Should she win the presidency, Hillary Clinton would quickly try to find common ground with Republicans on an immigration overhaul and infrastructure spending, risking the wrath of liberals who would like nothing more than to twist the knife in a wounded opposition party.Let me put it this way: She won't. There's essentially a 0% chance that she'll find "willing partners on the other side."
... Not one to do business over golf or basketball, she would bring back the intimate style of former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Lyndon B. Johnson, negotiating over adult beverages....
Deeply confident that she would perform better as the president than as a political candidate, Mrs. Clinton wants to pursue a whole new approach at the White House to try to break through years of partisan gridlock, according to a dozen campaign advisers and allies who described her goals and outlook. From policy goals and personnel to her instinct for patiently cultivating the enemy, Mrs. Clinton thinks she would be a better dealmaker than President Obama if she finds willing partners on the other side.
Her calculation is that she will be dealing with a Republican Party that is deeply fractured and demoralized after the defeat of Mr. Trump, whose leaders will be searching for ways to show they can govern and to court Hispanics if Mr. Trump loses badly with them. Mrs. Clinton also thinks a huge Democratic turnout this fall would put the Senate back in her party’s hands, while Speaker Paul D. Ryan and the Republicans would have a reduced majority in the House.Look at the poll averages: Her lead over Trump is 4.5 points. If that holds, she's going to win by less of a margin than Barack Obama did in 2008.
Obama also had large majorities in the House and Senate. Because of gerrymandering in GOP states, a Democratic House is next to impossible in 2017, and the widespread optimism about a Democratic takeover of the Senate seems awfully premature -- the Cook Political Report finds no current Republican seat that so much as leans Democratic (though several are tossups), and Democrats could lose Harry Reid's seat in Nevada, which is also a tossup. If Democrats take back the Senate, it'll be by one or two seats, far less than their margin in 2009.
And Republicans, up against huge Democratic majorities in 2009, still dug in their heels and blocked as much of Obama's agenda as they could manage.
Conventional wisdom says they loathed him more because he's black. I don't buy that. They've hated Hillary Clinton for a quarter of a century. Their voters despise her. And she's likely to win in the fall without being well liked by the broad electorate.
They're going to consider her weak and vulnerable. They know Democrats don't vote in midterms. So they're going to effectively shut the government down again, then blame Democrats, the party that believes in government, for the gridlock, in the hope of another off-year midterm rout.
The Times article says she'll try to pursue a potentially bipartisan agenda in her first days -- but look at what she thinks is bipartisan:
... some [Republicans] are open to her two early priorities: $275 billion in infrastructure spending, and an immigration bill with a path to citizenship like the one already passed by the Senate. Given how deeply immigration has divided the Republican Party, no other issue would probably reveal more about the ability of a President Hillary Clinton and a Republican-led House to work together.Immigration reform? Is she kidding? I don't care if the GOP establishment wants it. Unless Trump loses by double digits -- which I guarantee you he won't -- this doesn't stand a chance. It would lead to an internecine bloodbath in the GOP in 2018, given how outraged Republican rank-and-file voters are now about Mexicans and Muslims.
She'll learn, just as Obama eventually did.
Frankly, I don't even think they intend to let her fill Supreme Court vacancies -- they're going to find some excuse (probably Email-gate or Benghazi, or maybe a less-than-overwhelming vote in November) to declare her illegitimate. If they control the Senate, they'll block her picks. If they don't, they'll declare any attempt by the Democrats to eliminate the filibuster for Supreme Court picks an assault on the Constitution.
No, Hillary -- they won't let you kick the football. You're going to have to fight for every win.
24 comments:
Argh -- I'm sorry. I deleted your comment inadvertently. I hope you're right when you say Hillary doesn't really believe this, but I worry that she actually does. It's Beltway conventional wisdom that Ronnie and Tip drank their way to comity in the Reagan era.
The possibility that Clinton will have to "learn" that Republicans will blockade her on everything (after eight years of doing it to Obama) is pretty disheartening. That she wouldn't waste time playing patty-cake with the GOP was one of the strengths I figured she would have going into the presidency. You'd think Hillary Clinton of all people would know that the Republicans despise her and will never willingly let her win on anything.
The idea that the GOP will suddenly wise up and play nice is as much a fantasy as the idea that the public will suddenly turn on them if only the Dems play rope-a-dope long enough.
One hopes this is just more of the Republicans-for-Clinton initiative. It's hard to believe she's actually optimistic she can get any cooperation. Obama was just a feckless liberal with a dodgy birth certificate; Hillary will be the embodiment of evil who must be made to pay for 25 years of "corruption" and "treason". Any Republican who doesn't spit on a hand reaching across the aisle will be an instant pariah.
I thought the Republican women for Hillary was a myth but, tonight, I had dinner with a Republican friend who is so appalled at the idea of Trump in the White House, she's planning to vote Democratic for the first time. They exist.
I do think HRC could get something done on shovel ready infrastructure jobs fairly quickly.
It's going to be a bumpy ride and it would be nice if Democrats had her back a little bit more than they had Bill's.
Hillary is many things, but I don't think stupid or naive are among them. I'm sure she hopes that things could work this way, but I also think that she has a Plan B to go to when they don't. She did live through Bill's administration and she knows exactly how bad the Republicans can be. I'm also sure she hasn't forgotten 11 hours of testimony that she had to give in service of Bengahzi!
Also, too this is the NY Times a paper that isn't kindly disposed toward either Clinton. I don't think they really have an inside track on how Hillary is thinking.
If she wins, Hillary will be following a controlled President who always gave the impression of trying to work with the opposition. If nothing else, Hillary has to LOOK as if she is willing to work in a bipartisan manner, and she has to make it look good. So she tries to introduce bipartisan bills, including ones on immigration. If she wins that's great If she loses, the growing Hispanic population knows which party to blame.
Steve,
A-yup!
I think she knows where all he bodies are buried. :)
I stand with Allie G. on this.
One more thing. If Clinton is elected, the Republicans may prevent her from doing much. But she will also prevent them from doing anything. As we have seen, the GOP base and the dead-enders in Congress are being driven more and more nuts by their inability to assume total power. Chaos within Congress is therefore likely a given, which will give Clinton nobody to even negotiate with. So she can give it a week or two, say, "hey, I tried" and then proceed as she sees fit.
AllieG, good point. Keeping Paul Ryan from starving children and old people is a good goal.
Knowing all that, anyone who would put the rest of us through it doesn't have the best interests of the rest of us at heart.
We have stop doing what we're doing. Now.
Oh for...No, of course Hillary Clinton whose personal life was rendered toxic, who has been accused of taking her muslim chief of staff as a lover, who was accused of murdering Vince Foster, whose husband was impeached by these goons does not think, for five seconds, that the Republicans are going to play nice with her.
On the other hand she recognizes that even if she sweeps in to the White House on a tidal wave of votes and she recaptures the Senate the House will still have a lot of power. A.Lot.Of.Structural.Power. She is going to have to deal with them whether she likes it or not. If the left has some fantasy that Clinton can just run over a Republican House with intemperate language, or chest thumping, they still haven't learned the lessons of the Obama years. Charm, or political strength, or a mandate--none of these things matter when the far right wing and the corporatists have gerrymandered their control over a sufficiency of safe seats that they don't have to worry about anything but a primary from the farther right. She is going to have to wheel and deal to get anything done. That's just the reality.
From policy goals and personnel to her instinct for patiently cultivating the enemy, Mrs. Clinton thinks she would be a better dealmaker than President Obama if she finds willing partners on the other side.
President Obama would also be a better deal maker if he finds willing partners on the other side.
After a 7.5 year hiatus during which the Muslim Kenyan Usurper was the most reviled individual in D.C, the Clintons (this time in the form of Hillary) have returned to the pinnacle of objects of goper wrath.
As the coiner of the phrase "vast right wing conspiracy" it is doubtful that HRC harbors any illusions about her ability to work with republicans, but by professing her willingness to do so she proactively places the blames on them when raproachment inevitably fails.
At the least, i the Dems can retake the Senate they will be able to appoint liberals to the Supreme Court who could, over time, rid the country of gerrymandered district once and or all. That and a concerted effort to wrest power at the state and local levels could return the U.S to a more liberal progressive path that was abandoned in the 80's.
Compromise over confrontation is the expressed preference of Democrats, and has been for years.
If you're running for office, you drop your hook where the fish are.
Once again, what aimai said.
It's going to be a very interesting show in the house if she gets in. Ryan's honeymoon will be over with the troglodytes. If he wants to get anything done like say, keeping the government from shutting down over sonograms or IUDs or some other petulant nonsense, he'll need Democrats' votes. Clinton isn't without cards in any hand she plays with the House. If the Senate stays red, they'll hold the line on appointments, but not forever. I don't think they can keep their majority past the 2-year mark doing that.
If the GOP blocks her agenda, as they certainly will, I hope she uses the bully pulpit and speaks directly to the country. Make them pay for their obstructionism.
I've been wanting Obama to do that for seven and half years, John. I don't understand it. They way you people beat up those that mostly agree with you one would think you would do the same with those who don't, or better. But no, it ain't gonna' happen.
"...she would bring back ... adult beverages....
Somehow I think we'd all be better off if they
switched from "adult beverages" to Medical Marijuana.
speaking of Medical marijuana. I really wish the president would sign an executive order rescheduling pot from schedule 1 to schedule 2 on his way out the door.
I live in a state where it's straight up legal and I truly believe that at the least it should be legal for medicinal use in every state. Rescheduling it from 1 to 2 would help that in the long run.
Where does this charming naivete come from? She can't be serious, after what they have put her through.
The naivete doesn't come from Hillary, it comes from her supporters. And Hillary isn't Charlie Brown, either. She's Lucy.
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