The Left Coaster: "Is Hillary Clinton a 'Corporate Democrat'?", by eriposte

Monday :: Oct 8, 2007
Is Hillary Clinton a "Corporate Democrat"? - Part 1

by eriposte
UPDATE: Also see Part 2 and Part 3.

SUMMARY

This post examines the allegation that Sen. Hillary Clinton is a "Corporate Democrat" - namely, a person who is beholden to "Corporate America" and who is more likely to support "corporate interests" as President than the interests of average or middle-class Americans.

I find that the existing evidence, based on her Senatorial voting records compiled by Progressive Punch, Americans for Democratic Action, AFL-CIO and SEIU, does not really support this allegation. Indeed, the evidence suggests that Sen. Clinton's voting patterns are substantially and surprisingly progressive (ranging typically from 90-100%), including on corporate or labor issues. There are certainly serious issues where Sen. Clinton has unfortunately taken anti-progressive positions (e.g., her vote for a version of the Bankruptcy Bill in 2001), but the data reviewed here suggests that overall, she is far more progressive than corporatist. In the absence of additional or new data, I have to conclude that the label "Corporate Democrat", as applied to her, is inappropriate and extraordinarily misleading. In other words, while it is true that she has strong links to corporate America and corporatist interests, there is little or no evidence that she systematically votes in lock-step with those interests or even significantly in line with their positions. I provide a few plausible explanations for this dichotomy in the conclusions of this post.

Not surprisingly, outside of corporate or labor issues, Sen. Clinton's progressive scores take a small but non-trivial dip to the neighborhood of 80% on the topics of national security and war. This topic is not examined in this post.

Finally, the results discussed here should not in any way be interpreted as signifying an endorsement of her or of her practice of keeping unethical people like Mark Penn on her payroll (a practice that I find hard to understand or rationalize). I sincerely hope Sen. Clinton will reconsider having Penn on her payroll.

(NOTE: I should add that this assessment does not take into account Sen. Clinton's public statements on these matters that may or may not match her voting records. However, since I tend to believe that at the end of the day actions speak louder than words, I believe using her Senate voting records for this assessment is reasonable).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

I've divided the post into the following sections for clarity. Note that all of the bolded text in this post is mine.

BACKGROUND/INTRODUCTION

1. Mark Penn and Microsoft

2. Texaco and the Oil and Gas Industry

3. Eli Lilly and the Pharmaceutical/Healthcare Industry

4. Monsanto and the Agricultural Industry

5. Utilities and Energy Industry

6. Securities/Brokerage Industry

7. Labor Rights and Foreign Trade

8. The Banks/Credit Card Industry and the Bankruptcy Bill

9. Lobbyists

10. General Observations on Sen. Clinton's Progressive Scores

CONCLUSIONS

~snip~

CONCLUSIONS
This post examined the allegation that Sen. Hillary Clinton is a "Corporate Democrat" - namely, a person who is beholden to "Corporate America" and who is more likely to support "corporate interests" as President than the interests of average or middle-class Americans.

1. I find that the existing evidence, based on her Senatorial voting records compiled by Progressive Punch, Americans for Democratic Action, AFL-CIO and SEIU, does not really support this allegation.

~snip~

Tuesday :: Oct 9, 2007
Is Hillary Clinton a "Corporate Democrat"? - Part 2

by eriposte


In my first post on this subject, I made a strong case, based on voting records compiled by Progressive Punch, Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), the AFL-CIO and SEIU, that the label of "Corporate Democrat" as applied to Sen. Hillary Clinton is inappropriate and extraordinarily misleading. In response to the post, thoughtful commenter Rene said the following (emphasis mine):



I promised Rene that I would take a look at the DailyKos diary (authored by Invisiblewoman) and respond. So, here is my response. In a nutshell, Invisiblewoman's diary may be well meaning, but her approach is based on cherry-picking, and is highly misleading and sometimes just inaccurate.

~snip~

Wednesday :: Oct 10, 2007
Is Hillary Clinton a "Corporate Democrat?" - Part 3

by eriposte


One of the joys of blogging is that you always find some thoughtful commenters who take the time to read your post or analysis carefully and respond rationally. In response to my first post on this subject, one such thoughtful reader Joejoejoe wrote (emphasis mine):



Let's kill two birds - or many birds - with one stone.

First, let's compare the Progressive Punch, ADA, AFL-CIO and SEIU progressive scores of Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. Chris Dodd, and Sen. John Edwards to see how they stack up against each other. Looking at a multitude of different ratings for these Senators provides a better picture than looking at ratings from just one group, because each group has some limitations based on the unique methodology they use. Through this comparison, regardless of their donor base, let's ask who the real "Corporate Democrat" is between them. After all, just because a member of Congress has a large donor base of small contributors, that doesn't automatically guarantee that the member would overwhelmingly vote against corporatist interests.

Second, let's specifically add Sen. Joe Lieberman's Progressive Punch score to the mix and compare him to the other Senators, especially Sen. Clinton...

~snip~