Okay, the headline is provocative. But I’m not trolling; I honestly believe this.
Not because Clinton is more liberal than Obama. I’m not that delusional. From the 2008 campaign, we know that Obama’s rhetoric and policies are, on average, further left than Clinton’s. Clinton has moved left during this campaign, but even so, she isn’t Obama.
But I want to be clear: Hillary Clinton is a liberal. Maybe in a global scope she’d be considered a centrist, but in American politics it’s hard to classify her as anything but a liberal.
And I think she can get more done for liberalism than Obama did. I’ll explain why below the fold.
I’ll admit it: I supported Clinton in 2008 over Obama. In part, it was because I felt it was high time for a woman to break a political barrier before a black man did. But moreover, I thought Obama’s political inexperience was a liability compared to Clinton’s experience. I never bought the “3AM phone” argument Clinton trotted out at the time, but she had a seasoning and a gravitas that he lacked. I thought he would have made a great vice-president and heir-apparent for 2016.
And as good a President as Obama has been, I still think I was right. I think it’s pretty clear now that Obama severely underestimated the level of obstruction he would face in Congress. And while that’s attributable in very large measure to the poisonous politics of the Republicans in Congress, it seems clear to me that Obama’s relationship with even the Democratic-controlled 111th Congress didn’t get off to a great start.
And he now knows what the deal is, but it’s far too late to do anything about it.
Hillary Clinton will be under no similar illusions. She knows that whatever power the Republicans maintain after the election will be arrayed strongly against every single policy proposal she puts forth. She knows this from her experience in front of Congress, from her husband’s experience in the Oval Office, and from Obama’s experience.
But she also has a record of working with Republican Senators. I hesitate to say she was “well-liked”, but her former colleagues in the Senate praised her work there and her willingness to make deals and reach across the aisle. I think she knows how the Senate works, and I think she has a very good chance of being able to get legislation passed, despite obstruction from the dead-enders.
I hope she might even be able to work with Paul Ryan in the House to get legislation passed. (I can’t really say I’m confident, but I have hope...) At heart, he’s a reasonable governing Republican who’s afraid to piss off the Tea Partiers in his caucus. If Clinton can model the backbone he needs to stand up to them, and give him concessions that he can hold up as achievements, I have to hope he’d take it. She can give him the tools he needs to beat back the Freedom Caucus wing of his party.
And if Clinton can do all that, she is poised to do more for progressive causes — equality, gun control, fiscal fairness — than Obama was able to with years of executive actions.