Hillary Clinton supporters - help me please

It certainly seems Senator Clinton will be tough to beat for the Democratic nomination. I've been looking over many of the candidates, Democrats and Republicans, trying to get a sense of their accomplishments. What makes them qualified to be President of the United States. This next Presidential election is so critical because of the Middle East, I go crazy thinking about it. I really like Joe Biden, but it doesn't seem he's going to get there. I really want to vote for a Democrat this time around. The Republicans certainly have nothing to look at on their side, but I'm very torn when it comes to Senator Clinton. Deep in my gut, I feel that nothing will get done on the hill, and I have my reservations regarding foreign policy (though she does have her husband near by). I just can't make the commitment. Has she passed any major legislation while in the Senate? Any and all informative answers are welcome.

Because she comes to the closest to being accepted by both sides due to Bill Clinton's hard, hard work in that area...

Her very overt support of positions held by the Likud in Israel will not help her credibility with Palestinians or their supporters in ME countries, although it will help her fundraising. The Kyl-Lieberman amendment was drafted by AIPAC, and opposed by all the foreign policy heavyweights in the Senate, on both sides of the aisle. It was a silly and dangerous resolution, and we will all probably regret it sometime in the next year when our president attacks Iran. She is lacking in experience, unless you count social visits on her foreign trips, and it shows. I have never been able to understand how she could get away with touting herself as "experienced" because she was First Lady.

legislation.

On Kyl-Lieberman amendment you either buy the words - which only set up sanctions against the Guard which in turn owns 1/3rd of the Iran economy - or you buy Webb's idea that Bush needed a cover to attack Iran and this will be used as that cover.

It is a matter of record. The question is what has she done in the Senate? SCHIP was passed in 1997 with her support, as First Lady, after she squandered the opportunity to bring health care to everyone by mismanaging that effort, and against the advice of legislators who tried to help her. Many of the other listed examples in this thread are "she helped," "she supported," she worked," etc. "She wrote, sponsored and got passed" is MIA.

I do read the words on Kyl-Lieberman, and I read it in the context of prior legislation. We have an authorization for use of force still in the president's hands that authorizes him to go after terrorists. Now 1/3 of the military of a sovereign government is characterized as a terrorist organization by this resolution. This is an unprecedented action.

I also read it in light of the expressed predilections of its cosponsors. Of the eight, only Joe Lieberman is nominally a Democrat, and he is the most adamant neocon hawk in the Senate.

Finally, I read it as I listen to experts on foreign policy discuss what it means. It isn't just "Webb's idea" that Bush can use this to attack Iran. It is also "Lugar's idea," and "Biden's idea," and the idea of a whole host of other in and out of government, such as Brzezinsky and Hagel. Clinton serves up noted foreign policy dudes Durbin and Clark as her experts. Clark is more expert than Durbin, but his loyalties have been with the Clinton since he was appointed NATO commander, before they persuaded him to run for President last time around.

I think that people who believe that military action against Iran is a viable option, who might support action against Syria, and who support a strong tilt toward Israel in our foreign policy should be comfortable with supporting Senator Clinton. But I do not agree that we should blur who she is and what she has voted for. One of my criticisms of her campaign is that she has answered very few questions from voters, and ducked many tough questions from media. I am not an Obama supporter, but he has that right. She should not just waltz to the nomination, smiling demurely and refusing to say what she would do if elected.

In conclusion, if you have a link in support of the assertion that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard owns 1/3 of Iran's economy, I would be interested to read it. That is not something I was aware of.

Below is a list of some of her achievements. This whole thing about "She wrote, sponsored and got passed" is MIA." is unreasonable as there was a republican majority for all of her 1st term. In addition, a Senators job is much more than just legislating.

IN THE SENATE


She forced bush* and the republicans to increase funding for Ryan White Care Act grants, which fund a wide variety of services for people with HIV

She forced bush*'s Secretary of Defense to brief the Senate Armed Forces Ctte about the Pentagons plan for an eventual withdrawal from Iraq

She forced the FDA to approve Plan B by placing a hold on bush*'s nominee

She did such an excellent job of rejuvenating the economy of upstate NY (mostly republican) that in her re-election bid, she won all but four of the majority-repub counties. In NYS, even republicans like her

She got funding to monitor the health of vets returning from Iraq in order to avoid a "Gulf Syndrome" like fiasco

She helped secure the $20B bush* promised to NY to rebuild after 9/11 even after bush* tried to renege on his promise

She got funding to provide health care for the first responders that are now sick from working around Ground Zero

She is an original sponsor of legislation that expanded health benefits to members of the National Guard and Reserves

She wrote legislation to improve quality and lower the cost of prescription drugs and to protect our food supply from bioterrorism

She worked to ensure the safety of prescription drugs for children, with her legislation now included in the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act


Other work she's done that doesn't count as "achievements" but demonstrate her politics

She has introduced legislation to tie Congressional salary increases to an increase in the minimum wage.

She has supported a variety of middle-class tax cuts, including marriage penalty relief, property tax relief, and reduction in the Alternative Minimum Tax, and supports fiscally responsible pay-as-you-go budget rules.

He insisted it could not be part of the budget, so it needed a filibuster-proof 60 votes, which they did not have. If he had allowed it in the budget, it would have passed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_(Senate)

The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 created reconciliation. (See Pub.L. 93-344, § 310; 88 Stat. 297; 2 U.S.C. § 641.) But Congress came to use it in the 1980s. Congress used reconciliation to enact President Bill Clinton's 1993 (fiscal year 1994) budget. (See Pub.L. 103-66, 107 Stat. 312.) President Clinton wanted to use reconciliation to pass his health care plan, but Senator Robert Byrd insisted that the health care plan was out of bounds for a process that is theoretically about budgets.

:hi: now I'm going to duck. :rofl:

Actually, both she and John have stood up best under all of the attacks. If the Middle East is one of your main concerns (and rightfully it should be)then HRC seems to have stronger credibility because of Bill Clinton's policies (it's unfair but it is what it is).

That said, Idon't think John Edwards is notup to the task. Not at all. It is just that HRC might have a stronger trust level based on her husband's attempt at goodwill in the world than anyone else.


I don't think Sen. Clinton has been able to pass any legislation she wrote but that is not uncommon. She was in a Republican dominated Congress and they certainly wouldn't let any Dem get headway with their bills!

Hillary seems to me to be a thougtful, intelligent and serious student of the facts. What a great relief from Bush, to say the least!

She has turned into much more of a hawk that he ever was, and tends to go with her BFF Joe Lieberman. If we end up attacking Iran, it is partly her failt, and Liebermans's, for sending the president a resolution saying it's OK to treat a foreign military as terrorists. If Putin designated the Marines as terrorists, and opined that it gave him the right to take them out wherever they are, we would not regard it as helpful.

But I am open to argument. Why do you equate the two? I am truly open to the other side of the debate. I do understand the Putin quote, which I think he recently recited, and I find that sobering. Just wondering if we can treat the Iranians in such a fashion...

as rough equivalents. As a proportion of the Iranian military, they are much larger, about a third of the whole. The Revolutionary Guard has subdivisions. Just as we have elite special forces units, they have the Quds force. Some of the subdivivions are involved in anti-American activities, as are our Special Forces units who have been sneaking around in Iran for some time now, according to Seymour Hersh, involved in activities that the Iranians do not appreciate.

My point was that we should try to imagine our own reaction if a foreign leader designated the Marines as terrorists, and used the designation as a basis for threatening to attack them, or at least sanction them. We might find that annoying. It is not "robust diplomacy," a phrase that Clinton has appropriated from Madeleine Albright. It is provocative.

In any event, there is no evidence that the Bush administration is going to employ diplomacy, robust or any other kind. So giving them another tool to prepare for war was either naive or calculated on Mrs. Clinton's part. I suspect the latter.

is almost a "known" to those folks.

but I can't shake her support of the Lieberman/Kyle resolution and I'm still trying to understand "why" she voted that way. We may never know.

Here is where you can find links to all legislation she has sponsored or co-sponsored.
http://clinton.senate.gov/senate/legislation/ It's actually a link to the Library of Congress.

She forced bush* and the republicans to increase funding for Ryan White Care Act grants, which fund a wide variety of services for people with HIV

She forced bush*'s Secretary of Defense to brief the Senate Armed Forces Ctte about the Pentagons plan for an eventual withdrawal from Iraq

She forced the FDA to approve Plan B by placing a hold on bush*'s nominee

She did such an excellent job of rejuvenating the economy of upstate NY (mostly republican) that in her re-election bid, she won all but four of the majority-repub counties. In NYS, even republicans like her

She got funding to monitor the health of vets returning from Iraq in order to avoid a "Gulf Syndrome" like fiasco

She helped secure the $20B bush* promised to NY to rebuild after 9/11 even after bush* tried to renege on his promise

She got funding to provide health care for the first responders that are now sick from working around Ground Zero

She is an original sponsor of legislation that expanded health benefits to members of the National Guard and Reserves

She wrote legislation to improve quality and lower the cost of prescription drugs and to protect our food supply from bioterrorism

She worked to ensure the safety of prescription drugs for children, with her legislation now included in the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act


Other work she's done that doesn't count as "achievements" but demonstrate her politics

She has introduced legislation to tie Congressional salary increases to an increase in the minimum wage.

She has supported a variety of middle-class tax cuts, including marriage penalty relief, property tax relief, and reduction in the Alternative Minimum Tax, and supports fiscally responsible pay-as-you-go budget rules.

Hillary has been a leading member of the Environment and Public Works Committee since she was elected to the Senate. Today, she chairs the Superfund and Environmental Health Subcommittee and in that capacity has promoted legislation to evaluate and protect against the impact of environmental pollutants on people's health and clean up toxic waste.

Global warming and Clean Air
Spoken out forcefully about the need to tackle global warming in hearings, speeches, rallies and on the Senate floor and co-sponsored "cap and trade" legislation.
Worked to reduce air pollution that causes asthma and other respiratory diseases by writing and helping to pass new laws to clean up exhaust from school buses, and other diesel-powered equipment.

Supported legislation to reduce pollution from power plants, including harmful emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, mercury, and carbon dioxide - emissions that contribute to poor air quality, smog, acid rain, global warming, and mercury contamination of fish.
Aggressively fought the Bush Administration's ill-advised attempts to weaken clean air laws.

Improving Water Quality and Protecting Drinking Water
Helped to overturn the Bush Administration's attempt to allow more arsenic in drinking water.
Cosponsored legislation to protect lakes, rivers and coastal waters by fighting the spread of destructive invasive species, such as the zebra mussel.
Helped ot pass new clean water laws, including measures to protect New York City's water supplies and clean up Long Island Sound.

Protecting Public Lands
Fought oil company efforts to pen the Artic Wildlife Refuge in Alask and Pacific and Atlantic coastal waters to drilling.
Cosponsored the Roadless Area Conservation Act, which prohibits road construction and logging in unspoiled, roadless areas of the National Forest System, and voted for additional funding and manpower to combat forest fires in the west.

Reducing Dangerous Chemicals and Cleaning Up Hazardous Waste
Supported legislation to restore the "polluter pays" principle by reinstating a chemical company fee to fund cleanups of highly contaminated "Superfund" waste sites.
Cosponsored the "kids-Safe Chemical Act," which requires chemical companies to provide health and safety before putting new chemicals in consumer products.
Proposed legislation to create an environmental health tracking network to enable us to better understand the impact of environmental hazards on human health and well-being.

Tackling the Toxic Legacy of 9/11
Pushed for health care benefits for first responders, residents and others whose health has been impacted from breathing the toxic dust and smoke in New York City after 9/11.
http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/8/20/134810/677

OTHER STUFF:
Create a Strategic Energy Fund - Hillary has proposed a Strategic Energy Fund that would inject $50 billion into research, development and deployment of renewable energy, energy efficiency, clean coal technology, ethanol and other homegrown biofuels. Hillary's proposal would give oil companies a choice: invest in renewable energy or pay into the fund. Hillary's proposal would also eliminate oil company tax breaks and make sure that oil companies pay their fair share for drilling on public lands. Instead of sending billions of dollars to the Middle East for their oil, Hillary's proposal will create a new clean energy industry in America and create tens of thousands of jobs here.

Champion a Market-Based "Cap and Trade" Approach - Hillary supports a market-based, cap and trade approach to reducing carbon emissions and fight global warming. This approach was used successfully to limit sulfur dioxide and reduce levels of acid rain in the 1990s. By capping the amount of emissions in the environment and allowing corporations to buy and sell permits, this approach offers corporations a flexible, cost-efficient method to do their share to reduce emissions and combat global warming. The program will reduce emissions, drive the development of clean technologies, and create a market for projects that store carbon dioxide.

20% Renewable Electricity Standard by 2020 - Hillary believes we need to shift our reliance on high carbon electricity sources to low-carbon electricity sources by investing in renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind. As President, she'll work to require power companies to obtain 20 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2020.

Make Federal Buildings Carbon Neutral - Hillary believes that the federal government should lead the way in reducing carbon emissions from buildings. Buildings account for 40 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and the federal government owns or leases more than 500,000. Hillary would require all federal buildings to steadily increase the use of green design principles, energy efficient technologies, and to generate energy on-site from solar and other renewable sources. By 2030, all new federal buildings and major renovations would be carbon neutral, helping to fight global warming and cutting the $5.6 billion that the federal government spends each year on heating, cooling and lighting.

Protecting Against Exposure to Toxic Chemicals - Hillary wants to make the products we use safer, especially for children. There are tens of thousands of chemicals used in the U.S. and hundreds of new chemicals introduced each year, but little health testing is conducted for many of them. Hillary would require chemical companies to prove that new chemicals are safe before they are put on the market, and would set more stringent exposure standards for kids. She would also create a "priority list" of existing chemicals and require testing to make sure they are safe. To improve our understanding of the links between chemicals and diseases like cancer, Hillary would create an "environmental health tracking network" that ties together information about pollution and chronic diseases.

I'll be looking into everything I've read. I didn't really see anything significant in the way of foreign policy, which is extremely important to me. But, as I stated in my original post, she does have her husband near by when it comes to foreign policy. It seems that she hasn't spearheaded any major legislation, though she has worked with others in the Senate on a variety of issues. I'll keep reading up on Hillary. I'm still on the fence. Thank you to everyone who responded.

of a persons capability. We have records and voting patterns and campaign rhetoric and history to look at that all forms a big picture, but you can't get too wrapped up in that stuff. Legislative voting in particular is complicated with many pressures obscuring what is really going on. For example, often they vote multiple times on different but similar variations of the same thing, making it hard to discern what they really believe. I think all of our candidates are flawed- as are all candidates always. Part of our job is to decide which set of flaws we can live with or can be minimized.

I feel that Edwards is more likely to be manipulated by powerful interests around him. I just have a hard time seeing him hold his own in difficult negotiations with Middle Eastern potentates or former Russian KGB operatives.
I also feel that Elizabeth's health is an issue that would distract and detract from his capability.

Obama to me is pretty much an unknown quantity. I think both Edwards and Clinton will be fairly mainstream in the sense that they will surround themselves with a lot of the usual players in high level political advisers. This usually has a mediating effect (which I think is probably good) so that crazy ideas don't get too far downstream before someone flags them. Obama we just don't know. He has seemed to have good judgment, but that perception is being challenged as time goes on. He wants to change Washington, but does that mean that we get a lot of rookies from inner-city Chicago in his administration?

With Clinton, you would almost certainly see guys like Wes Clark and Bill Richardson around, or at least some of the other Bill Clinton era wonks. We won't get big changes, but we should get incremental progress in a lot of areas. The big fear with her is that she starts to believe all the hawkish stuff her campaign thinks she has to say and does something she and a lot of other people end up regretting.

Who the candidates surround themselves with is pretty important. Many of them will find their way into the administration if their candidate wins. I don't know about people like Joe Trippi or Mark Penn. Those guys are campaign geeks, like James Carville. They don't really DO government. (Perhaps this is why Karl Rove was such a disaster for the country. He was another one of those campaign geeks who was given an important job in the governing process, but he tried to run government like a campaign.) But campaign endorsers, other advisors, and "policy staff" are potential administration bait. If you can figure out who those people are, it should give a clue as to how the administration is going to look.

I would like to consider Dodd and/or Biden, but those are not looking like successful campaigns right now. Dennis Kucinich has shown little interest in or aptitude for the job in my opinion. He would be a good policy person for somebody though.

That's my 2 cents. At least for today.

such as Michael "the surge is working fabulously" O'Hanlon. See here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/documents/the-war-over-the-wonks.html

The people who thought attacking Iraq was a stupid idea went with Obama.

So if you want "mediating effect," Obama is a better bet than Clinton.

If you want competence, Biden is your best bet. Richardson comes in a respectable second in that category.

I truly believe that Joe is the best candidate America has right now. His 34 year tenure in the Senate and his foreign policy experience puts him head and shoulders above the rest of the field. Democrats or Republicans. He's authored landmark legislation like the Violence Against Women Act, The Biden Crime Bill, he spearheaded the fight to convince Bill Clinton to go into Bosnia, he wants to do something regarding the genocide in Darfur and I like his take on health care that he just came out with. But the most important point, again, and I don't want harp on this, but foreign policy is so important this time around when choosing the next President, it really comes down to that for me.

The polls indicate that Hillary may be the nominee, and if she becomes the nominee, I have to know in my head and my heart what to do. That's why I asked the question. I don't see a lot that convinces me, and I want to be on her side.