A Word About Hillary to the Undecideds

Photo credits: Getty

At The Moderate Voice, Damozel has posted ten positives for Hillary – ten good reasons to vote for the senator from New York:

1. Hillary grasps economic concepts: knowledge a president will need in January — given our nation’s debt, job loss, credit crunch, recession….

2. Hillary has a plan to get us out of Iraq, a plan that the 34 flag rank military officers who endorsed Hillary also find impressive.

3. Hillary has a health care plan that offers the broadest coverage for Americans.

4. Hillary’s Senate committee assignments encompass a wide array of issues — including veterans affairs, education, military issues, labor, health, and the environment — which give her a solid foundation from which to help shape public policy.

5. Hillary understands foreign policy and has dealt with officials from dozens of other nations. This will be useful, as our nation tries to solve problems with nations of the Middle East, Africa, South America, Europe….

6. Hillary has broad support among American voters, evinced by her wins in the primaries of big states (e.g., California and New York) and swing states (e.g., Florida and Ohio). In short, Hillary’s in a good position to compete with John McCain.

7. Hillary has demonstrated concern for fellow Americans — starting with her civil rights activities during college and her work during the seven years after college, which she devoted to public service (instead of taking her Yale law degree straight to lucrative arenas).

8. Hillary has broad life experience. As well as public service, she has experience in private law practice and the corporate realm, which gives her the perspective needed to help reconcile our nation’s many competing interests.

9. Hillary has learned how to get things done in Washington, both as a second-term senator and as a First Lady. For seven years, she has worked with members of Congress, some of whom had been nasty to her family. Hillary put aside the personal stuff and worked on getting things done.
10. Hillary is strong, resilient, and tenacious. She has faced more scrutiny and ugly attacks than most politicians, yet she’s still standing. Better than that, she’s still fighting. That’s the spirit a president needs in order to solve the many grave problems our nation faces. (D. Cupples, Buck Naked Politics Politics)

Damozel concludes:

“The next president is going to have a hard, nasty slog cleaning up after Bush. Why put Obama through it? He only thinks he wants to be president right now because he hasn’t seen close-up with the job involves. Save him and his glamour and aura and fabulousness for the next election cycle, after he’s shown that he can stand up to harsh scrutiny as well as Hillary.”

Montana Governor Supports Clinton on Health Care and Energy

Photo credits: courtesy of Politico.com

Out in the big sky country of Montana, Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer, in a recent ABC interview, praised Hillary Clinton’s health care plan over Obama’s health care proposal.

Schweitzer also took a shot at Obama for voting for Bush’s energy bill while criticizing the president on this issue: “Sounds like Senate-speak,” the governor said.

Schweitzer, the first Democratic governor in red state Montana in 16 years, credits his success to his image as a “regular guy” and his conservative stance on guns. In fact, he argues that neither Clinton, nor Obama would take Montana in the general election due to the gun issue.

Schweitzer has said he will endorse the Democratic candidate who wins the Montana primary on June 3.

To read the ABC interview in its entirety, go here.

The Least of These

Harold Meyerson’s piece in today’s Washington Post titled “A Dickens of a President” makes one wish the Bush Administration would defend the lives of children in this country at least as zealously as it defends stem cells and the lives of the unborn.

The 2003 census reported that in my midwestern state alone over 100,000 children under the age of 17 live below the federal poverty level of $20,650 annual income for a family of four. It’s been my experience that it’s tough enough for a single adult with no dependents to survive on that amount in the present economy.

Meyerson argues that without health insurance provided by a parent’s employer, a family with an annual income of $50,000 would still be hard pressed to provide adequate coverage for their children.

For that reason, Meyerson explains, several larger states have moved to provide health coverage to families whose income exceeds the federally mandated poverty level.

Here’s Meyerson’s Dickensian connection: “On Friday, the administration cracked down on this mischief, announcing that federal funds would not be available for such misguided efforts to protect the health of children.”

I wonder why they chose to make that announcement on a Friday?

Again, if the Bush Administration put as much time and effort into concern for the nation’s children as it does toward overcoming Roe v. Wade ― that’s called a consistent ethic of life ― thousands of children might not be dying each year from disease and poverty.