What Election 2014 means for Hillary Clinton in 2016
FOR HILLARY Clinton, Tuesday night was both the best of times and the worst of times. As the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, her path to the presidency became slightly smoother. The problem, however, is that the magnitude of the GOP victory has made winning the White House a heck of a lot less attractive.
Let’s start with the good news — the GOP won the Senate! On the surface, this was clearly a bad outcome for Democrats, but it’s probably the best possible result for Hillary. First, panicked Democrats may be less inclined to look elsewhere for a candidate, particularly since Clinton is almost certainly the best-positioned and definitely the most popular Democratic presidential wannabe. It’s not hard to imagine Democrats coalescing quickly around her candidacy, fearful of a drawn-out intra-party primary fight.
Second, the worst thing for the GOP brand is if the party is actually forced to govern the country.
Governing involves doing things like drafting and passing legislation, forging compromises, reaching across the aisle, resisting overreach, and keeping radicalism in check. These are all things that Republicans are terrible at. For all the kumbaya talk in Washington right now, the chances of the White House and Congress finding common ground on much of anything are about equal to my chances of playing shortstop for the Red Sox next year. The chances that the GOP becomes immersed in an internecine civil war, its radical fringe acts radical, and pretty much nothing getting accomplished other than a lot of vetoes, more gridlock, and a dollop of showdowns and shutdowns are far more likely possibilities.
All of that will be helpful to Hillary’s political prospects. Putting aside the fact that Republicans being in charge of both the House and Senate will almost certainly widen the divisions within the GOP, a Republican Congress will serve as an effective political foil for Clinton. It will be a group she can run directly against and use to mobilize Democratic constituencies fearful of Republicans taking the presidency and Congress.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/11/07/what-election-means-for-hillary-clinton/TTcDqmg3OsbkvbX7l1bSHK/story.html
Should keep you busy for the rest of the day.
= new reply since forum marked as read
But this Obama loves Reagan shit really pisses me off and I have a hair trigger with that and misunderstood you.
I'll continue to work against her and for any candidate more progressive than she is.
She sat silent while a board member at Walmart as they fought unions.
Clinton Remained Silent As Wal-Mart Fought Unions
Jan. 31, 2008
By BRIAN ROSS, MADDY SAUER and RHONDA SCHWARTZ
In six years as a member of the Wal-Mart board of directors, between 1986 and 1992, Hillary Clinton remained silent as the world's largest retailer waged a major campaign against labor unions seeking to represent store workers.
Clinton has been endorsed for president by more than a dozen unions, according to her campaign Web site, which omits any reference to her role at Wal-Mart in its detailed biography of her.
Wal-Mart's anti-union efforts were headed by one of Clinton's fellow board members, John Tate, a Wal-Mart executive vice president who also served on the board with Clinton for four of her six years.
Tate was fond of repeating, as he did at a managers meeting in 2004 after his retirement, what he said was his favorite phrase, "Labor unions are nothing but blood-sucking parasites living off the productive labor of people who work for a living."
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4218509
I've decided to sit out next year's already bubbling Democratic presidential primary race on DU. After looking back over the last few cycles, it's clear I would have been happy with almost any of the previous contenders and all the infighting was really for nothing.
But I want to answer the sniveling request "How come Hillary supporters can't present an argument for her?" But before I do, here's a counter question. How come anti-Hillary folks can't come up with compelling reasons to support their candidate (or candidate-type) other than what he or she SAYS they will do? Where's the beef?
OK, short answer to the original question: Hillary supporters have. Ad nauseam. Perhaps not in this (upcoming) election cycle, but in ones past. Some new-comers to DU may not have seen those. Others have.
Long answer: Here's one I put together in 2007. It doesn't include her time as Secretary of State. But that experience only re-enforces the argument for her.
DISCLAIMER: This isn't to say no one else has the chops for the job. This is just and answer to a very specific question posed on DU.
Education
Wellesley College where she majored in political science.
Yale Law School, where she served on the Board of Editors of the Yale Review of Law and Social Action.
Political Activist Experience
Pragmatic Liberal
Always fascinated by radicalism, she wrote her senior thesis on a great radical organizer of poor people, Saul Alinsky of Chicago. Though when she was offered a job by Alinsky, after she wrote about him, and she turned him down--because she didn't think he was effective enough. She said to her boyfriend at that timebe in politics you have to win. And it didn't look to her like Alinsky was winning enough of his battles. She came to question his methodology and concluded in her thesis that larger government programs and funding were needed, not just community action at the grass roots.
She was the commencement speaker at Wellesley in 1969, chosen by her fellow students--there had never been a student commencement speaker there before. The scheduled speaker was Sen. Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, who Hillary had campaigned for, a Republican, the first black to be a member of the U.S. Senate in a hundred years. In his remarks he was patronizing, Hillary thought. He seemed to defend the Nixon administration's conduct of the war, and didn't mention the wrenching events of 68. When he finished, Hillary got up and extemporaneously excoriated him. As a result of that speech, she was featured in Life magazine as exemplary of this new generation of student leaders. They ran a picture of her in pedal pushers and her Coke-bottle glasses. That article made her well known in the student movement in the U.S.
She monitored the Black Panther trial in New Haven. She monitored the trial to see if there were any abuses of the rights of the Panthers on trial, and helped schedule the monitors. Her reports were turned over to the ACLU.
1971 Senator Walter Mondale's subcommittee on migrant workers, researching migrant problems in housing, sanitation, health and education.
Political Campaign Experience
1964 In high school, volunteered for Republican candidate Barry Goldwater.
1968 New Hampshire, Eugene McCarthy primary challenge to LBJ.
1972 Campaigned in the western states for 1972 Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern
1976 Jimmy Carter Presidential race, served as an Indiana campaign coordinator.
The Clinton Campaigns (Bill Clinton has stated Hillary played pivotal roles in his campaigns)
1974 Bill Clinton's Congressional race (L)
1976 Bill Clinton's Attorney General race (W)
1978 Bill Clinton's Governor's Race (W)
1980 Bill Clinton's Governor's Race (L)
1982 Bill Clinton's Governor's Race (W)
1992 Bill Clinton's Presidential Race (W)
1996 Bill Clinton's Presidential Race (W)
2000 Hillary Clinton's Senate Campaign (W)
2006 Hillary Clinton's Senate Campaign (W)
Legal Experience
1969 Truehaft, Walker and Bernstein in Oakland, one of the most liberal law firms in the country. They defended the Panthers.
1970 Yale University - city legal services, provided free legal advice for the poor.
1971 Staff attorney, Children's Defense Fund in Cambridge, Massachusetts
1971 Carnegie Council on Children, legal consultant.
1974 Impeachment Inquiry staff in Washington, D.C., advising the House Committee on the Judiciary during the Watergate scandal.
1974 University of Arkansas, Fayetteville School of Law - One of only two female faculty members.
1976 Rose Law Firm. In 1979, she became the first woman to be made a full partner.
1976 Worked pro bono on child advocacy.
1978 Jimmy Carter appoints Clinton to the board of the Legal Services Corporation.
She was twice named by the National Law Journal as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America, in 1988 and in 1991.
First Lady of Arkansas
1979 Chaired the Rural Health Advisory Committee
1979 Introduced the Arkansas' Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youth, a program that helps parents work with their children in preschool preparedness and literacy.
1982 - 1992 Chaired the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee
She was named Arkansas Woman of the Year in 1983 and Arkansas Mother of the Year in 1984.
Clinton had co-founded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families in 1977.
Served on the boards of the Arkansas Children's Hospital Legal Services (1988-1992)and the Children's Defense Fund (as chair, 1986-1992)
Corporate board of directors of TCBY (1985-1992),Wal-Mart Stores (1986-1992), and Lafarge (1990-1992)
First Lady of the United States of America
"She's very smart ... people rightly give her credit for having been a participant in the Clinton administration and for doing some heavy lifting on issues." Barack Obama, speaking of Hillary Clinton's White House experience and contradicting Obama supporters - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart 8/22/07
When asked about his wife's role in his administration in August of 2000, President Bill Clinton said "She basically had an unprecedented level of activity in her present position over the last eight years.''
1993 First to bring a serious universal healthcare plan to be considered by the US Congress
1997 Helped develope the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997
The First Lady led the effor on the Foster Care Independence bill, to help older, unadopted children transition to adulthood. She also hosted numerous White House conferences that related to children's health, including early childhood development (1997) and school violence (1999). She lent her support to programs ranging from "Prescription for Reading," in which pediatricians provided free books for new mothers to read to their infants as their brains were rapidly developing, to nationwide immunization against childhood illnesses. She also supported an annual drive to encourage older women to seek a mammography to prevent breast cancer, coverage of the cost being provided by Medicare.
Hillary Clinton was the only First Lady to keep an office in the West Wing among those of the president's senior staff. While her familiarity with the intricate political issues and decisions faced by the President, she openly discussed his work with him, yet stated that ultimately she was but one of several individuals he consulted before making a decision. They were known to disagree. Regarding his 1993 passage of welfare reform, the First Lady had reservations about federally supported childcare and Medicaid. When issues that she was working on were under discussion at the morning senior staff meetings, the First Lady often attended. Aides kept her informed of all pending legislation and oftentimes sought her reaction to issues as a way of gauging the President's potential response. Weighing in on his Cabinet appointments and knowing many of the individuals he named, she had working relationships with many of them.
She persuaded Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin to convene a meeting of corporate CEOs for their advice on how companies could be persuaded to adopt better child care measures for working families.
With Attorney General Janet Reno, the First Lady helped to create the Department of Justice's Violence Against Women office. One of her closest Cabinet allies was Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Following her international trips, Hillary Clinton wrote a report of her observations for Albright. A primary effort they shared was globally advocating gender equity in economics, employment, health care and education.
During her trips to Africa (1997), Asia (1995), South America (1995, 1997) and the Central European former Soviet satellite nations (1997, 1998), Hillary Clinton emphasized "a civil society," of human rights as a road to democracy and capitalism.
The First Lady was also one of the few international figures at the time who spoke out against the treatment of Afghani women by Islamist fundamentalist Taliban that had seized control of Afghanistan.
One of the programs she helped create was Vital Voices, a U.S.-sponsored initiative to promote the participation of international women in their nation's political process. One result of the group's meetings, in Northern Ireland, was drawing together women leaders of various political factions that supported the Good Friday peace agreement that brought peace to that nation long at civil war.
Hillary Clinton was also an active supporter of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), often awarding its micro-loans to small enterprises begun by women in developing nations that aided the economic growth in their impoverished communities. Certainly one of her more important speeches as First Lady addressing the need for equal rights for women was international in scope and created controversy in the nation where it was made: the September 1995 United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China.
Senator From New York
After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Hillary worked with her colleagues to secure the funds New York needed to recover and rebuild. She fought to provide compensation to the families of the victims, grants for hard-hit small businesses, and health care for front line workers at Ground Zero.
She is the first New Yorker ever to serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
She has introduced legislation to tie Congressional salary increases to an increase in the minimum wage.
She helped pass legislation that encouraged investment to create jobs in struggling communities through the Renewal Communities program.
She has championed legislation to bring broadband Internet access to rural America.
She worked to strengthen the Children's Health Insurance Program, which increased coverage for children in low income and working families.
She authored legislation that has been enacted to improve quality and lower the cost of prescription drugs and to protect our food supply from bioterrorism.
She sponsored legislation to increase America's commitment to fighting the global HIV/AIDS crisis.
She's working for expanded use of information technology in the health care system to decrease administrative costs, lower premiums, and reduce medical errors.
She's worked to ensure the safety of prescription drugs for children, with legislation now included in the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act, and her legislation to help schools address environmental hazards. She has also proposed expanding access to child care.
She has passed legislation that will bring more qualified teachers into classrooms and more outstanding principals to lead our schools.
Hillary is one of the original cosponsors of the Prevention First Act to increase access to family planning. Her fight with the Bush Administration ensured that Plan B, an emergency contraceptive, will be available to millions of American women and will reduce the need for abortions.
She introduced the Count Every Vote Act of 2005 to ensure better protection of votes and to ensure that every vote is counted.
Senate Armed Services Committee
Subcommittees:
* Airland
* Emerging Threats and Capabilities
* Readiness and Management Support
Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works
Subcommittees:
* Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health (Chair)
* Subcommittee Clean Air and Nuclear Safety
* Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure
Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions
Subcommittees:
* Children and Families
* Employment & Workplace Safety
Sources:
Wikipedia
Firstladies.org
Alternet
hillaryclinton.com
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There's your answer - and for these and other reasons, I'd be proud to have her as my President. I know your objections. They've been raised over and over. So why waste your time? How about convincing us of someone else?
So on the topic of the Democratic nominee for 2016, I'll see you Spring/summer 2016. 
What is it with DUers who belittle others for offering facts? 
