Hilary Clinton

julian4239 · Mayor Joined: 07 Jun 2006 Posts: 211

I find her politics interesting. She's often portrayed as a left-of-center Senator. But lately, she's been moderating her platform.
Sometimes she sounds like a Republican!!!

Gee, I wonder why. There's no doubt in my mind that she's running in 08. This is why she's moving to the right. But if she keeps moving to the right, she might lose her base. Her taking a right wing stance, even in the Iraq War, could diminish her political base from the left.

It should be very interesting to see her in 2008. I would not be surprised if she balanced the ticket with the a conservative.

Julian

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Hillary goes conservative on immigration

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is staking out a position on illegal immigration that is more conservative than President Bush, a strategy that supporters and detractors alike see as a way for the New York Democrat to shake the "liberal" label and appeal to traditionally Republican states.
Mrs. Clinton ? who is tagged as a liberal because of her plan for nationalized health care and various remarks during her husband's presidency ? is taking an increasingly vocal and hard-line stance on an issue that ranks among the highest concerns for voters, particularly Republicans.
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"Bush has done everything he can to leave the doors wide open," said Robert Kunst, president of HillaryNow.com, a group dedicated to drafting Mrs. Clinton to run for president. "Hillary is the only one taking a position on immigration. She will win that issue hands down."
In an interview last month on Fox News, Mrs. Clinton said she does not "think that we have protected our borders or our ports or provided our first responders with the resources they need, so we can do more and we can do better."
In an interview on WABC radio, she said: "I am, you know, adamantly against illegal immigrants."
"Clearly, we have to make some tough decisions as a country, and one of them ought to be coming up with a much better entry-and-exit system so that if we're going to let people in for the work that otherwise would not be done, let's have a system that keeps track of them," she said.
Unlike many pro-business Republicans, Mrs. Clinton also has castigated Americans for hiring illegal aliens.
"People have to stop employing illegal immigrants," she said. "I mean, come up to Westchester, go to Suffolk and Nassau counties, stand on the street corners in Brooklyn or the Bronx. You're going to see loads of people waiting to get picked up to go do yard work and construction work and domestic work."
In contrast, Mr. Bush backs a guest-worker program that allows foreign citizens entry into the United States and an eventual path to citizenship. One of the president's first acts after his re-election was to push for it again, before both domestic and foreign audiences.
Mrs. Clinton's position has been noticed by Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican and leading proponent of stricter immigration controls.
"She's not a dumb woman," Tancredo spokesman Carlos Espinoza said. "She's got a great liberal base, and she realizes there's no better way to draw in more conservative voters. She has really come out to the forefront on that."
With the vast majority of Americans in polls viewing illegal immigration as a serious problem, Mrs. Clinton also could make deep inroads in the conservative red states, especially those in the South that the Democrats have largely written off in recent presidential campaigns.
As the immigration issue has entered the debate over national security, the New York senator ? representing the state hardest hit by the September 11 attacks ? is uniquely positioned to take a firm stance on the issue, to the delight of some conservatives.
"More than any other leader of either political party, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton has been focusing on immigration reform and border security ? taking hard-line positions that appeal to frustrated Republicans in a move that could guarantee her enough support in red states to win the White House in 2008," conservative author Carl Limbacher wrote recently on NewsMax.com, which has chronicled many of Mrs. Clinton's statements on immigration.
Mr. Espinoza said the former first lady has become particularly vocal on the issue during and after the November election, in which Democrats performed so poorly.
"I think she's realizing how much this issue has grown since 9/11," he said. "If you talked about it before then, you were just a flat-out racist. Now it's this huge issue."
Moving to the right of even some Republicans, the former first lady told WABC she favors "at least a visa ID, some kind of entry-and-exit ID. And ... perhaps, although I'm not a big fan of it, we might have to move towards an ID system even for citizens."
Jennifer Duffy with the Cook Political Report said a conservative stance on immigration would be wise in the event Mrs. Clinton runs for president in 2008.
"Democrats are asking if it's really smart to nominate another Northeastern Democrat, and she is a Northeastern Democrat," she said. "It's probably smart to blur that perception a little."
But not everyone sees it as a wise a move.
"I think she is trying to move to the right, and immigration is one of the ways she is using to do it," said political strategist Dick Morris, who has a history of working with former President Clinton.
"I think this is a particularly misguided choice on her part, however, since two-thirds of Bush's margin this time was due to his closure of the Democratic margin of victory among Hispanics."
Mr. Bush lost the vote of Hispanics ? many of whom are wary of tougher immigration laws ? by only 10 percentage points this year, whereas he lost it by 20 percentage points four years ago, Mr. Morris said.
Mr. Kunst, whose Web site supporting Mrs. Clinton got thousands of hits daily right after Mr. Bush's re-election, said Mrs. Clinton is now the strongest Democrat for 2008 in terms of both popularity and financing.
Immigration is a good issue for her even as, he hopes, she holds onto her liberal credentials.
"It's not just about cheap labor anymore," Mr. Kunst said. "It's about security. We have to do something about it."

MHJ · Mayor's Aide Joined: 12 Jun 2006 Posts: 118

The problem is that she doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of the democratic party which makes it hard to build a campaign around her

GermaineMichele · Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 9:12 am Post subject: hilary

she's too divisive to be on the 2008 ticket. her views on nationalized health care would kill her straight out -even if it is an ultimately humane concept that everyone have basic health care.

Nogard · Mayor's Aide Joined: 14 Jun 2006 Posts: 130

No Hilary in 2008. Sorry to say this but i can't stand here. I can't stand the fact that she forgave her husband all them times.

julian4239 · Mayor Joined: 07 Jun 2006 Posts: 211

You know, I have some liberal friends who don't like her at all. I don't know why she's hated for some, even on the left. Can any Democrat/Liberal here explain why she's so hated? Or, am I wrong on this assumption.

Thanks.

Nogard · Mayor's Aide Joined: 14 Jun 2006 Posts: 130

I'm not a liberal but I don't like becuase she's a well in nice words and idiot. She could of dump Billy boy after he was caught with his hands in the cookie jar so to speak, but she didn't, she kept him.

Thumperfive · Mayor Joined: 11 Jun 2006 Posts: 222

exactly why I can't respect her as a woman - no matter what sort of "agreement" she may claim to have, no woman who lets her man cheat on her has the emotional maturity to lead anything, much less the US!

Dolly · Mayor Joined: 17 Jun 2006 Posts: 247

What's this Nationalised Health Care, that somebody mentioned?

Are they going for a National Health System over there like we have in the UK?

Coda1108 · Mayor's Aide Joined: 13 Jun 2006 Posts: 130 Location: PA

I'm definitely NOT a Hilary fan. However, her run for NY Senator was almost joke-like in the beginning... and she WON! Yes, it's a long way from the White House, but her success there scares me. Plus, I think there will be enough anti-republican sentiment in 2008 that she could win. After 2008, I don't think she'd have a shot. I think if she could manage to win a primary in 2008 she's got a heck of a chance.

... and this is why I lose sleep at night.

Dolly, there was talk of a Nationalized Health Plan twice in recent history. Once, while Bill Clinton was President and Hilary thought she was so she came up with the idea. Then again during our last Presidential election it was proposed by John Kerry. The only problem is that Kerry had so many mis-interpretations and assumptions in his plan that anyone who read it... and I mean REALLY read it had real issues with it.

No offense to your health plan in the UK, and I know ours isn't that great, but I'll stick with what we have for a ton of reasons.

By the way, throughout the entire election, I could not find ONE Kerry supporter that actually READ his health plan. They all read his sound-bites and blurbs about what he claimed it would accomplish. But not ONE supporter I spoke with had read it, and when I pointed certain things out about it, they all had no answer. It was quite sad, really.

Dolly · Mayor Joined: 17 Jun 2006 Posts: 247

Our national health service has loads of problems at the minute.

Too many chiefs and not enough indians. It's being run by a bunch of managers who are too keen to protect their jobs.

Saying that, it was, and probably still is, a good thing for us. Set up after the war to make sure every body got entitlement to treatment.

I suppose in a modern civilized society you can't have poor people suffering just because they are poor. It sort of denegrates the word civilized.

We do have a lot of private health schemes these days though. But the treatment you can have on them seems to be limited.
But at least you jump the waiting lists for treatment. Oh, the waiting, waiting, waiting lists!

Nogard · Mayor's Aide Joined: 14 Jun 2006 Posts: 130

As for her winning the NY State Senate...as Al Gore would say " I demand a re-count."LOL...

Coda1108 · Mayor's Aide Joined: 13 Jun 2006 Posts: 130 Location: PA

Dolly,
I avoided saying more about the UK Health Plan... but I've heard horror stories about the waiting lists for tests and treatments. It is the single most unavoidable barrier to why I think the US will never have a plan such as yours. As it is now, there are communities who have a 2-week wait for mammography exams and it is considered completely unacceptable.

Thumperfive · Mayor Joined: 11 Jun 2006 Posts: 222

*falls off chair*

dude, there are women in Canada, my mother among them, who can't get a mammogram for years due to no doctors being available to take on new patients!

four years ago my sister had to use the emerg dept through her pregnancy 'cause there was no gyne in her area - they've all left and there's no one taking on new patients!

Dolly · Mayor Joined: 17 Jun 2006 Posts: 247

Does Canada have a private system, Thumper?

Yes, Coda, the waiting lists here are horrendous. My mother had to wait over 2 months to get the results confirming she had lung cancer. By that time it had spread and you can guess the rest.

It does very much depend on where you live though. I've had extremely quick treatment in the Lincolnshire region, which would have been unheard of in the major cities.
It's turning very quickly into a kind of cattle market though.

Coda1108 · Mayor's Aide Joined: 13 Jun 2006 Posts: 130 Location: PA

WOW!!! These are the kinds of factors that were coming out during the last election. Incredibly, many Americans (dare I say Kerry supporters!) listened to these stories and said "Oh, that would never happen here."