*Disclaimer - For every candidate I’m going to devote 2 hours to look over their opinions on key issues and pointing out where I disagree. Then I’ll be looking at the major issues playing in the media that will dissuade people from voting for them. I’m trying to summarize thoughts, so please don’t take my words as absolute fact. If you have any gripes with my summary, please look to the candidate’s website for their official opinion. This is my interpretations from 2 hours ONLY. I reserve the right to change my opinion as this proceeds.
Baseball Card Statistics:
-Full Name: Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton
Age: 60
Marital Status: Politically Married to Bill Clinton
Party Affiliation: Democratic
Most Recent Office Held: Junior Senator, New York
College: Wellesley College, Yale Law School
Religious Affiliation: United Methodist
Eric’s Official Nickname: HillBilly
Official Candidate website:
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/Randomness: She has won a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album in 1997 for the book “It Takes a Village” audio recording.
--Pre-issue thoughts--For some reason, I don’t like her. Not really sure why just yet. Maybe it’s because everybody around the Clinton’s ends up dead. Yeah, I’ve had 2 clients independently tell me that a bodyguard died at Waco, aids getting knocked, just random stuff happens to people who cross the Clinton’s. I’m sure all of this is silly and made up and those people were anarchists, but I still haven’t heard anything that bad about any other candidate. Well besides the Internet rumor that Dennis Kucinich killed the Wizard of Oz. Also, what a crazy dynamic of a former first lady becoming the President. She used to make Bill sandwiches in the White House and know she may be running the free world. Step up for HillBilly. Also, let’s pretend that Bill is a devout Christian. How could he ever “lead his family”, when his wife is the most powerful person in the world? Talk about a getting knocked down a few notches. But HillBilly is the “Democratic establishment choice” as of right now. A victory by Obama would liven this up going to New Hampshire. I hope this happens.
-Abbreviated Interesting Issue Watch-Immigration – HillBilly calls for “a path to earned legal status for those who are here, working hard, paying taxes, respecting the law, and willing to meet a high bar.” I have mixed feelings about this. I mean, somebody broke our laws to get in our country. So then, since they are behaving themselves, we’re supposed to forget how they got here in the first place. That’s like me breaking into somebody’s house, but because I started cleaning and helping around the house, they let me stay. Ok, maybe that’s a bad example, but at least you see where I’m going with it. I do believe that we need to make it easier for people to become citizens. One of my professors was from Spain and was working for a couple years on a work visa and couldn’t get citizenship. It seems like he should have been shoo-in for citizenship.
-“Hillary believes we need to repair those broken portions of our immigration system that irrevocably damage families and force citizens and lawful immigrants to choose between their newly adopted country and living with their spouse or children.” This makes sense. Shannon and I saw a man at the US-Mexican border who had to talk to his wife and children through a fence. That got me thinking though. ANYBODY can stroll into Mexico near San Diego. We walked in with no problems, not even an ID check. So this guy that was talking to his family HAD to be an illegal immigrant. Right? Because he could have walked in to talk to them, but I guess he was afraid he couldn’t get back to the US. That’s all I can think of. Sad and illegal. Bad times at the Mexican border. (Side note: Tijuana is the scariest place I’ve ever been; but that’s a post for another time.)
-Abortion – “Hillary has fought the relentless and insidious efforts by far-right Republicans to limit the protections of Roe v Wade, while also working hard to expand access to family planning services.” Look HillBilly, I’m not far-right. Religion aside, I just don’t see how a nation can justify abortion. In the cases where a rape causes pregnancy, a woman should be able to have an abortion. She never chose that for her body. No offense to anybody, but isn’t abortion the termination of another life? How is this legal?
-Here’s the thing I don’t get. Why is abortion only legal until a certain time in the pregnancy? What’s the magical line? Oh, here it is: “the state's interest in protecting "potential life" prevailed in the third trimester unless the woman's health was at risk.” I wonder how often the health of a woman comes into play. If that’s the case, what a tough decision. I know a woman wants to “have complete control over her fertility and pregnancy”; but at what expense.
-“Hillary has seen what happens when governments try to control a woman's reproductive health decisions. Whether it was Romania under a dictatorship saying you had to have children for the good of the state or China saying you had to have only one child for the good of the state, governments have dictated the most private and important decisions that we as individuals or families can make.”
-Umm..yeah, great comparison HillBilly. I’m not saying that government should create birth quotas. I think the government should protect life whether is old, normal, deformed, or in a woman’s belly. I know this is a tough issue, but if a woman had consensual sex, in normal health, they should not be allowed to terminate a pregnancy. It seems like they would be ending a life for their own convenience.
- Iraq – "Our message to the president is clear. It is time to begin ending this war -- not next year, not next month -- but today.
-Ok, I’m with you so far.
-"Well, the right strategy before the surge and post-escalation is the same: start bringing home America's troops now."
-Still good.
-“As president, one of Hillary's first official actions would be to convene the Joint Chiefs of Staff, her Secretary of Defense, and her National Security Council. She would direct them to draw up a clear, viable plan to bring our troops home starting with the first 60 days of her Administration.”
-Heard this before.
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"A New Intensive Diplomatic Initiative in the Region. In her first days in office, Hillary would convene a regional stabilization group composed of key allies, other global powers, and all of the states bordering Iraq."
-WHAT!? She’ll convene a group of all states bordering Iraq. That’s nice. Will she ask nice? Will she bribe them? All this sounds nice and all, but its kind of a pipe dream. Do you really think that Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Turkey are all going to sit down and have any sort of a consensus on Iraq?! That’s not counting the struggle for Iraq between the Shiites, Sunni, and Kurds. It seems like HillBilly is assuming this will be as simple as asking for delegates from Vermont, New Hampshire, and California to get together over tea. The only way that group is getting together is if HillBilly wants to invade Israel.
--Eric’s Gut Feeling After 2 Hours of Research-
She’s got the name recognition to carry her a long way. I don’t now if she’s electable though. Don’t most Republicans despise her? I think Obama/Edwards is a safer choice for the Dems.
-Eric’s Official Rating-I give her a 65. Would she have gotten anywhere without her husband? She’s a genius, but she’s still Bill’s wife to me. Nothing terrible impressive and I disagree with a lot of her core values. I’ll be writing about her more, but probably not in a good way.
