Why I'm Supporting Hillary (for now)

I've been hearing a lot from my Obama-supporting friends about how inspired they are by him and that's truly a wonderful thing. We've had eight years of horrible, divisive, cynical, mud-slinging, non-representational politics, and going into an election where people are feeling hopeful about our political future for the first time in forever--rather than merely going for the lesser of two evils--is life-changing.

I really mean that.

In addition, I hear the arguments against Hillary having caved and supported the war initially, and no, I don't believe that she genuinely supported the war. I do believe that she caved and went with political expediency at a time when the winds were blowing irresistably that way. I don't care that we'll never know how Obama would have voted on that one. Obama's stance on the war if he'd been in a position of power is immaterial.

Because the reason I support Hillary is exactly that she bowed to political expediency rather than follow her conscience and possibly--probably--lose her seat.

Because, and this is really key for me, I'm not naive enough to expect--nor oriented to even wish for--politicians to be idealists. Politicians--executives and their cabinets, as well as legislators alike--are not there to push a political agenda to the exclusion of all else. They are there to find a way to organize our nation and our society that enables all of us to live together, which means compromises all around.

Let me repeat that: the good government enables all of us to live together through compromise, and does not push one political agenda to the exclusion of all else.

Why is George Bush the worst president since Buchanan or Hoover ... or ever? It's not because he's a wing-nut. It's not because he's cynical or divorced from his constituents' reality. It's not because he won't listen to experts. It's because he pushes his political agenda to the exclusion of all else.

It's not just literally sitting down with the opposing party and hashing out a compromise that is political compromise. Listening to experts and tempering your policy according to empirical findings is, in fact, also political compromise. Recognizing that your policies are making you unpopular and risking your party's power for potentially a decade or more, and changing your policies accordingly is political compromise. Realizing that the leadership in your own cabinet is defying you because you might be wrong is political compromise. Bush has shown himself incapable of compromise with Democrats, within his own party, within his own support base, and even within his own cabinet.

Bush is the most idealistic president I've ever seen. He absolutely believes in using the American government to enrich corporations and empower evangelical churches politically. And he adheres to these ideals no matter what.

I've made the point before that Bush would make an excellent nonprofit Executive Director. Because special interests is where the bulldog, uncompromising idealists belong. To get one single agenda across, you need a person who will. not. deviate. These are the people who get petitions signed, turn canvasses to good account, lobby effectively, change laws, free the innocent, save whales, and stop our environment from being degraded. This kind of personality belongs at the head of an NGO, in front of an NPR interviewer, or holding a Nobel Prize. But this kind of personality doesn't belong even in a city supervisor's seat, much less in the White House.

The politician who governs effectively is the one who can see both what the prevailing tide of public opinion is, and what might be good for their constituency in spite of the prevailing tide of public opinion. The effective politician is a slimeball who doesn't subsume her own ego in her politics--forcing herself to follow an agenda to the exclusion of all else--but rather dispenses with her entitlement issues by taking an unethical perk here and there--a real estate deal, a stained dark blue dress--and manages to keep her personal issues out of political calculation as much as is humanly possible.

The effective politician has a strong and extensive network in all parties, has people who owe him massive favors, knows how to twist an arm or use political blackmail, know exactly which hot-button issue to sell out to get what he wants. And this politician, underneath all the wheeling and deal-making, has already picked his battles, and decided which issues are going to get his attention and which he'll be willing to let fall by the wayside. And he'll never, ever tell the public what those are.

That's the politician I want, because that's how politics works. I want the politician who clearly shares my general political stance, clearly believes in social justice and has generally the right notions about how to achieve it, but will sell her own grandmother to stay in office, and has dealt with her conscience ruthlessly and early on.

It's these politicians that enable the rest of us to stay on the right side of our own ethics.

I think Hillary is a social justice feminist entitled connected slimeball who once tried to be idealistic in the White House, was smacked down hard, and will never make that mistake again. I don't want to hang with her, and I don't admire her morals, but she has my vote.

Comments

[BradyDale]

This is why I support Hillary, too. Isn't it weird that what you're writing feels courageous to say? Maybe it feels totally normal for you. I work in issue advocacy, so I see all the perspectives on your post and agree with your conclusions about Clinton.

Let's hear it for Hillary. No naivete in the White House.

[claire]

bradydale, pretty much anything that isn't parroting what everyone else is saying feels courageous these days. i think in the next eleven months, people will be rediscovering freedom of speech, so that we'll all be ready to have real discussions again ... just in time for another democratic presidency.

i really wish we didn't have to go in these political cycles. the conservative cycles only get more damaging, and the moderate cycles only get less effective. we'll need two terms of hillary to get bush's messes cleaned up, and then another two of obama to push any sort of progressive agenda.

think that'll happen?

[Diane J Standiford]

I have tried to formulate exactly why I am leaning toward Senator Clinton instead of Obama--you said it just right. For me there is the simplistic fact that my 80yr old mother does not want to die wthout seeing a woman as President. I share her desire and my time is shorter than Obama's, he will be back regardless if his will is strong.