I admit I haven’t read Hillary Clinton’s memoir, Hard Choices. It sounds like a boring reference book, but she was fine on the Jon Stewart show: quick, funny, likable. The question these days is, Would we welcome a Clinton run for the presidency? That’s like asking, Would we like azaleas to bloom in the spring? It’s going to happen whether we welcome it or not.
So it’s OK by me, but just as when our azaleas open the oak pollen starts to fall, when Hillary season arrives a miasma of venom will sift down from the Republican cloud like Agent Orange, sticking to everything, so we’ll all need extra showers, with an occasional martini, to calm us down.
On the tricky point of what to call her, I prefer “Clinton” to “Hillary,” except when it might be confusing. Politics is murkier than poetry, but it’s off-putting to hear students refer to Emily Dickinson as “Emily,” while never calling Robert Frost “Robert.” Equal respect and dignity are as important as equal pay.
Clinton has reached the level of fame where she’s often referred to by her initials HRC, like the mother ALP and father HCE in James Joyce’s surreal novel Finnegan’s Wake. Well, her life is only going to get more surreal. The radio and TV parrots immediately picked up Karl Rove’s inference that she’s got something wrong with her head. But maybe this is a foreshadowing: Our actual presidents known by their triple initials — FDR, JFK, and LBJ — were all Democrats. On the other hand, no Democrat has been elected to succeed another since James Buchanan, born in 1791, followed Franklin Pierce.
Seven years after she lost the Democratic primary, Clinton’s weaknesses then look like advantages today. In 2008 the major difference between her and Barack Obama was that she was more hawkish, having voted twice to support George Bush and his Iraq War ($2 trillion and counting). This won’t have the negative drag it had back then.
On the other hand, Obama has accomplished major changes — health care, gay rights, economic recovery — but there’s a feeling that his dislike of the mundane details of the presidency, like schmoozing and constantly advertising his programs, which Clinton is great at, has held him back.
Clinton’s other main drawback in '08 was her underestimation of Obama — a flaw she’s learned from. She’s still a confident candidate, but will never again be an over-confident one, even if the Republicans were to nominate Donald Trump.
True, only with sinking hearts can we contemplate living through two years of nonstop hysterical attacks: Benghazi! Monica! Brain damage! Death panels! But keep that last Republican primary in mind and make no mistake: That’s still the real Republican party. Perry, Palin, Ryan, Jindal, Bachman, Rubio, Santorum, Gingrich, Paul, Cruz, McConnell and Rove are its spokespersons, and the Koch brothers are its owners. It will probably try to sneak in a semi-responsible person like Jeb Bush; but this is a runaway party, and already Bush is disclaiming man-influenced climate change.
For a couple of centuries we’ve had male presidents with male vice presidents, with mixed results. Want a real change? How about a Hillary Clinton/Elizabeth Warren ticket? Then at least we’d be assured of having the right debate.
Peter Meinke will be reading at St. Pete’s main public library on Saturday, March 7, at 2 p.m.
This article appears in Feb 19-25, 2015.