Clinton and Politics of the Past

January 29th, 2008 By: Michael van der Galien | Tags:
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Does Hillary Clinton embody the politics of the past (whatever that may mean)? Pamela Leavey says no. What say you?

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  1. Claudia
    January 29th, 2008 at 20:27
    Reply | Quote | #1

    Pamela is basically expressing agreement with the ladies at NOW, that Obama is getting off easy because he’s a MAN, and that media coverage of Clinton in that light is because she’s a WOMAN.

    I vigorously disagree, and I would bet Hillary would as well, even if she wouldn’t say it out loud. She’s gotten some sexist garbage in the media, to be sure, but the premise that she’s "the past" has NOTHING to do with her being a woman, and everything to do with her being a Clinton and the slash-and-burn politics she’s shown to be so adept at and willing to use.

    Pamela uses most of the post to say that Clinton isn’t favored because she’s a woman and the "good old boys" don’t want her, but she saves a tiny portion at the beginning to mention that Clinton wants to move beyond the policies of GWB and that makes her, "of the future". This of course isn’t the issue at all, Obamas policy positions aren’t all that different from Clintons, the issue is the enormously damaging polarization that I believe Clinton would do nothing to alleviate. If Pamela has some argument as to why Clinton would be less polarizing than Obama, then she is welcome to state it.

  2. Simon
    January 29th, 2008 at 23:31
    Reply | Quote | #2

    I say that the premise is wrong – the idea that there is a "politics of the past" in contradistinction to a "politics of the future." There was a time when Democratic control of the U.S. House was considered a given; not even the most hardcore Obamaphile would pretend that isn’t a politics they hope doesn’t belong purely to the past. Would one consider the Great Society to be the "politics of the past"? Perhaps some detractors would, but what they’d really mean would be that they thought it was bad policy. Pamela certainly wouldn’t think of it as the politics of the past – she’d say that liberalism evokes timeless principles. Likewise, is it just my imagination or did the Gazette not once quote Goldwater on its sidebar: "[t]o suggest that the conservative philosophy is out of date is akin to saying that the Golden Rule, or the Ten Commandments, or Aristotle’s Politics are out of date." What does it mean to be of the "politics of the past"? As opposed to what?

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