Secretary Clinton has taken some hits in the Beltway media lately (and honestly, when can you NOT type that and be accurate?). The latest line is that she is "distancing" herself from President Clinton's policies on incarceration that have been disastrous for the country. The media cynically tell us that even her husband is "distancing himself " from those policies in order to help her.
This is really all you need to know to understand why very few Republican elected officials should ever get re-elected and all the ones running for President, announced or not, have already disqualified themselves. Governor Jeb Bush just told people that he would have taken us to war in Iraq, and he said so would have then-Senator Clinton.
Secretary Clinton just demonstrated the ability to admit a mistake and change course. How many Americans think our Iraq invasion was a good idea? C'mon- let me see a show of hand? This is more than just about Iraq and incarceration- please follow me after the squiggle.
A few months ago, I had a conversation with a friend of mine about the economy. I was mentioning how progressive policies helped grow the economy and conservative ones were abject failures. My friend told me that he agreed with me. I thanked him, but I also told him that I did NOT need his agreement. I had data! Look at the facts, and act accordingly.
The Clintons see how the tough on petty crime policies that they supported harm America and they change. Republicans look at the disaster of Iraq and say, "We didn't do enough damage." When Saint Reagan saw how his tax cuts ballooned the deficit, he reversed course. Today's Republicans believe that reality has a liberal bias and must be ignored.
President Obama once believed that marriage should be kept between man and woman as a matter of American law. Conservatives love to point that out. Why are they bigots for believing something that the "Liberal" President believed a few years ago? The President was wrong when he believed it, he figured it out. I don't care that he figured it out after it started polling in positive territory. You are still busy convincing your base that they are being victimized because the country is moving forward without them.
In the past century, we instituted a minimum wage, several times we raised it. There are cases where neighboring states have different minimums. States with higher minimum wages are doing better economically- on the whole. States with stronger labor protections are doing better. Can you find an example where that is not true? Probably.
States with stronger gun safety laws have a lower per capita incidence of gun deaths. BTW, I think New York has a great case against Georgia, and Congress because so many guns used in crime here come from Georgia.
Every single policy that we have enacted in our history has had observable results. Take a look at median household income from 1900 until today. You will notice observable differences from the Great Depression to 1980- and from 1980 until today. Look at the growth of the deficit, a TEA party favorite, from 1980 until today and compare how fast it grew under Republican and Democratic Presidents.
Elections have consequences. I get it. But so do policy choices. When your policy leads to disaster, change course.