What Real political Experience does Hillary Have?

Don't Say First Lady because that is not Political Experience.

She is also the second term senator of one of our more populous states.

Smart move if you're looking to run for president in 2008.

karl rove and george bush and dick cheney and scooter libby and ed gillespie have political experience. Fred Thompson has political experience. Joe McCarthy had political experience.

I respectfully disagree that being first lady for eight years does not lend itself to experience in the political realm.

political experiences--first lady, Senate, always worked on children's issues. What I doubt is what she has learned from these experiences other than not to take on a big challenge and unfortunately this is what we need, incremental programs just aren't enough.

She wasn't president but she was there in the decision making process. She knows more about how the presidency works than all of them also.

:eyes: Give me a break.

NOBODY puts on their resume, "I was the wife of the BOSS." :thumbsdown:

But this is getting to be just a pissing contest.

:(

You are aware of Hillary's work in all of her husband's campaigns?

Of her work on Watergate?

I'll leave aside the First Lady stuff though it is an ambassador type position.

And, sweetie, Hillary was not just First Lady in the White House, but in the Arkansas governor's mansion. With an organized attempt to ruin her and her husband, THEY COULDN'T FIND ANYTHING. With an organized attempt to ruin her and her husband, SHE ALWAYS KEPT HER TEMPER AND BEHAVED WITH GOOD GRACE.

Hillary is welcome in any nation on earth. Because she behaved so well.

"Political" MEANS dealing with government, but the root of the word is PEOPLE. She learned well how to deal with PEOPLE. Unlike our current administrators, Hillary learned from her mistakes.

Do you ever post how wonderful your choice is? Or only snide evidence/link free attacks on Hillary?

So perhaps the poster's problems with your OP could be forgiven as assuming the worst.

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Those of you who wax sentimental FORGET that the economy was good during the nineties. TODAY is a much different situation. Back in the 70s, both Clintons would have been considered moderate to liberal Republicans. :shrug:

But I guess the truth isn't one of your strong suits.

Also, explain NAFTA to me? n/t

"Also, explain NAFTA to me?"

Bill Clinton supported NAFTA. His wife has indicated she does not support it as he had.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/july-dec00/drugs_12-27.html

True, the years AFTER he served as President, Clinton didn't like media consolidation. But explain, The Telecommunications Act of 1996? Hint: Bill Clinton Signed it.

Finally, Many spouses of powerful people say all sorts of BUNK but that does NOT constitute a record. :shrug:

GWEN IFILL: We look first tonight at this week's decision by the Clinton administration to stop a plan to import low-cost drugs. The Republican-sponsored provision would have allowed wholesalers and pharmacists to import prescription drugs back into the United States. Some of those drugs are made in this country but are often sold at lower, government-regulated prices elsewhere. The plan, killed yesterday by Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, was signed only reluctantly by President Clinton in late October. This afternoon Mr. Clinton had this reaction to the secretary's decision:

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I said when I signed the law that it was deeply flawed. She is required by law to make a determination that - two things - one, that the reimportation would not weaken the safety standards that we have for Americans and their pharmaceuticals; I think she could do that. But the second was she had to make a determination by law that this would lower prices for American consumers. And the - the law was so different from the one we proposed, and is so full of loopholes, that she could not say that she believed that the prices for consumers would go down, which is exactly what I wanted when I asked them not to do this. So what we'd like to see is a law that protects safety that will lower consumer prices. I do think that people ought to be able to do this. And I did before, but I will again - as soon as the Congress comes back - I'll send them a statement of the things that I believe would meet the standard of the law.

RON POLLACK: I don't think that the idea itself is a problem. In fact, for any member of Congress who sees their constituents traveling to Canada or Mexico getting prescription drugs at a fraction of the price that we get here, obviously members of Congress want to get that thing solved. So it isn't the general concept of allowing drugs to be reimported. The problem that Secretary Shalala talked about in her letter to the president was that there were loopholes in this legislation which made it appear like more was being promised than actually would be delivered.

In effect, what she said was that the drug companies can dictate to those who reimport drugs what the prices should be for individuals when they purchase these drugs. She also said that the labels that are necessary in order to allow reimportation could be withheld from the drug companies and, as a result, this whole process would have been a nullity."

But according to you it was Bill Clinton who refused to do this. Again, short on facts but heavy on the fire.

"True, the years AFTER he served as President, Clinton didn't like media consolidation. But explain, The Telecommunications Act of 1996? Hint: Bill Clinton Signed it."

The Telecomm Act of 1996 passed the Senate 95-5-1. Passed the House by an equally impressive margin. Clinton signed it.

You stated he was pro-media consolidation and that is frankly untrue.

"Finally, Many spouses of powerful people say all sorts of BUNK but that does NOT constitute a record."

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=atUKcP4eSEvY&refer=politics

So instead of being ShortNFiery try using google and actually speak about things you know the facts on.

First, media consolidated ad nausea DESPITE Bill Clinton et. al.'s "good intentions." Remember what the road to Hell is paved with? Why didn't he VETO the Bill if it was so DAMN Flawed? Perhaps he was hedging his bets? Perhaps he was, instead, playing the triangulation game that is oh, so, Clintonian?

Second, he did NOTHING to improve the cost of prescription medications. Oh, another Clintonian maneuver? Does he really FEEL our pain? :eyes:

You THINK that when Bill Clinton ices the cake while doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING we are supposed to "ooh and ahh" out of his "good will" and future "intentions." WRONG! ;)

p.s. You're right that I was wrong to claim Bill Clinton ANNOUNCED THAT he was PRO-media consolidation, i.e., who knows what he truly believes. :eyes: BUT gee, isn't it interesting that he did absolutely nothing during his Presidency to stop it?

But I'm also VERY anti-corporatist. Both HRC and "her spouse" are corporatists.

That's the difference. ;)

None of your business....

Funny how so many Hillary H*ters fancy themselves marriage experts as well...

it gets a little more than just "their marriage."

HRC seemingly insatiable drive for power seriously freaks me out. :scared:

And of course you were an eyewitness to everything that happened in their marriage right?

What freaks me out is people like you who are so obsessed with Hillary, you take to heart every right wing smear about her as fact...

Again, what happened in their marriage is none of your business, you have no clue NONE, as to the actual state of their marriage or how they feel about each other...

Wow, nothing like a stereotype. ;) If you bothered to read my posts, I'm about as LIBERAL as they come. However, I'm also anti-corporatist. :hi:

People like you, who seem to take any Hillary smear to heart...no matter the origin...

How would you describe a Senator in the job 2 years trying to be elected President before even bothering to compile a record of serious legislative achievement first...

At least Hillary took the time to become a very competent and well respected legislator first...

And don't say Senator because that is not Political Experience.

Makes an equal amount of sense...

Funny...

Eight years as first lady...7 years as a U.S. Senator...

Her political experience isn't one of them.

the OP is one the daily Hillary slamming posters around here.

I think it is as a politician that she has a weak spot. I know folks on the Hill were very impressed by her policy-making ability, but that's a different skill than being a politician.

As a political advisor to Bill Clinton, and later on her own time, she's spent her entire adulthood in electoral politics. But I don't especially think it's much of a criteria for being president one way or another.

Though I suspect by your use of the word "real," you have a qualifier for what you define as "real."

Putting her senate record aside, her experience as First Lady is long and distinguished.

When asked about his wife's role in his administration in August of 2000, President Bill Clinton said "She basically had an unprecedented level of activity in her present position over the last eight years.''

Her record as First Lady, Hillary Clinton says, includes work on a major Clinton administration child-care initiative, a huge federal-state children's health insurance program, adoption and foster care bills and foreign aid appropriations for small loans overseas.

''The record's there, and what I did is sort of self-evident I think, but it may come as new information to a lot of people,'' Mrs. Clinton said in an interview in 2000.

Pressed later about whether her new descriptions of acting as, in essence, a senior presidential adviser went beyond the job of first lady, Mrs. Clinton laughed out loud and said: ''I'm not going to have it any more. And the next first lady doesn't have to do it.''

Agency heads, other administration officials, Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill generally confirm Mrs. Clinton's assertions, but say that her role was kept quiet to avoid the kind of vilification she had attracted over her central part in health care policy.

Mrs. Clinton described her White House issues staff, which had offices in both the West Wing and the old Executive Office Building, ''as part of the domestic policy operation in the White House.'' Although she also had a small staff in the East Wing to handle first lady social responsibilities, Mrs. Clinton said that ''I realized very soon that, you know, if I had some first lady staff over here, I wouldn't be able to get things done.''

She said that she and her policy staff had the responsibility for pushing legislation and programs that would benefit children, women and health care -- issues that have concerned her, she said, for the last 30 years.

Mrs. Clinton's Democratic supporters on Capitol Hill echo her claims.

''Her office and her in particular were key allies of ours and the progressives in the Senate who were trying to pursue an agenda in the areas of children, education, health care and job training,'' said Nick Littlefield, who worked with Senator Edward M. Kennedy and was the staff director to the Health, Education and Labor Committee at the time. He added that ''once we discovered that Mrs. Clinton was running a public advocacy organization inside the White House, it followed automatically that we would start talking to her.''

She said, for example, that the Clinton administration program to guarantee free immunizations for poor and uninsured children, passed in 1993, ''was basically drafted in my office under my supervision.'' The program was a precursor to health care and its policy was largely rejected by Congress, but the Clinton administration did get $585 million for vaccines.

Mrs. Clinton also said that her staff had a large part in the development of the Corporation for National Service, the Clinton administration's domestic version of the Peace Corps.

''I hired Shirley Sagawa, who had been Ted Kennedy's person on national service, and so basically it was my staff that was involved in drafting that legislation,'' she said.

Eli J. Segal, the first chief executive of the Corporation for National Service and the 1992 Clinton campaign chief of staff, called the first lady's assertion ''100 percent correct.''

Among her other accomplishments, Mrs. Clinton said she helped to initiate and promote the Children's Health Insurance Program, created by Congress in 1997 to provide $24 billion over five years to states to insure children.

''She was a one-woman army inside the White House to get this done,'' Mr. Littlefield of the Health, Education and Labor Committee said. He said that he and Senator Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who was the major force behind the bill, enlisted Mrs. Clinton's help in the spring of 1997 when the president became ''skittish'' about the program. Mr. Littlefield said the Senate majority leader, Trent Lott, was threatening that it was a ''deal buster'' on the balanced budget agreement that he and Mr. Clinton had reached.

''At that point we went to Mrs. Clinton and said, 'You've got to get the president to come around on this thing,' '' Mr. Littlefield said. ''And she said, 'Absolutely.' And we very quickly noticed a change. The president was very much on board.''

She also said she helped to write bills on adoption and foster care, and lobbied for them.

At the end of the 1997 Congressional session, Representative Dave Camp, a conservative Michigan Republican who was frantically negotiating to save an adoption bill, got a call in the House cloakroom from Mrs. Clinton.

''It was 9:30 or 10 at night,'' Mr. Camp recalled. ''I thought only Congressional night owls did that. I was surprised. You know, you're working wearily on these things, and you're worrying whether this is doing any good.'' Mrs. Clinton gave him a pep talk, Mr. Camp said, and told him the bill was worth it.

''I want to be honest,'' he said. ''It was helpful to me.''

The bill, an administration priority intended to speed up the adoption of children in foster care, had been heavily promoted by Mrs. Clinton on Capitol Hill. Four days after her call, it passed the House and Senate and was soon signed into law by the president.

Others in the Clinton Administration said that they learned to count on Mrs. Clinton as more than a spokeswoman.

''I don't think that the Endowment would be alive today if it weren't for strong White House support, and I'm sure she plays a very important role,'' said Jane Alexander, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.

At the Agency for International Development, Brian Atwood, the administrator, said of Mrs. Clinton's grasp of complex development issues: ''She understands these issues better than 90 percent of the people who operate within the foreign policy community.''

Mrs. Clinton has been working with A.I.D. to import to inner cities lessons learned abroad, on child immunization, for example, and inexpensive techniques to combat diarrhea. She has taken a particularly strong interest in ''microenterprise lending,'' or efforts in developing nations and troubled cities to lend small amounts of money for new businesses, often run by women.

It is no coincidence, Mr. Atwood said, that the Administration is seeking to slightly increase the budget for A.I.D. next year. ''She deserves more credit for that,'' he said, ''than anyone.''

husbands campaign.She also worked for Carter and many other Dems as well as participated in Arkansas politics.She has been involved in politics one way or another her enire life!

:eyes: :(

before they assumed the office. If we had to wait for POLITICAL experience we wouldn't have anybody. AND what's the definition of the political experience you would want them to have.

:shrug:

First, for the record, I am not a Hillary supporter. I have resisted requests for money from all candidates at this point. Too early for me to commit.

Now, on to the record:

H. Clinton: in her seventh year in the United States Senate
B. Obama: seven years in Illinois state legislature, in third year in US Senate
J. Edwards: six years in US Senate
B. Richardson: 14 years in House, one year as ambassador to UN, two years as Secy of Energy, in second term as governor of New Mexico.
D. Kucinich: one term as mayor of cleveland; 11 years in House
M. Gravel: four years in state senate; two terms in US Senate
C. Dodd: three terms in house, in fifth term in US Senate
J. Biden: in sixth term in US Senate

I draw no judgments. As far as I am concerned, they all have the necessary experience/qualifications. Same goes for undeclared candidates Clark (no experience with elective office) and Gore (more experience with elective office than the other candidates).