Hillary Clinton is married to America’s most popular living president, who from 1993 to 2001 oversaw an era of peace and prosperity. As first lady, Clinton proposed a sweeping reform of the US health-care system and spoke prominently to world leaders about improving the rights and status of women and children.
Bill Clinton was famous for “triangulation” — determining the most favorable position to hold before stating his own opinion — while constant Republican efforts to uncover or invent scandals about both Clintons taught them to choose their words carefully. Hillary Clinton, who later served as secretary of state, uses both tactics in her current campaign, often frustrating voters and journalists hoping to learn exactly what she would do in office.
Hillary Clinton
Stated priorities: “deep decarbonization” of energy; debt-free higher education; being a grandmother
Current age: 67
Age on election day: 69Career path: lawyer, first lady of Arkansas, first lady of the United States, senator from New York, US secretary of state
Marriages: 1
Children: 1
Religion: Methodist
Religious fervor: 0
Campaign funds: $$$$$
Skeletons in closet: **
Clown factor: *
Cuckoo factor: 0
Ability to stretch the truth: **
Distinguishing features: constantly bobbling head; bulging eyes; robotic voice when giving rehearsed answers
Best resembles: Chucky, the doll from the Child’s Play horror films
Gimmicky product: “Chillary Clinton” beer cosy
Campaign video
Why they won’t elect her
Clinton has been spending nearly all of her time talking to donors, while maintaining a considerable distance to voters and journalists. Clinton did not attend her own campaign-opening event; instead, she released a postmodern video with faces of random people and asked voters if they were “ready for Hillary”. Reporters were literally roped off at a campaign event so that they could not get close to her.
“If it’s undecided when I become president, I will answer your question”
Recent surveys have shown that a majority of voters consider Clinton untrustworthy. When campaigning, she talks about being a grandmother and answers questions about pant suits and karaoke, while consistently avoiding questions on policy. Statements such as “If it’s undecided when I become president, I will answer your question” (when asked about her opinion on a controversial oil pipeline) are eroding her popularity.
Clinton’s self-description as someone who will fight for regular people stands in sharp contrast to her $600 haircuts; her seat on the boards of several corporations in the 1980s, including Walmart, which actively prevented its workers from forming or joining unions; and her continuing connections to the big banks that caused the global financial crisis.
Things are playing out exactly as they did in 2007–2008. Then as now, Clinton (and the press) expected an effortless cruise to the nomination, but underestimated a challenger with a more powerful message. Barack Obama had more popular support, but Clinton had the support of more party insiders. When Clinton threatened to use them to secure the party nomination, Obama struck a deal in which he paid her campaign debts and offered her the position of secretary of state in his future administration.
Clinton’s time in the cabinet has raised questions about potential conflicts of interest regarding foreign donations to the nonprofit Clinton Foundation, her use of a private e-mail server in her home for official state business, and circumstances surrounding the 2012 attack on the US embassy in Benghazi, Libya. The negative press is likely to continue for several months.
Why they might
When not talking politics, Clinton can be very personable. The few positions she has stated openly sound very much like a continuation of Obama’s. (The quote below is almost exactly what Obama said in 2008.) She is attempting to meet the challenge of Democratic rivals Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley by presenting some of their ideas as her own.
Clinton is securing far more endorsements than her rivals
By taking donations from representatives of banks and corporations, Clinton will be able to afford massive amounts of advertising. She has also repeated her 2008 campaign tactic of assembling enough endorsements from party insiders to potentially override the primary-election victories of her opponent(s). The difference is that in the current campaign, she has secured far more endorsements far earlier.
Only 12 percent of Americans say one of the main arguments offered by Clinton and her supporters in 2008 — that she is a woman — would make them more inclined to vote for her, while 4 percent say it would make them less inclined. Still, those 8 percent could swing things in her favor.
In her own words
“I want to see our economy work for the struggling, the striving and the successful. We’re not going to find all the answers we need today in the playbooks of the past. We can’t go back to the old policies that failed us before, nor can we just replay the successes. Today is not 1993; it’s not 2009; so we need solutions for the big challenges we face now.”
Best quote about her
“Many conservatives breathed a sigh of relief after the speech, having feared a fresh set of innovative proposals that might have required serious responses.” (Politico, July 2015)
Official website
https://www.hillaryclinton.com
