I posted my op/ed on Sen. Clinton previously here on DU. But being as though tomorrow is Super Tuesday and so many people are voting, I felt it appropriate to post again.
I hope DUers of all political persuasions will read. Thank you.
These are just but a few of the reasons that I support Sen. Clinton for President:
- She is a policy wonk. Since she ascended onto the national stage in 1992, one of the things that has impressed me the most about Hillary Rodham Clinton, is that she knows the issues, and she has an enormous love of policy. Some of the talking heads and chattering class like to make fun of policy wonks, but a policy wonk is just what we need, for times such as this. We need a President who is proud to 'do nuance.' For the past eight years, we've had a President who, upon arriving at the White House, sent the word out that he was not a big reader (Richard Clarke wrote about this in his book). We had a president who, after receiving a Presidentidal Daily Brief on 8/6/01 entitled "bin Laden Determined to Strike in the United States," simply responded to his CIA briefer "All right, you've covered your ass now."
- Senator Clinton knows how to build alliances. One of the great misconceptions about Hillary Rodham Clinton, is that she's devisive. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, she's received kudos as being a workhorse, from some of the very same people who voted to remove her husband from office. This is what Sen. Lindsey Graham wrote about Sen. Clinton in a Time magazine article in April 2006: "As a red-state conservative, I have found common ground with her on improving health-care benefits for members of the National Guard and Reserve. We also created a bipartisan Manufacturing Caucus to help promote and address the problems facing America's manufacturers." There is simply no factual basis for those who say that she will be too divisive to get anything done as President. Her Senate record proves quite the contrary.
- She's not so wedded to her own ideas, even when the evidence tells her she's wrong. One of the things we've seen in nearly 8 years of George W. Bush's presidency, is a President so wedded to his own ideas, even when the evidence shows he's wrong. We've seen a stubborness and a frightening unwillingness to change. I don't believe that will be the case under President Hillary Rodham Clinton. One of my favorite stories about Sen. Clinton, is how she grew up in a conversative mid-western neighborhood. Yet, her youth minister, Rev. Don Jones, took her and other youth to see Rev. Martin Luther King speak. In other words, Rev. Don Jones showed Hillary Rodham that there was a whole other world out there, other than the one she had been exposed to. Moreover, she arrived at Wellesley College as a Republican, but was transformed by the events of the turbulent 60's (i.e. the civil rights movement). As Judith Warner writes in her book Hillary Clinton: The Inside Story: "Hillary Rodham, who only two years before had shook Dr. King's hand, saw white policemen in storm trooper boots using cattle prods on peaceful black and white demonstrators, saw federal troops called in to keep the peace. Such images did not fail to make a mark on her."
- As President, Hillary Clinton will restore America's standing in the world. There's no doubt that Hillary Clinton is one of the reasons America held such a commanding presence on the international stage, during the 90's. Who can forget her going to Beijing, and uttering these words "Women's rights are human rights, once and for all." Who can forget her going to places like Africa, and championing "microcredit," which allows people (especially women) to empower themselves and take control of their own destiny, by receiving microcredit loans they can use to start their own businesses.
- A Hillary Clinton Administration will focus on the health care needs of our nation's veterans. We all know how, for all its talk of supporting our troops, the current Administration has basically turned a blind eye towards our nation's veterans, and the serious physical and mental health needs they face. As First Lady, Hillary Clinton took an active role in the issue of Gulf War Syndrome. From the August 15, 1995 issue of the New York Times:
Hillary Rodham Clinton urged a Presidential commission today to leave no stone unturned in investigating why thousands of veterans of the Persian Gulf war returned with various illnesses, even as a panel of independent medical experts suggested that the Pentagon might have been too hasty in concluding that there was no evidence of a "gulf war syndrome."
"No issue is off-limits and every reasonable inquiry should be pursued," Mrs. Clinton told the first meeting of the President's Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses. President Clinton formed the commission to evaluate the undiagnosed illnesses that have afflicted many who served in the Persian Gulf during military operations in late 1990 and early 1991.
-snip-
Mrs. Clinton has taken an interest in the issue since she received complaints from veterans during her work on health care last year, and the commission invited her to speak.
- Sen. Clinton is on the right side of THE most important issue to me today: DC voting rights. The last time I queried the web sites of the Democratic candidates, only Sen. Clinton and Rep. Kucinich had any reference to DC voting rights on their websites. I cannot support anyone for president, who does not understand the issue of DC voting rights.
- She has laid out serious policy proposals regarding election reform. Election reform is an issue dear to my heart, and I support many of the proposals that Sen. Clinton has made in terms of election reform. Some of her proposals include making Election Day a national holiday, and restoring the voting rights of ex-felons.
- Another issue dear to me, is once again having an Administration that will fix the policy around the facts, not fix the facts around the policy. For example, the Bush Administration has a record of EDITING scientific government reports that do not fit their own personal view. Just one example of this, is how the Bush White House edited a Department of Health and Human Services report on racial disparities in health care. According to an article in the Washington Post, the revised report "played down the imbalances and was less critical of the lack of equality." Sen. Clinton has constantly spoken to her desire to end what she calls this Administration's "war on science." She will "Ban political appointees from unduly interfering with scientific conclusions and publications" and "Direct department and agency heads to safeguard against political pressure that threatens scientific integrity and to promote transparency in decision-making." Source:
http://hillaryclinton.com/issues/reform /
- One of the most disturbing issues to come out of this Administration's Justice Department, is how they have politicized the Department. Specifically, this Administration has politicized critical areas of DOJ such as the Civil Rights Division. They have hired people with little or no experience in civil rights; people whose only qualification was having an "R" behind their name. And they taken career employees out of the decision making process. Sen. Clinton has identified this as another area of government reform she wants to tackle. She wants to: "Rebuild the Department of Justice's traditional role in defending civil rights and the rule of law, and review charges of improper, politically motivated hiring." Source:
http://hillaryclinton.com/issues/reform /
These are just but a few of the reasons I support Sen. Clinton's candidacy. But most importantly, I believe that she is ready on Day One. One of the things that has most impressed me about Sen. Clinton, particularly as I have watched her in the Presidential debates, is her focus. Instead of shooting from the hip and saying what she thinks is the politically expedient thing, she thinks through all sides of an issue. We need that kind of seriousness and deliberateness in a President.
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