OxBlog

Monday, September 10, 2007

# 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.

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(10) opinions -- Add your opinion

Comments:
"'build a world with more partners and fewer enemeies.[sic]' (Pass the flower petals, please.)"

So I take it you are for more enemies and fewer partners? Seems a strange strategic tact to take.

I'm glad to see that you agree Conservatism is defined as little more than shallow paens to family/religion/killing people/etc...
 
I got one of those fundraising letters from the Hillary Clinton campaign too. After reading it, then enjoying a good laugh, I promptly went to the flowerpot in my kitchen and stuck it underneath, to absorb all the soil and dirty water that comes off. I figure that would be the best use for it.

I'll be honest, I cannot stand Hillary. Her two-faced lies and war cheerleading for the Iraq disaster were bad enough. Now, she's trying to play up the joys of outsourcers and more H1 B visas to destroy yet *more* scarce jobs for Americans who are already indebted from college (all those false promises about "working hard" and "getting a degree" which are of course useless when you've got cheap labor from South Asia to take the job instead) and who are already having a rough time making ends meet.

Hillary is as bad or worse than many of the Republicans. If the Dems nominate somebody else, they get my vote-- I'd support Edwards especially, but also Obama or Dodd for example. But Hillary? NO WAY. She never gets my vote.

If she's nominated by the Democrats, then I hope that for example Gravel or Kucinich runs on a Third Party ticket. Or else I'll write somebody in-- still making an effort vote for my Democratic Congressional candidate. But Hillary never gets my vote, nor anyone else in my household or even among my neighbors, who are mostly Democrats as well. Iraq has killed her among some of us, but the outsourcer issue and her hostility to American labor for even more.
 
"I'm glad to see that you agree Conservatism is defined as little more than shallow paens to family/religion/killing people/etc..."

Well, if we don't kill people, who will? Certainly not liberals.
 
"So I take it you are for more enemies and fewer partners? Seems a strange strategic tact (sic) to take."

Is this supposed to be an example of the famous Progressive nuance? There are only two choices? How droll.

Perhaps you might, however, as the letter doesn't explain more precisely *how* we will "'build a world with more partners and fewer enemeies.[sic]'". If you actually believe you know how, that is.
 
Oh, and I'm glad to see that you agree that Progressivism (or modern Liberalism or whatever term you're currently using in an attempt to hide your totalitarian tendencies) is defined as little more than shallow posturing and pandering without actual action.
 
Hillary like every popular American politican has become Shiva and who are you to trouble the manifest truth in one of her many bless'd faces?

Yale Law School Alumni/ae...did you really expect her forced 'I came to Jesus; he's a Methodist and loves the Vikings' spiel?'

Blah Blah more Yuan under the bridge...
 
Is anyone fact checking the letter?
 
The science of mailing lists is not as precise as you might believe. Targeted letters sometimes wind up in the wrong hands. I think it's pretty obvious: Hillary's campaign thinks you are a woman.
 
When Hillary went to Beijing, way back then, she also screamed like a Bangee-woman-lunatic to express her "compassionate" disgust at China's one-child-policy.
 
Again, sorry to infiltrate this post, but...

''I respect the opinion that homosexuality is a grave sin from a Biblical perspective.''

Then, David, you also respect a lot of other, ridiculous things.

Can't you just say, instead, that you don't respect that opinion?

Not to get too technical, but essentially you're saying that: you take a stand on a moral issue, except against certain people... because what they believe is rooted biblically, and thereby to be respected.

Can you explain?
 
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