Exploiting class: the politics of division
It's not all about what kind of "policies" you claim to stand for. How you play the game matters... else, Florida 2000 doesn't. Political leadership is 10% legislation and exercise of executive authority, 90% coalition building, the unending process of nation building. A politics that grasps power by undermining cooperation, by using and fostering dangerous class divisions cannot be justified by "good policies," else we might as well look for a benevolent dictator. Why not? What's the difference?
The difference, of course, is that the abuse of power by "good" persons for good ends sets the president for abuse of power by ... anyone...for anything.
What's wrong with the batch of looters, neocons and theocrats we've endured isn't just the programs they push--worse, worse even than Iraq--is how they've done it, how they've undermined the very possibility of governance by informed consent.
If Mrs. Clinton uses the same methods--as she has, and I'm not talking about the superficial negativity--I mean her deliberate conversion of class divisions for political capital in West Virginia and Kentucky, the assassination "slip." What if she does deliver on universal health care? What does it matter if the purchase price is a yet deeper surrender of the country to the entitled elite?
At some point, even in the dirty world of real politic, we have to weigh means and ends. In that regard, I don't see any real improvement of her over Bush--or McCain... that she's smarter, like her husband--just makes her more dangerous.