# Posted 9:32 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

HILLARY WANTS MY MONEY: I never expected to get a fundraising letter from Senator Clinton. It may have been a waste of postage on her part, but I certainly enjoyed the letter. Compared to some of the solicitations I've gotten from Republican candidates and think-tanks, this one was a model of sanity and factual precision. Nonetheless, it was quite interesting because of how it sought to portray Hillary in a very different way than she pitches herself to the mass media.

Like most Democratic candidates, Hillary presents herself as a candidate of the great American middle class in order to establish that she is not an old-fashioned liberal who represents little more than a collection of niche interests, such as feminists or minorities or college professors or the very poor. Yet in this letter, those seem to be exactly the credentials that Hillary is trumpeting. For example, did you know that:

In law school, Hillary worked for legal services for the poor and at the Yale Child Study Center and Yale University to study about children and the law...

Hillary also led the American Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession, which played a pioneering role in raising awareness of issues like sexual harassment and equal pay...

[As First Lady,] Hillary went to Beijing for the International Women's Conference and gave an unbelievable speech declaring "that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights."

As a loyal alum, I have to be somewhat gratified that Hillary mentioned Yale twice in one letter, but I'm not holding my breath for the day when she plays up her Ivy League resume in front of a national audience. (Not that I expect Obama to do it either.) Nor do I expect Hillary to run television ads in any battleground states identifying her as a pioneer in the struggle against sexual harassment.

Presumably, this letter is trying to shore up Hillary's credentials with the Democratic base. (I'm guessing her campaign got my name from the ACLU mailing list, which also identifies me inexplicably as a potential donor.) What's interesting then, is what seems to have been so carefully omitted from this letter: Iraq. The war is mentioned once. The letter informs us that with Hillary as president, "we'll end the war in Iraq." Perhaps wisely, the letter doesn't describe her policy in much more detail, since it would probably antagonize those primary voters who want an immediate and full withdrawal.

The letter is also strangely silent about the current president and his party, neither of which is mentioned at all. My best guess is that the campaign is concerned that any effort to go negative will backfire. But it seems like quite a handicap to be reaching out to the base while avoiding any references to George Bush or Iraq.

Also missing from this letter are a set of standard themes that Democrats also seem to emphasize when addressing a national audience. There is no effort to demonstrate that Hillary will be a determined fighter against terrorists and rogue tyrants. Instead, she will "build a world with more partners and fewer enemeies." (Pass the flower petals, please.)

Nor is there a single reference in my letter to Hillary's passionate faith in God, which she seems to mention so often in her autobiography and other national forums. (But who am I to complain? My people know that hiding one's faith is often the best way to survive.)

Finally, I couldn't locate either the word "family" or the word "values" in Hillary's letter. There are plenty of references to children, who are generally known to live with families. There is even a reference to Hillary's support for adoption, which often involves at least one family. But that is all.

When you put all of these pieces together, Hillary seems to be saying that the Democratic faithful do actually have a worldview similar to the one that the Republicans accuse them of having.

Labels: fundraising, Hillary

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