Guest Voice: Why Hillary Clinton Is The Best Choice For America

This Guest Voice column is by Patrick Edaburn , an attorney who is a registered Republican but concerned over the influence of the hard right on his party and the influence of the hard left on the Democratic party. He was assistant editor of the excellent centrist group weblog, Central Sanity, which has been disbanded. In this column, he explains why he now believes Hillary Clinton would be the best choice for America. Guest Voice posts do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of The Moderate Voice or its writers.

Why Hillary Clinton Is The Best Choice For America

by Patrick Edaburn

Those who know me or have read my previous writings would be surprised to see the header to this article. I have often been critical of both Senator and President Clinton and find her to be somewhat abrasive.

Indeed, it is likely that I will be voting for Senator McCain in November as I think he is the best person in the race (of course as a resident of California my vote is meaningless).

But when you look at the broad picture and take everything into account, I think that it would be best for Senator Clinton to win in November.

My reasoning for this position is simple.

The next four years are not going to be pleasant for whoever takes over the White House. On the domestic scene we have the falling dollar, the mortgage crisis, a slumping economy and a number of other brewing problems.

Internationally we have Iraq, the war on Terror, growing threats fro China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. Other issues like trade and immigration combine the worst of both arenas.

From my point of view, there is little chance that the next President will have much success in solving these problems, largely because they are far too complex to resolve and well beyond the control of any person or any country.

I think this is true largely because I do not think that the problems were created by any one administration or country. It is of course all too common in modern politics for one side to blame the other for the bad things or to try and take credit for the good, and often it works.

Perhaps one day it was fair to do this, but in a modern global economy things are far too complex for this to be true. The falling dollar for example is the result of decades of policies all over the world (also to be the topic of a future posting). While some might argue the point, I think this is even true of the mess in Iraq.

So the next administration will face a lot of grief with the probability of a lot of failures and bad news.

It is for this reason that I do not think it would be good for Senator McCain to win this year. As I have said, I admire him greatly for his service to this country and will probably vote for him in November. But if he were to win, we would have 12 years of GOP control in the White House during a period of bad news.

The result would most likely be a massive Democratic win in 2010 and 2012. I realize that there are many people who would think this a good thing, but I do not. This is not a partisan issue either. I would feel the same way if the situation was reversed. I would not like to see a major GOP sweep either.

History has shown us that when one party gets too much power it is a very bad thing for the country. We can see this in many parts of the country today where one party has been in complete control and the result is corruption and stagnation.

Many people were concerned when Bush and the GOP held the White House and Congress, but even then the numbers in Congress were close enough for the Democrats to provide something of a check.

Imagine how bad things could be with no check at all, such as occurred during periods under FDR or LBJ. The results then were abuses of power than make the Bush period look mild (for those who wonder, I used these two Democratic examples because the GOP has not recently had those kinds of super majorities).

So having determined that the best result would be a Democratic win in 2008, the next step is to decide which of the two options is best.


Barack Obama

One can hardly deny that Senator Obama has been a political wonder. He has emerged from being an obscure state legislator to a major Presidential contender in the space of a few years. On the surface his campaign has seemed quite inspiring and uplifting.

But recently things have started to bubble up from under the surface. In watching Obama during debates or interviews I started to see something darker underneath. I think we all saw a little of it as he has had to deal with the issues regarding his minister.

I am generally not inclined to blame a person for what other people say. We all have people in our lives who say stupid things but are otherwise decent people.

However there is a big difference between someone who you happen to know and a man you call your spiritual mentor. Senator Obama had this man officiate at his wedding, he had him baptize his children. That is a bit more than merely knowing the guy.

Furthermore, these statements were made more than 6 years ago. When idiots like Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson said dumb things, everyone was quick to condemn them. I find it hard to believe that Senator Obama could have gone 6 years without knowing these things were said.

It is equally doubtful to me that Pastor Wright simply had one occasion when he said these outrageous things but has otherwise been rational. Even if Obama did not hear these specific statements he has certainly heard some other outrageous statements

Another issue concern to me is his lack of experience in public office, which has been limited to 8 years in the state legislature and 4 in the US Senate. I have compiled a rather detailed analysis of his experience (the subject of another posting) and found that the only successful President who compares to Obama is Lincoln.

To paraphrase Senator Bentsen, Obama is no Lincoln and even if he were, serving as President in the 1860’s and serving as President today is very different.

The closest modern example is Jimmy Carter, another man who promised change and one who had a similarly naïve foreign policy. We all know how far Carter got.

In short, the experience issue is a problem not simply because of the amount of time, but also because of his lack of executive experience (none) and his lack of experience at the national or international level.

Beyond the experience issue is ideology. To be fair, I am not sure he is one to lie about his positions, but at the same time he hasn’t been very specific about his views. His campaign has been largely sound bites about uniting and bringing people together. When he has been specific on the issues I cannot say I have been pleased

On domestic policy he comes down as hard liberal, advocating things like nationalized health care, major social programs, expansion of federal role in education and so on.

Obviously most of these issues do require solutions, but I am not sure that I support the idea of everything being resolved by the government. As a moderate I look to a combination of government and the private sector in solving problems. In addition, I do not think that we need another 4 or 8 years of hard line ideology in our government.

On national security I am also concerned by Senator Obama. His opposition to the war in Iraq and discussion of a gradual process of withdrawal is a good idea, but he simply wants to pull out right away without any consideration of the long term impact.

His suggestion that he would talk to rogue nations like Iran and North Korea with no expectation that they will adopt more reasonable views on things is not encouraging and seems quite naïve. He hasn’t quite come out and said that if we just talk nice to people they will leave us alone, but I do start to wonder.

In short, while Senator Obama can be very a very inspiring speaker I have doubts as to his ability to be President.

Hillary Clinton

So this brings us, somewhat by default to Hillary Clinton. As anyone who knows me will attest, I am hardly a major fan of the Senator from New York. Indeed, I have had some fairly heated debates with friends who are Clinton fans about her various flaws.

But to be completely fair, she also has several positive marks in her favor. She has been a member of the United States Senate for eight years and during that time has been involved in a number of legislative initiatives. She has worked with members of both parties and has shown a fairly good knowledge of the issues.

I might not always agree with her positions, but I cannot deny her skills. In this way she resembles my own Senator Diane Feinstein. I don’t often agree with California’s senior senator, but she is far more skilled and informed that her junior colleague, just as Clinton is far more skilled than Senator Obama.

She also did have eight years as First Lady. I know there have been a lot of jokes lately about the sniper fire incident and whether or not she was deeply involved in policy, but the fact remains she was in the White House for eight years. From what I’ve read she was in many ways as much of a Vice President as Al Gore.

And that does bring up a point. The Vice President does not formulate policy; they do not make the decisions. Indeed it has been said the only job of the Vice President is to go to funerals and check with the President’s doctor. But that does not mean you do not gain major knowledge and experience in that job.

Like Senator McCain, Senator Clinton has also shown a much more pragmatic viewpoint that Senator Obama. This is a very important thing to have in a President. From a purely cynical point of view it could be said that she will spend her first term being careful not to do anything that would risk her re-election.

But this is a good thing from a moderate point of view, forcing someone to govern to the center. In addition I suspect she will remember what happened when Bill went too far in his first term.

Senator Clinton also has a more realistic national security policy than Senator Obama, recognizing that we can’t just hold hands and sing songs to make things all be alright.

In short, while she is not someone I will always agree with (indeed I expect to frequently disagree with her) I do think she will conduct a responsible and realistic administration.

For all of these reasons I have concluded that the best choice for our nation is to choose Hillary Clinton as the next President (even if I don’t vote for her myself)