Abraham Lincoln helped my family secede from Virginia when Virginia seceded from the Union. West Virginia was born and the Reynolds family does not look too often at the party of disunion for a presidential candidate, but it is always nice when the Democratic Party nominates someone who is worth serious thought. The Republic needs two plausible parties and just as it would be a shame if the Republicans nominated a loon (looking at you Donald Trump) so we can hope that the Democrats give us a candidate worth a thinking person’s support.
Hillary Clinton is not that candidate. She is smart, hard working, and by all accounts inspires loyalty in the people who work for her cause. She is also unfit for the White House with little relevant executive experience, temperament, and character. She has the temperament of Richard Nixon combined with the ethics of Warren G. Harding, and the relevant experience of William Jennings Bryan.
Clinton is remarkably unqualified for an executive role. She was an active First Lady, but that job no more qualifies her for the White House than being married to a nurse and knowing their way around the hospital would make a person fit to give out medications. Her political activity at the time was generally disastrous (Hillary Care) when it was not tone deaf (“baking cookies”). As a senator (a job she won because of her husband) from a safe state (New York), she did nothing memorable except to fit in nicely with the crony system of Washington. She made few waves and less legislation. All of this was a tune up for an inept run for the White House where she lost to Obama when she had everything going for her but the ability to manage a campaign competently.
Obama saved her political career by making her Secretary of State where she traveled a great deal and accomplished not much (if you are a Democrat) or was a disaster (if you are Republican). Don’t look for a Clinton doctrine or major peace treaty. About all you can say in her defense is that she was better than John Kerry has been as Secretary of State. This is praising her with faint damns and if you liked the Obama foreign policy, then get ready for more of the same without President Obama’s moral rectitude: corrupt incompetence.
All of this has given her a lock on the Democratic nomination unequaled by a non-incumbant since Dwight Eisenhower had both parties court the General for office. Eisenhower had managed Victory in Europe in World War II and been President of Columbia. He was so well liked “I like Ike” could be a campaign slogan . . .something the polarizing Clinton will never manage.
Clinton lacks the temperament for the “head of state” part of the job. She has always survived as a divider and not as a uniter unless you count her “run” (much more like a stroll) for the New York Senate . . . where she is somewhat to the right of the general electorate. Her husband never got a majority of the popular vote (Obama did twice) and Hillary lacks his slickster skills. When she needed to do so, she used standard slanders on women to keep her husband in office. If she wins, she will be the first woman in the White House through enabling the abuse of other women in the White House.
Warren G. Harding roots for Clinton to win because she would give the old fraud a run for his stolen money as the most corrupt occupant of the White House the day she won. Both Clintons have gotten rich in service to their country and frequently in ways that stink of graft and kickbacks. Whether she is getting insider trading deals or using the family foundation to hit up rich totalitarians for cash, Hillary Clinton has done well by doing badly in office. Is there any insider they do not owe a favor?
Clinton has demonstrated that she is the worst of two possible political worlds: the leftist willing to betray her causes for money and power. Friends of my mother witnessed her ruthless anti-family machinations early in her career during a UN Family Conference when it would cost her nothing, but with her husband she has always hidden her true views behind what pollsters tell her the traffic will stand. She was against gay marriage (though she was for it) until she was for gay marriage when polls told her it was safe to express her true views. Of this we can be sure, the one unhidden, unvarying, principle of the Clinton dynasty is that the Clintons will enrich themselves regardless of the cost to the nation or their Party. If Scott Walker gave his life to politics and owes Sears a great deal of money, my bet is that the Clintons owe the directors of Sears a great many favors.
The problem is not so much that she is very liberal, but that she is only liberal when the Givers of Goodies allow her to be so. The givers of Goodies have included her famously misogynistic husband who became President because she enabled his abuse of women over whom he had power. I do not believe, so help me God, I would vote for a Clinton if I agreed with Hillary Clinton on every issue.
She is an idealogue, but her ideology is foremost serving the world, the flesh, and those personal Clinton devils.
Finally, there is the issue of dynastic politics in a Republic. We have survived the Adams, the Bushes, and we would survive the Clintons, but surely it is not a good sign that in the youth of old age I have only been able to vote once in a Presidential election that did not feature a Bush or a Clinton. In this vast land, surely the nation’s oldest political party could find one pro-life Scoop Jackson Democrat to run for office.
Please?
Hillary Clinton is a woman running for the White House and that is worth one cheer. It is not worth the keys to the Republic and she will never get my vote.
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