Without the "Clinton" name would Hillary be where she is in regards to running for President?

[Skwmom]

Without being married to Bill Clinton would Hillary be where she is?

Has Hillary gotten where she is solely based on her own merits?

I think not.

I added the above clarification b/c I'm not asking whether she would be an accomplished woman, I'm asking would she be where she is in regards to her presidential run?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Would George Bush Jr. be president if not for his dad?

[XemaSab]

15. Probably not

He's an asshole who, if there was a God, would be wearing an orange jumpsuit and picking up litter by the side of the freeway.

Should he have been elected to office based on his dad being president? Should Hillary be elected because she had a relative in the Oval Office? :shrug:

[Skwmom]

35. I can't help but think "two wrongs don't make a right."

[XemaSab]

56. I couldn't have said it better

:)

[Hieronymus]

62. Of course not, and neither would Hillary without Bill.

[madaboutharry]

2. She does have tremendous ambition, so it

is hard to say how her life would have worked out. When she was graduating college, her classmates thought she would become the first woman president.

[onehandle]

3. What an original premise.

Never ever before has that tiny little insignificant thought been expressed at DU.

:sarcasm:

[Skwmom]

11. I guess I really hit a nerve. According to Team Hillary only Hillary

is entitled to or deserves the presidency. I think not.

[rinsd]

18. "I guess I really hit a nerve"

yeah imagine people being upset about sexism.

:eyes:

[Skwmom]

44. So it's okay to say Obama is where he is in the presidential race b/c he's black

but it's not okay to say - wait a minute, is Hillary where she is b/c of her merits or b/c of the Clinton name? It has nothing to do with her sex. I think the Bush name definitely played a HUGE ROLE in getting George Bush elected and he is a MAN.

[rinsd]

46. No it is not ok.

But apparently you operate under the principle that if someone else acts like an ass that entitles you to do so as well.

I already commented on the thread itself.

[Skwmom]

61. No. I live by the prinicple that "those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."

When is the Clinton Camp going to learn that?

The Clinton Camp - they think if they say something often enough the public will accept it as the truth. Now who does this remind me of.....

[onehandle]

50. I'm not a Hillary supporter. I'm simply tired of the same posts over and over and over.

You're just another unoriginal one of the masses.

[DJ13]

4. No, Hillary Rodham would be a VP of WalMart by now

Stealing millions of dollars through questionable stock options like every other executive in a Fortune 500 company.

[JVS]

10. No. She got involved with Wal-mart after following Bill to Arkansas.

She probably wouldn't have made the contact if she had stayed up north.

[snooper2]

34. And don't forget

Wal-Mart is based in Arkansas, or is it Hil-Mart

[bellasgrams]

40. Her connection to Walmart was before it was demonized

[rinsd]

5. Hillary was a star before she met Bill.

She would have likely been a Senator far before 2000.

But in all honesty, would either candidate be who they are and where they are without their spouse?

[Lucinda]

14. I agree. With all three points.

:hi:

[Independent-Voter]

6. She'd be Harriet Myers

[ericgtr]

7. Absolutely not

Without Bill we wouldn't even know who she is today.

[Apollo11]

8. Hillary is a very competent and hard-working Senator

So I would say yes, Hillary merits being where she is.

If anything - Bill has held her back by delaying her entry into politics.

[rug]

9. No, she'd probably be occupying Obama's seat as the senator from Illinois.

[Recursion]

54. To me that's the most ironic thing about this

And I agree, looking back it seems much more likely she would have gotten the seat that Moseley Braun got in 1992, and still have it today.

Strange world.

[librechik]

12. You mean Mrs. Hillary Bloomberg? I rather think so.

[saracat]

13. Well, she certainly worked her way through school without Bills name and graduated as valedictorian

and got national coverage for a speech condemning the Vietnam War without Bill's name. She went to work for the Children's defense fund without Bill's name and was on the Nixon Impeachment Committee without Bill's name. She worked for George McGovern without Bill's name. She graduated at the top of her Yale law class without Bill's name and she worked as one of the 300 most successful lawyers in America without Bill's name. In fact he only took Bill's name because she was told it was af actor in his being reelected In Arkansas. But the accomplishments I mention took place before she even married Bill.

Would she be running for President , or be a Senator? No one knows but it was common knowledge that many thought she should have run for office before Bill did and is credited by many with being the brains behind the Clinton 1992 campaign. I have no doubt she would have been very successful in her own right.

[XemaSab]

19. The 300 most sucessful layers in America?

I know this is a typo and I shouldn't laugh, but :rofl:

[JVS]

23. Why did she flunk her bar exam? Is that something the 300 best lawyers do?

Doesn't that diminish hiring opportunities?

[Skwmom]

24. Well a lot of people have accomplished much more,

have displayed better leadership and judgment.

I'm not asking whether she would be a "successful" person, I'm asking would she be where she is today in regards to her presidential run?

[Jane Austin]

45. There is a valedictorian at each of the Seven Sisters schools every year.

As laudable as that is, it's not unique.

[JVS]

16. It's hard to tell. I assume she would have passed the DC bar exam on her second try.

So could someone with experience in the legal world tell us what kind of work this would have led to?

[saracat]

27. Hillary was at the top of her class in Yale. Many folks take several tries to pass the bar.

You don't know what other bars she passed before she took the DC bar either. She is admitted to practice so she did pass the bar.This is just an ignorant statement.

My Dad passed the NY Bar on his first attempt. It used to be in two parts the written and the oral. My Mom took two shots at the oral.Passing the bar at the first shot says nothing about abilty, which is why Hillary became one of the 300 most successful lawyers in the US!

[onenote]

49. you have a link for that? Yale doesn't rank students and doesn't have traditional grading

First year students at Yale Law are graded "credit/no credit". In years 2 and 3, grades are Honors/Pass/Low Pass/Fail. The school does not publish rankings of students. In terms of being viewed as a top students, the major law firms regard someone who was on the Yale Law Journal staff as a more attractive job candidate than one who wasn't. HRC wasn't. She was on the board of editors of a short lived quarterly journal that was only published at Yale between 1970 and 1973.

[MyNameGoesHere]

17. Well heck no, she would be barefoot and pregnant where all you women

folk should be. Cause lawdy we knows womens is not as smart as mens.


:puke: :crazy: :sarcasm:

[dionysus]

20. she'd have been the carol mosely braun of the race.

[musiclawyer]

21. Name recognition is invaluable

See Reagan, Bush 2.0 and HRC

Which shows how incredibly skilled people like the original Bill was and Obama is. They were unknown too at one time.


Bush 2.0 and HRC not nearly as skilled and would have gone, I'll be kind, not nearly as far on their own.

[Occam Bandage]

22. She might well be a Senator. She's very intelligent and very ambitious.

[leftofcool]

25. Spoken like Rush Limbaugh

[JimGinPA]

26. No. She Would Never Haver Been Elected To The Senate Without His Connections

:kick:

[saracat]

31. Yeah well the original "connections" that got Bill elected president were from Hillary.

[JimGinPA]

43. Her Arkansas Connections? Don't Pull "Facts" From Your Nether Regions

:eyes:

[saracat]

64. No .Her DC Connections and BTW, her Arknsas connections were just as good as his

but you wouldn't know that unless you were a student of history, which it is apparent, you aren't!

[Emillereid]

28. She is running on her husband's resume for the most part -wish I could

get away with that - my husband has a good paying job.

[Metric System]

29. The Clinton name got her into Wellesley. The Clinton name allowed her to be the class valedictorian.

The Clinton name got her press coverage following her valedictorian speech. The Clinton name got her into Yale Law. The Clinton name got her through Yale Law. The Clinton name made her a lawyer. The Clinton name got her involved in Nixon's impeachment...etc., etc. Poor Hillary Rodham would be nothing but a high school graduate if she hadn't met Bill.

[saracat]

33. LOL. Humorous rendition of my post above. Not so subtle "sexism" is encouraged but

to mention "race"is taboo.!

[Skwmom]

39. There are MANY accomplished people NOT running for president.

b/c they wouldn't have a chance.

I'm not asking whether she would have had those accomplishments. I'm asking would she be where she is regarding her presidential run?

[bellasgrams]

48. She worked to put herself through law school. One job was

working on a fishing boat. A very dirty job that girls today wouldn't touch. She wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty working hard to get an education. At the end of her job she worked to improve the working conditions for others.

[bellasgrams]

53. How could the Clinton name help her in anyway when he was

just a student at that time? He was also from a blue collar family. There was no name recognition. You better go back and do your homework. Not one sentence is true. You are show your ignorance.

[Metric System]

57. Huh? I'm a Clinton supporter. I'm making fun of those who minimize her accomplishments.

[oasis]

30. FDR, Ted Kennedy. Why stop at Clinton?let's go down the line. BTW,

you might want to go to Hill's website and take a look at her accomplishments so you can get an idea about what your talking about.

[OzarkDem]

32. More sexism from the Obama camp

Women are nothing without their husbands....:eyes:

[Quixote1818]

38. Didn't you just complain that the Obama camp constantly cries Racism?

And now you are screaming sexism? :rofl:

[Beacool]

36. Oh, goodie let's sling more mud!!!!

OK, let me try the race card since you're so keen on pulling the gender card.

Would Obama be where he's at right now, considering his razor thin level of experience at the national level, if he had been a young white senator? I think not......

:applause:

[Skwmom]

47. It's a valid question. Would it have been acceptable if Hillary had

been Bill's brother (or Bill's son) and not his wife?

[Skwmom]

51. The Clintons have played the race and gender cards since NH.

And as a woman I find the phony playing of the gender card disgusting.

Oh, I almost forgot, she's also played the age card but what the heck, whatever it takes to win.

[bellasgrams]

58. I haven' t noticed the gender card unless it's the fact that she is

female. However BO constantly plays the race card.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

37. Maybe not as a candidate or senator, but she'd still be successful in another area.

I'm not even a supporter, but I can recognize her intelligence and determination.

[onenote]

41. No one gets where they are in politics "solely" on their own "merits."

Did JFK get where he was "solely" on his own merits? Did LBJ? I've seen ardent HRC supporters here on DU claim that HRC was in good measure responsible for Bill's success (not that I agree).

[Jane Austin]

42. So many of the things she claims credit for

sound pretty much like all the things my mother did - without being married to a Governor or President.

And my mother helped found a community college and sang in her church choir every Sunday and was our Girl Scout leader for eleven years,too - which I haven't seen in Hillary's resume.

[MzShellG]

52. I doubt she would even be senator as Hillary Rodham.

As president, she wouldn't have been no more known than Caron Mosely-Braun or Shirley Chisolm. And btw, if people are getting so caught up in Obama because he's black, why didn't those two women or Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton make it as far as he has in the primaries?

[Klukie]

55. No.

[Az_lefty]

59. of course not and neither would bush jr. without his daddy's help

[McCamy Taylor]

60. No.

[VotesForWomen]

63. did you ever ask youself if bill would have got where he did without hill's help? probably not. nt