#37 - All Things Hillary

I voted for Hillary Clinton for President last November.  In Massachusetts, most of the time it doesn't matter, but I still wanted to exercise my right to vote.  There is something about it that makes me feel good.  Even though we were voting in a new town for the first time in over 30 years, it still felt the same, and while I knew my vote wouldn't matter, showing up at the polls made me feel connected.

Despite my dissatisfaction with her personally, I truly believed she would be a much more competent president than Donald Trump.  And on this point, I am not ashamed to say that I held out hope in the beginning that I would be wrong and Trump might, just because he was different, show us some better ways of governing, I have a better sense now.  That was just wishful thinking on my part.  But, I digress, today, the topic is Hillary.

My issues with her began to take focus when the email server story broke in the summer of 2015. As so many others have written, it was troublesome that she didn’t feel she had to conform to a process that applied to everyone else.  It was equal parts arrogance, stupidity, and showed a genuine lack of common sense.   And yet, it was typical Hillary.  Even though she clearly knew she was going to be running for President after she left the Obama Administration, she still cozied up to Wall Street for large speaking fees.   Maybe this is acceptable or just routine for Republicans or for a Democratic president after a full completion of two terms, but generally speaking this is not a good move for anyone who wants to be the future of the Democratic Party.  And then there was the Clinton Global Initiative which despite its significant good work, has not been unfairly painted as an avenue to increase consulting fees for another very selfish person, her less-than-ethical husband.  I have always believed that if she had dumped him 20 or so years back, it would been a much better move on her part, personally and politically.

Nonetheless, given my belief that the alternative offered us much greater risk than reward, I willingly and hopefully submitted my ballot with her name on it.  Her loss didn't shock me, not in the least.  And while the surprising presidency of Donald J. Trump was personally disturbing, the bright side of this was that, overnight, Hillary had lost her relevancy.   (Whenever possible, I try my best to be a glass-half-full kind of guy).

Then on the second day of May, roughly six months after her astounding defeat, my sense of dread returned, as Hillary emerged from her personal exile. I was done with her by then, and personally I had no desire to hear her thoughts on anything.  She had everything going for her, a stellar resume including the positions of First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State.  She had the support of the current President and the underlying support of the Democratic National Committee (much to the dismay of Bernie Sanders).  But throughout it all we had difficulty really knowing her, knowing what she stood for, and most of all trusting her.   And so she would prove some early prognosticators to be visionaries, the ones who observed that she could be the only viable candidate in the Democratic Party who could actually lose to Donald Trump.  It turns out she was very good at that.   

So instead of explaining to Americans who she was, and providing voters with a vision of how she would provide them with a better life, much of her time on the campaign trail was spent attacking Donald Trump.   When she did attempt to deliver a positive message for her presidency, it was disjointed and inconsistent.   In the process she failed to connect with anyone outside her base, and she failed to inspire.  While I am sure she would have made a very good president, she was a very poor candidate, and without the later, you don’t get a shot at the former.  It may be unfair, and it may mean that we don’t always get the best people as president, but that's how it works in our still wonderful, but clearly imperfect democracy.

So Hillary reappeared that day and sat for a 45 minute interview with Christiane Amanpour of CNN at the Women for Women international Conference in New York City.   She joked briefly about her loss, how she was still feeling the pain, but went on to declare that "If the election had been held on October 27, I would've been your president", a reference to former FBI Director’s James Comey’s disclosure that the laptop of Anthony Weiner was, now, front and center in the now revived email investigation. 

Stop it, stop it, stop it, you are killing me!  That's like Matt Ryan, quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, stating "If the Super Bowl had ended with one minute left in the game, we would be World Champions,"  In both examples the response is - but that's not the way the game is played…. 

In Matt Ryan's defense, he never made any excuse for his team's loss, and he lost out to a high quality opponent, Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, five time Super Bowl Champions (ok, yes I am biased, but this is no alternative fact)

Hillary had no defense, and in the interview she feigned responsibility for the loss, but went on to blame Comey, the Russians, sexism and the Vienna Boys Choir.  She didn’t use the same words but it was her “vast right-wing conspiracy” all over again.   Sadly, she could not admit that she just turned out to be poor candidate who turned in a very poor performance.    She couldn’t say that she foolishly neglected the good people in the Midwest who once represented a strong piece of her base, that her failure to set foot in Michigan and Wisconsin and barely give the time of day to Pennsylvania would cause her to lose a paltry 100,000 votes and the Presidency.  She couldn’t admit that it was her failure which gave which rise to the surprising success of Donald Trump.   She couldn’t admit that she should have been leading by 10+ points going into the final minutes of the game and that the Comey announcement should have a been a non-issue.  

All of this was bad enough, I didn’t want to hear any more, but in closing, after telling everyone, it would all be in the book (cha-ching $$$$), she told Christiane that she “Would now be an active citizen and part of the Resistance”.  

Ugggh... Days later, it was more of the same, as she announced she would formally funnel money to groups resisting Mr. Trump's policies through a new  political action organization called Onward Together 

I understand that many Democrats want to "resist" and attack just about every aspect of the Donald Trump' Bizarro Presidency, it’s only natural, but that job can managed by the lower levels of party members with assistance to the left leaning press and even clue-less amateur bloggers such as myself.  But Democrats need and should expect more from the leaders of their party, who should be laying out a path for the future and developing a message and an agenda to build on in the years ahead.  And that's where the disappointment sets in.   For with Hillary, even after six months of rest reflection, a time during which she could have chosen a different path, she continues to deliver a message which tells the world what she is against.  

Today, Hillary delivered the commencement address at her Alma matter, Wellesley College, and the message was more of the same.    She spoke of the "assault on truth and reason" and referenced Richard Nixon's actions leading up to his resignation in order to avoid impeachment, a clear parallel to her desired outcome for President Trump.  Again, it lacked a vision for the future, something all graduating collegians need and deserve.

The real shame is that Hillary has it in her do more, or at least she did.  These words were spoken by her 48 years ago, when her fellow students nominated her to speak at their commencement, when she was President of the Wellesley College Young Republicans.

"We've had lots of empathy; we've had lots of sympathy, but we feel that for too long our leaders have viewed politics as the art of the possible. And the challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible possible."

Perhaps if the older, more experienced Hillary could have reached back in time to speak with her younger, more inspirational self, perhaps the Presidential election might have had a different outcome.