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People who've read my stuff before know I'm no fan. She strikes me as a little too happy to go with the prevailing wind, and I don't consider that the mark of a good leader. I don't think one can serve the public and the insurance industry at the same time, and I'm willing to bet any attempt at creating a national healthcare program would be an attempt to cater to both, with the public being on the losing end of the whole thing.
THAT said, there are a lot of reasons why I don't necessarily think she'd be a bad president. Not a GREAT one, but certainly worthy of the position. Her being a woman carries a lot of weight with me, even if she does mouth chickenhawk phrases entirely too often for my comfort. I think she's in the sad position of having to appear even more "manly" than the male contenders--more capable of forceful action than they are.
But the fact is that women are, in general, more defensively oriented than offensively oriented. I think, given the right information, she'd be less likely than many males, most definitely the Repugs, to launch an attack against any enemy that wasn't an obvious threat.
I don't think it hurts that she's married to a man I consider a consummate politician, a true latter-day statesman. Whether true or not, Bill has the ability to make anyone with whom he speaks feel like he actually hears them and cares about them. That would be a trait she'd be well-considered to emulate. She could learn a lot from him in this regard.
She's undoubtedly sharp. After eight years of moronic "leadership," it would be good to have someone in the White House who could rub two brain cells together, and wouldn't be so wedded to ideology, particularly the bankrupt ideology of the neo-cons, that she'd stumble from crisis to crisis like this present pack of nitwits.
It may well be that what we're seeing of her now is her attempt to cater to the mythical "middle." I can't say for sure. But it may be that she'd pursue more progressive policies than we realize now. Especially if she were able to retain a Democratic Congress to bolster her policy decisions. We might have seen even more prosperity during Bill's administration had Congress not been lost to the "Contract On America" so quickly.
And, finally, I think it would be a good thing to get a competent woman elected President. As long as she did a fair to middling job, it would open up the office to other capable women in the future. And that could only be seen as a positive trend in my opinion.
We might do better than Hillary, it's true. But, then again, we could do a lot worse.
Something to keep in mind.
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