Recent polls on the right track/ wrong track direction for the country are around 27% right track, 65% wrong track.
By definition that would make this election cycle one about change. Other than gender, how the candidacy of Hillary Clinton defines change escapes me.
Recent media coverage, along with some Dkos site comments and diaries as to the inevitableness of Hillary's nomination three months out from when the first votes are to be cast, strikes me as being a bit premature. National polls show her leading Bernie Sanders among Democrats, but Iowa and New Hampshire polls show a much tighter race. Some head to head polling against Republicans show Sanders equal to or bettering Hillary's performance in hypothetical matchups against potential Republican nominees. I’ve read diaries and comments here that are attacks on who Hillary is as a person. I do not believe opposition to her candidacy has to reach that level. I think her record speaks for itself and this diary presents my argument why Hillary’s record is, ‘ not good enough’, to earn my vote for the Democratic nomination for President.
The primary reason why I will not support Hillary for the Democratic nomination is I believe she has a record of poor political judgement. On the three major political challenges of her time she failed all three times. As First Lady and point person on health care reform in the 1993, Hillary failed in guiding health care reform through Congress to a successful conclusion. As U.S. Senator in the 2000's, Hillary voted for the Iraq War Resolution of 2002-- one of the greatest foreign policy failures in our country's history, which we are still paying a price for to this day. As the prohibitive favorite for the Democratic nomination in 2008, Hillary created a campaign team and made strategic decisions that led to her defeat to a first term U.S. Senator. At some point, if you keep on losing the big games as coach, it is time to move in a different direction.
Second, and this may flow from her poor political judgment, she too often appears to be a finger to the wind politician. She keeps changing her position on issues that gives the appearance she is realigning with prevailing public opinion--Keystone Pipeline, TPP trade deal, marriage equality, she's a moderate, she's a progressive. Not even close to an exhaustive list. It's okay to change your position or evolve on an issue when you get new information, but her evolving , to me, too often appears to be based on trying to catch up to the latest public opinion consensus.
Third, she refused to cut ties with Wall Street and Big Business. She leads all candidates in number of CEO's contributing to her campaign www.cnbc.com/... She takes campaign contributions from federal lobbyists (something President Obama rejected during his campaigns) with a lot of these lobbyists having ties to Wall Street www.mcclatchydc.com/...Not exactly channeling FDR. These people are going to want access to the policy makers in a Clinton presidency. Hell, would any of us be surprised if some of them are in her administration making policy! In the revolving door of Washington politics, from lobbyist to policy maker and back again, do any of you have confidence that these people are going to be fighting for you? While she counts Republicans as her adversary, I can not say the same for Wall Street, Big Business and the donor class. I want my President and her administration to be a lobbyist for the middle class.
Finally, in 2015, when the public mood for an outsider is palpable, we want to have as our nominee the ultimate establishment candidate? The one whose favorable/unfavorable rating is upside down.
I don’t see a Hillary Clinton presidency being any different than what presently exists regarding who has a seat at the table when policy is decided at the executive, legislative and regulatory level. Moneyed interests are writing the rules that rig the economic and political systems in this country and thwart the will of the people. Hillary’s actions ,demonstrated by who she takes the vast majority of her campaign money from, reveals to me that she has no intention of changing who is seated at the table. I fear what is inevitable regarding a Hillary Clinton presidency is the disappointment progressives will feel as our agenda gets rolled back (e.g. putting Social Security cuts on the budget table) , watered down (e.g. Dodd-Frank), underfunded (e.g. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau), defeated (e.g. gun reform) or not even raised for consideration (e.g. single payer) similar to these past examples.
I think Hillary is intelligent and hard working. I don't believe her shortcomings as a candidate, as I see them, make her a bad person. They just do not make her different than what already exists in Washington. We need wholesale change!
Elections are about choices and drawing distinctions with your opponent. This diary lays out my opposition to Hillary for the nomination. A future diary will explain my support for Bernie Sanders-- a candidate who at his core is a Progressive and instinctively will fight for Progressive values.