While Republicans fret about Hillary's chances in 2008 (they think she's a lock), problem is she still has to get through a primary. She may lead in general population votes, but the activist set is distrustful. And with good reason, given how unwilling Clinton is to distance herself from her terrible judgment on the Iraq vote, and with the choice of triangulating, Joe Klein-esque corporatist Democrats in her inner circle.
People like Terry McAuliffe, who just did his best Tom Tancredo impersonation:
We've got to shut these borders down. These people shouldn't be coming in this country. We need to enforce our border protections. We have to do something for the people who have been here for years and have paid taxes -- you know, we're for the people who have been in this country and paying taxes and raising their family. But for the people who have not been here, who have been here illegally and have taken advantage of the situation, we need to have a plan to get them back to the countries they came from, and more important, which is the first thing John talks about, we have gotta shut these borders down. I couldn't agree more.
... I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican, we all agree you've gotta shut the borders down. People who are coming into this nation taking our jobs.
Lovely. It's exactly this kind of thinking that killed Republicans in border districts like TX-23, AZ-08 and AZ-06, and spurred the fast-growing Latino swing vote to cast their lot overwhelmingly with Democrats last year.
Clinton, who is a true practitioner of laundry list politics, responded quickly:
“These comments do not reflect Senator Clinton’s thinking or her position on immigration.”
“America has been a beacon of opportunity to generations of immigrants and we need an immigration system that respects that heritage while also respecting the rule of law. Senator Clinton supports comprehensive reform that fixes our broken immigration system, strengthens our border security and sanctions employers who break the law. She has supported legislation that provides an earned path to citizenship while respecting the enormous contributions that immigrants make and continue to make to our country.”
So how much should we be concerned about McAuliffe's comments? He's no mere staffer or consultant. He's not even a mere "chairman". He's a political giant and would feature prominently in one way or another in a Clinton administration. But ultimately, decisions on things like immigration would be Hillary's to make. So it could all be a wash.
What isn't so easy to stomach is Hillary's assertion that she doesn't regret her war vote. Amongst Democrats, the only other war supporters who don't regret their vote are Schumer and both Nelsons. As Bowers notes:
The biggest news, however, is that Hillary Clinton has just stated, flat-out, that she does not regret her war vote. At the same time, she is still trying to campaign as though she is against the war, claiming that she wouldn't have started it, and that she would end it. Basically, it is the same thing we saw from Lieberman during the general election against Lamont: an absolute hawk trying to appear anti-war in order to pick up Democratic votes.
This type of dishonesty worked for Joe Lieberman in Connecticut, so who knows, it might work for Hillary.
Comments are closed on this story.