1. As President, she will make sure that the federal government fits the policies around the facts; not fixing the facts around the policies as the Bush administration has.
You hear Sen. Clinton mention this point all the time. She talks ad nauseum, for example, about once again having a government that makes sure government scientists aren't subject to political pressure. Under a Hillary Clinton administration, we will once again have an evidence-based government that listens to its scientists.
You also hear this from her, when she says that as President, she will ask Congress to send her the stem cell legislation that Congress passed, but Bush vetoed.
2. As President, she will ensure that we once again appoint QUALIFIED people to the positions we ask them to hold in our government. This is another huge talking point of hers. She constantly talks of the need to once again ask QUALIFIED people to hold government positions. No more "heck-of-a-job Brownies."
3. Our nation's veterans and those currently serving in our armed services, will once again have an advocate in the White House.
Hillary Clinton has shown herself to be a tremendous advocate for our nation's veterans, as well as those currently serving in our armed services.
As First Lady, she helped bring the issue of Gulf War Syndrome to the spotlight, and was a huge advocate for those suffering from Gulf War Syndrome.
As a U.S. Senator and member of the Armed Services Committe, she has continued to show herself to be an advocate for our veterans and current armed service members.
- She demanded a closed-door hearing with the Pentagon to ascertain what, if anything, the Pentagon was doing to prepare for post-war Iraq.
- She also was in the forefront when she learned that the Pentagon was trying to get back the signing bonuses of injured troops.
- She has also proposed a responsible mechanism for ending the Iraq war: saying she would like to start withdrawing troops in the first 60 days of her Administration, and she believes she would be able to do a bridage a month.
4. She has a plan for universal health care.
5. She is for ending the unfunded mandate of No Child Left Behind.
6. 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."
7. 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.
Here's the link to an op/ed I wrote here on DU, on why I support Sen. Clinton:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4396491