I like and respect the entire Democratic presidential candidate field. But my favorite is Hillary. Here's why.
Hillary Clinton has been the front runner for the Democratic presidential nomination for a while now. In this position she has been the subject of intense, and of course necessary, scrutiny. As the months of this scrutiny passed I became one of her supporters.
At the beginning of this race I was one of the people hoping for another Gore run. I like and respect Al Gore and I still feel that he'd be excellent in the Oval Office. However, I realized that Gore may very well not run, so I started familiarizing myself with the other candidates.
The first impression I had about Hillary was that she's both intelligent and incredibly well informed. When she discusses a topic you know that she's not winging it. Of course, we all crave competence in the White House, so yes, this appeals to me. The second thing that impressed me about Hillary was the battle scars. Sure, she lost the battle over universal health care, but you know two things. One, her heart is in the right place and she wants universal health care. Two, she's wiser for the experience, and this experience is not easy to gain: not many people in the world tried to change a system in which $2 trillion changed hands in 2005 alone (more on costs here). Finally, the third thing that gave me confidence that she can beat a Republican opponent (and a potentially unfriendly press) was the strength of her organization. These are people who battle with the press and think of press coverage as war. I've just finished reading Al Gore' book, The Assault on Reason, and one of the first things he talks about is how for most Americans, 30 second ads are the main source of information for elections. This is a terrible problem, but you cannot solve it by going head first against a wall. Media matters, especially TV - you have to control TV coverage if we want to win. Hillary's organization knows this. As a Deaniac (I attended Dean rallies, I volunteered for, gave money to, and finally voted for Dean), I know very well that media relations are a war. Remember the "scream"? For that matter, remember the Swift Boat Veterans? Yes, media relations are worth taking dead seriously.
Now let me turn back to the scrutiny of Hillary Clinton. Over the past months I had several concerns. First, I wasn't sure that I wanted another Clinton in office since that sounded a little too dynastic. However, Bill Clinton had a very good point about this - let's not penalize Hillary for the fact that her husband was president. She is a capable leader on her own. My second concern was that Hillary may be a candidate who could mobilize the right wing and who could not easily appeal to people in the middle. But you know what? Hillary had this problem in New York, running for the Senate. How will she do in upstate NY? That was the question. Well, in 2000, according to this Wikipedia article "[s]he won surprising victories in Upstate counties, such as Cayuga, Rensselaer, and Niagara, to which her win has been attributed." And in 2006, she won all but 4 counties (graph). Not bad, eh?
These days I hear and read two other types of complaints about Hillary. First, she won't say anything substantial. I have to say I'm not sure what can be more specific than: universal health care, no war in Iraq, end "don't ask, don't tell"... What else should she say? Also, we have to take into account the media and 30 second ads - think about Gore's excellent explanation of this in his book. You can basically buy public opinion with 30 second ads (as Gore tells it, often you can predict exactly how much a particular change in public opinion will cost you). Should she (or any other Democrat) help write the attack ads against her? I say no.
The second complaint I hear/read about Hillary is that she doesn't embrace progressive ideals. Will she leave soldiers in Iraq? Did she vote for war with Iran? Is she against NAFTA? Do people really think she's actually not a progressive? The person who told us that there's a vast right-wing conspiracy is secretly a conservative mole? This is not reasonable thinking.
So, that's it. Today I put up a Hillary sign in my front yard. I will vote for her in the primaries.