " Still, Hillary being a woman "wasn't among my top considerations," says Baldwin...
...At the YearlyKos convention in Chicago in August, she told a room full of leftwing bloggers, "I am here to win...
...Then there's the symbolic value of electing the first woman President...
...I genuinely believe that she's always been committed to universal health care," Baldwin says...
...It worked...
...The thing that concerns me the most is having a person in the Presidency who understands the way special interests have hijacked this [health care] debate," she says...
...Keeping the details of the current plan under wraps, Baldwin says, is "one of the first signs that she learned a lot...
...including lobbying for the pharmaceutical industry—as documented by The Nation in an article entitled "Hillary, Inc...
...But I do believe now that both of our positions are that we are seeking to end the war...
...He points out that Hillary has said she will not rush to get the troops out of Iraq...
...People don't always say nice things about me...
...I needed to know she supported ending the war before I could endorse her...
...The main reason," Baldwin said when I asked her that question, "is health care...
...She has certainly been encouraging...
...Baldwin, an out lesbian, and a cochair of Hillary's LGBT leadership group, too, is happy that Hillary would be willing to repeal her husband's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy on gays in the military (an example of pragmatic, compromise legislation that Hillary now acknowledges is a failure...
...The latest polls show Hillary pulling away from the competition, and she is taking the get-on-board-now argument to the anti-war base...
...They went easy on her—not even asking her about Iraq—to the dismay of critics like Garett Reppenhagen, who began blogging while serving in Iraq...
...She saw what happened last time she put every detail down on paper," says Baldwin, a co-chair of Clinton's Wisconsin campaign, referring to the Harry and Louise PR...
...Baldwin, who signed on to Dennis Kucinich's bill to impeach Cheney, also has personal reasons for her endorsement...
...I worry because more and more people start endorsing candidates, and we become like sports enthusiasts," he said at an off-agenda "coffee with the troops" during YearlyKos...
...No matter, says Baldwin...
...Baldwin remembers watching the 1984 Democratic Convention just after she graduated from college, "seeing Geraldine Ferraro cross that stage and thinking, 'I could do anything...
...Hillary says she would repeal the part of the law that denies same-sex couples the benefits married couples get...
...Clinton's failure to achieve that goal as First Lady, combined with her experience in the Senate, has only made her more savvy, she adds...
...But also, 'That's a really good point.' ") She thanked them for "standing up against the rightwing noise machine" and for being the "front line of the progressive movement...
...There's a delusion that there are going to be sweeping reforms once the Democrats have more power," Stauber adds...
...Hillary stumped for her early on...
...That's meaningful to me—that she took the time to help promote my career as a young, progressive Democrat and out lesbian running for Congress," she says...
...It's a burden I have to bear...
...I had a chance when she and I were talking, when she was asking me to support her candidacy, to talk a lot about the bill I've introduced that, in my mind, lays some groundwork for being able to move to a national universal health care plan," she says...
...Instead of throwing support to any particular Democrat, people who oppose the war should be keeping the pressure on, Reppenhagen said...
...For those of us who don't have any such personal assurances from the candidate, what Hillary means by universal health care is a matter of conjecture...
...The sky's the limit.' I think of all the little girls and young women watching Hillary Clinton raise her right hand and take the oath of office and thinking, 'Oh, my...
...She is understanding when Hillary talks about supporting the Defense of Marriage Act as a kind of rearguard action against a threatened marriage amendment to the Constitution...
...Political Eye Ruth Conniff Doing the Hillary Dance "VX/Thats a nice proW gressive legislator like Representative Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin, doing endorsing Hillary Clinton for President...
Vol. 71 • October 2007 • No. 10
