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It seems all but certain that Hillary Clinton will run for president in 2016, despite the fact that she would be 69 years old then. How can she pass it up? She has transformed herself from First Lady to senator to secretary of state with a presidential campaign sandwiched in the middle. There are those who say the Clintons planned this from the start, that Hillary would look for a means to transition into a politician and, if they did plan it, so what? Everyone knows they are two of the most highly motivated people of their generation and they always, always, think they should be first in line.
One thing is certain if we were to get Hillary Clinton as president: she will work very hard. She will always be prepared. She might not be the very smartest kid in the class, but her hard work and preparation are likely to make the smartest kid look dumb. She’s tough, can probably be mean and she’s be preparing for the presidency since at least 1992 when Bill won the first time. That’s 22 years ago. In some ways, we can be certain she would be a more aggressive president than Obama and would work to find ways to crack problems that now seem to have the nation stalled. We can’t be sure she would succeed, or even come close, however.
Yet, in the years she has been on the public scene, what has she accomplished? As secretary of state, she is said to have flown close to one million miles around the globe. She was always very busy and she certainly played the role of Ambassador in Chief for the United States. What else? The answer is that there is no signature accomplishment either in the Senate or at the State Department that she can point to as being her’s above that of anyone else.
Her campaign for the presidency in 2004 was hollow, aside from the message of a woman moving toward the top job in America. It lacked more than a theme, it lacked purpose. She went around the country yelling at the top of her voice about “35 years of experience” without saying what that meant and, besides, anyone her age would have had 35 years of experience, wouldn’t they?
No one accused her of being highly motivated by a deep interest in foreign affairs before she took over the top job at State. She promoted no central agenda and, overall, cannot point to any big accomplishment. As the NY Times reports, she was stumped for a few moments at a forum recently when asked to name what accomplishment made her most proud.
Is Hillary Clinton, now something of a beloved figure among many millions, the excellent, striving student who turns in “A” term papers but has nothing much to offer other than the ability to recite the required material? This might not matter all that much during the next election cycle in 2016, but it could matter deeply if she gets into the White House. Where does she propose to take the country? What is her vision? Does she have one?
Doug Terry, 4.17.14
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