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Go Home Clinton's Dilemma

THE PLANK DECEMBER 12, 2006

Clinton's Dilemma

BY ISAAC CHOTINER

Garance has a good piece on TNR online today about Obama's trip to New Hampshire this weekend. One of his speeches has been running on C-Span, and it occurred to me while watching that if Hillary Clinton wants to beat Obama in a primary, she is going to have to renounce her war vote ... and do it strongly. This may be more an intuition than actual knowledge, but looking at the faces of those NH voters as Obama talked about foreign policy, it was hard to believe they would vote for someone who hadn't come out strongly against the war. If Obama doesn't enter the race, Hillary will be running against opponents who all voted for the war, and even if they have since renounced those votes, she at least has more space in which to maneuver. But with Obama in the race, her calculation has to change. This must be particularly frustrating for Senator Clinton, who had probably been hoping on coasting through the primaries without having to veer too far left on national security. Even though Iraq will almost certainly play to the Democrats' advantage in '08, and despite the fact that the vast majority of the country has turned against the war, I am still skeptical that a woman can be anything but strongly hawkish and win a presidential election. --Isaac Chotiner

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14 comments

Clinton will never have more support than she has right now and still if the primaries were today, she'd lose to Obama. Everyone knows who she is and she's been wrong on Iraq too long.

- swamiswamu

December 12, 2006 at 11:49am

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- purcellneil

December 12, 2006 at 12:05pm

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http://tinyurl.com/u4nfg It's good to see the Saudis quit their jobs for the same reason as American politicians, university presidents, and sports teams management.

- achester99

December 12, 2006 at 12:30pm

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I think it's a mistake to assume a woman would have to be a hawk to get elected. It's the Margaret Thatcher-phenomon all over again, that a women has be tougher than a man to get ahead, examplified by Reagan's 'toughest man in Britain'-talk about Thatcher. I think if Hillary advocates a smart, pragmatic and sensible foreign (and defence) policy, she will get a fair hearing. If she's up against 'More Troops' McCain, then she'd have to move to his right -if she's to continue this strategy-, and that's not a proposition that's going to end well. Going out of your way to compensate for weaknesses isn't exactly the best start for an inspiring candidacy. On a similar note, I am equally afraid that she will compensate for HillaryCare by proposing some pretty conservative stuff on SocSec and Medicare/Medicaid.

- hustveit

December 12, 2006 at 12:40pm

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Will someone please tell me who you think is going to vote for Hillary in the primaries. All right, maybe some doctrinaire feminists. She may be a smart, canny woman and quite a competent Senator, but I see her various potential constituencies being peeled away from her by each of her competitors with the result that she gets smoked early and often. This "front runner" business is nonsense: voters have to like the person they're voting for.

- JackR

December 12, 2006 at 1:12pm

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She gambled on supporting the war because she was afraid of coming out against it and being tarred by the NRO crowd as a treasonous liberal appeaser-woman (which she would've been). Thanks to how Iraq turned out, she lost on that gamble. Game over for her.

- glacialspeed

December 12, 2006 at 1:47pm

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...lest she sound like another John Kerry. if she recants, she looks like a waffling, wet-fingered poll-follower. The only honorable, and political option she has is to say she voted for the war, but that she has for a longtime felt that the prosecution of the war was badly executed. Admitting she was wrong to support the war will not win her the people who were always against it. And it will lose her the people who ageed with her.

- ChanRobt

December 12, 2006 at 2:24pm

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Isaac Chotiner- You write: "If Obama doesn't enter the race, Hillary will be running against opponents who all voted for the war, and even if they have since renounced those votes, she at least has more space in which to maneuver. But with Obama in the race, her calculation has to change." One other variable in this mix: Al Gore, who opposed the war--as well as the Joint Resolution on Iraq--as early as September of 2002. So Hillary may face two candidates who never supported the war, Obama and Gore. But as for renouncing her own earlier (and current) position, for millions upon millions of Americans, Hillary is John Kerry in drag, a politician who blows with the opportunisitic wind. If she were to renounce her war vote, this comparison, as ChanRobt notes, would only be all the more compelling. If she doesn't renounce it, she is, as far as I can see, toast. Even feminists--feminists who only three or four years ago used to speak out strongly on her behalf--even they feel betrayed by Hillary now.

- JosephCuomo

December 12, 2006 at 2:49pm

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This is a version of a repeated theme: A 2008 Democratic nominee will be harmed by running too "doveish" on Iraq during the primaries , and thus being "out of the mainstream" come the general election. Isn't the more logical analysis that the Republican nominee (McCain?) will run too hawkish during the primary, and then will be out of the mainstream (60-70% of the country wanting the troops home per a timetable)and will be unable to attract a majority come the general election.

- wfmartin

December 12, 2006 at 4:21pm

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Yeah -- we really need Gore to run. Gore/Edwards or Gore/Obama.

- purcellneil

December 12, 2006 at 5:10pm

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- teplukhin

December 12, 2006 at 5:24pm

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So hard to know where I crossed the line.

- ChanRobt

December 12, 2006 at 5:43pm

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The suggestion that she's a follower of Jocelyn Elders was a bit out of line. Won't help in the red states.

- teplukhin

December 12, 2006 at 7:40pm

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...in female erotica. I just meant, she don't need a weatherman to see which way the wind is blowing.

- ChanRobt

December 13, 2006 at 12:01am

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