Would President Hillary Clinton have done things differently?

This is not to say that a Hillary administration would have been any less the target of abuse than this one has been.  Whenever someone even faintly liberal is in Our Nation's Highest Office--any Democrat, in other words--some people come absolutely unglued. 

JFK was called a "traitor."  When Jimmy Carter was in, he was supposedly an agent of something called the Trilateral Commission.  Before Bill Clinton was even in office, George H.W. Bush was trying to sell the idea that Clinton was a Soviet sell-out.  After he was elected, Jerry Falwell was selling video tapes calling Clinton a murderer and a drug dealer. 

There's no reason to think it would have been any different with Hillary.  In fact, had Hillary been elected, whole new dimensions of misogyny would have burst across our alabaster skies.  They might have left her religion alone, but only because her Methodist bonafides are strong enough that nobody would have gotten anywhere by calling her a "Muslim."  Other than that, however, she would have had to face the same kind of hysteria as has the current president, or any Democrat since FDR.

How would Hillary have handled it?  She would not have bothered trying to be "post-partisan."  She would not have bothered even to feint in that direction.  Having dealt, first hand, with the surreal and irrational during eight years of the Clinton administration, she would not have been naive.  As I like to say, if Hillary invited the opposition leaders to the White House and served milk and cookies, those opposition leaders would have brought taste testers. 

She would have known that the only way to govern under the circumstances would have been to engage and defeat the opposition.  You can't placate them because they never placate.  You can only wage political war and try to win.  This is the tack she would have taken, not only because it's the only approach that would work, but, more importantly, because it would have been in her political interest to do so. 

Being a woman, she would have faced continual pressure to prove her "toughness."  Ergo, it would have been in her political interest to take a stand and fight.  Knowing that it was pointless to engage the opposition in debate, she would have had to rally the Democrats to win.  Win or lose, this would have enhanced her political position.  (When she was fighting back hard in the later months of the campaign in 2008, her public position and polls got stronger.)   

Pres. Obama is more removed from combat, and more controlled in reaction, because he perceives that approach to be in his political interest, and he's probably right.  Before he started his campaign, he assessed, quite correctly, that white Americans would not vote for a black man who sounded confrontational or shrill--not Jesse Jackson, in other words.  As a result, he bends over backwards to meet opponents half-way--or, as has often proved to be the case, three-quarters of the way.

What has he gotten in return?  Nada.  The opposition has made it an article of faith that cooperation with the president, in any way, will not be taken kindly.  In fact, even to hold office while he does, even if in opposition, is apparently enough to sink one's chances in opposition party primaries. 

Yet, in for a penny, in for a pound.  Having crafted a particular cool and detached persona, Pres. Obama pretty much has to stick with it, even though, for all his bipartisan efforts, his opponents still call him every name in the book.  It's in his political interest, he believes, to take it.  It would have been in Hillary's interest to fight back. 

Comments

[Jody]

But Secretary Clinton was ENORMOUSLY bipartisan in the Senate. It was one of the most remarkable aspects of her career there. During her presidential run, she even sat down with that scumbag Sciafe, for pity's sake. Would Clinton have crafted the same persona as Obama? Of course not. She doesn't have to worry about looking like an angry black man. But she would have had to worry about looking like an emasculating bitch, and that would have shaped her policy, too.

The Republicans are in convulsions of negativity, and I'm hard-pressed to see how anyone could get anything done in this environment. I also think 2008-2010 has been more legislatively active and progressive than 1992-1994 was. But some of that is BECAUSE of what happened in 1992-1994, so that's not meant as any particular slam.

[John Petty]

Good points, Jody. Yes, Hillary was bipartisan in the Senate. What I'm referring to is that when Hillary weighs in on an issue, she does so with great force and intellect. She takes a strong line.

This seemingly more confrontational approach actually helps a person to get something done in a bipartisan way. It forces your opponents to take you seriously, for one thing.

Oh yes, as I said above, they'd have said equivalent calumnies about Hillary.

I agree the Republicans are in "convulsions of negativity"--good phrase--but then they're always that way. They were that way with Clinton too. That's a given, sad to say.