I find myself, like so many others, quite content, pleased and even near-enthusiastic that the Democrats will anoint Hillary Clinton as their next presidential candidate with little or no opposition. This is a bit odd for me, I think, considering that last time around, in 2008, I was ferociously opposed to her candidacy. Ferociously, unequivocally, irrevocably.
It might not have been fair to call me a "Hillary hater," but I was just so viscerally opposed to her, it might not have been unfair to do so. This despite full-on admiration for her husband who, despite his personal weaknesses, was a brilliant politician and the most successful Democratic president of my lifetime (unless you count Harry Truman, who was president for the first two and a half months of my life). This despite having met Hillary in person and finding her to be a warm, normal person (I was her embassy control officer during the Clintons' 1998 visit to Ireland).
Why such vitriol then and acceptance, even happiness at the prospect of her as the candidate now? I didn't care that Hillary was a woman or that Obama was black. I didn't care about the so-called differences between Obama and Clinton in 2008 or who was more or less progressive. I actually agreed with Hillary over Obama that health care had to be universal and compulsory if it was going to work, but figured Obama was just fibbing about what he really thought, as politicians so often do. Frankly, I pay little attention to what candidates say, because there's only so much they can do on their own. Most real change has to go through the sausage-making machine that is Congress.
The thing about Hillary in 2008, for me, was that I was so damn mad at her for voting for the Iraq war. So mad because I knew in her heart of hearts that she thought it was a bad idea but supported it so she could show that she, as a politician, as a woman, as a Democrat, was just as "gutsy" and "tough" as the rest of them. So mad because her vote was a craven political play, when the consequences were counted in real lives, American and Iraqi. She'd done the same thing, in a just as craven but less consequential way, when she co-sponsored a completely uncalled-for and unconstitutional bill to ban flag burning.
Time heals all wounds, I guess, because I'm no longer mad at her. My view of her now is much different. She's been a good soldier for Obama, which took a good deal of courage and humility on her part after those bruising primary wars. I still worry some that she will feel the need to show how "tough" she is if she gets in the White House, but I hope she'll be a bit more confident these days. There will be, inevitably, Republican eruptions about one Clinton "scandal" or another, but we had all that in the '90s and, you know what? -- the '90s weren't bad at all. I know a lot of people want to try to push her to the left, but I'm old enough and have seen enough to feel that none of that really matters in presidential politics -- it's all just rhetoric when it's intra-party disputes. And unless the Democrats can overcome the GOP gerrymandering and win back one or both houses of Congress, it won't matter so much in the event.
So, much to my surprise, I say: point me in the direction of the Hillary bandwagon so I can jump on!
