Centerfield

No, but she's willing to play one on TV.

Is Hilary a Centrist?

lol

Since 2000, I think that Hillary has been a centrist. Although she will have to explain and defend her pre-Senate record, evolution in politics is allowed and, in fact, to a large degree the point of this blog is to encourage it. My Dad was a Democrat who became a hard-core conservative. Reagan was a Democrat. I think that it is unfair to deny Hillary the same right to evolve. It is, however, fair to question whether the evolution is genuine.

It's admirable that she would take on her own supporters in that way. I recall reading somewhere that Kerry once spoke to separate Jewish and Arab-American groups in close proximity, and pitched his proposals regarding the Middle East slightly differently to each in order to butter up his listeners. I believe this is called pandering.

I don't think Hillary would make a good presidential candidate for the Democrats, but she would certainly have to be considered for VP, particularly if a Southern governor led the ticket.

Lest I be misunderstood, I think that genuine evolution from right to left is equally admirable. Anyone who is willing to reexamine his or her core beliefs upon occasion gets my respect.

I know that genuine evolution is possible, because I see it all the time. Once someone is actually in office, their zealotry for inflexible dogmatism fades as reality starts beating on their ideology. When they have to face real limited budget choices and real problems, they tend to become more realistic themselves.

What I don't know is if Hillary's "evolution" is genuine.

I'm not sure pitching things differently to different groups is necessarily pandering. It may simply be a way of stating the same policy in ways that are palatable to different groups. I don't see a problem in that. (Of course, I don't know what Kerry actually said.)

Who knows if Hilary has really changed or is just playing politics? I think Hilary is a centrist (or moderate) in the same way that Bill was--they are probably liberals in their heart but they are practical enough to recognize that, as an old saying goes, "politics is the art of the possible." I know this opens them up to the charge of pandering or phoniness, but I might well prefer that to someone who is inflexible.

The problem with this approach often comes with respect to foreign policy, which I think it did with Bill. I think flexibility is important in foreign relations as well, but without a core set of values or idea of what you want to accomplish, there is a tendency to drift. Of course, the other extreme, I would argue, is the Bush way of pushing a particular agenda dogmatically.

I don't think Hilary is a viable candidate for any number of reasons. Aside from some real character flaws (e.g., an allergy to the truth), the fact is she is a lightning rod for the right, almost as bad as Ted Kennedy. Bill was truly a poor southerner, albeit relatively liberal and he understood in some visceral way how to connect to people who might not agree with his policies but felt a connection to him. I can't see Hilary being able to do that well enough to overcome the instinctive distrust of her among large segments of the population.

I think I see the approach the Democrat party leadership will be taking the next four years.

A substantive change in policy and actual governance is untenable for those currently controlling and funding the party. They're not leaving. Nothing will change in terms of congressional voting patterns, or actual governance actions.

What will change is the face shown to voters -- Campaign rhetoric, language, appeals, approaches. The idea is to appear to be moving to the center, grabbing a larger voter share, while changing nothing in actual governance.

I don't know, Susan. It seems to me that the single most important lesson that the Clintons learned in his first term was that you can't campaign as a conservative Dem (he called it "triangulation"), and then try to nationalize health care. It cost them the Congress.

As a result, Clinton turned out to be a pretty good Republican president (at least for a Democrat), wouldn't you agree?

So, if Hillary is trying to move the conversation towards the center, I'm willing to listen. As a New Yorker, I can say that she hasn't been half-bad for a Senator.

I also think that, if she campaigns and wins as a conservative Dem, she's not going to be able to shift left once in office. Mark Twain said that his cat sat on a hot stove, and that after that, he wouldn't sit on any stove, hot or cold. Hillary is at least as smart as that cat.

Hillary, I believe, has a bigger problem: the Dems are not going to nominate another Northeasterner in the next fifty years or so.

All that being said, I am encouraged by this kind of news. The Republicans had at least three pro-choice, anti-gun national figures speaking at their convention last year. The Dems had no anti-abortion, pro-gun national figures speaking at theirs. Right now the big tent belongs to the Repubs, the Democrats need to start somewhere. Hillary is smart enough and popular enough to start the process.

While we're talking about Presidential candidates and centrism, John Kerry was a member of the DLC, yet he had a lifetime rating of 5 (out of 100) from the American Conservative Union. If Hillary can be considered a centrist by the measure of the DLC, it's no big deal.

I think Susan is on to something. The Democrats' move-to-the-center rhetoric is very similar to the GOP rhetoric on issues such as tax and social security reform. The proof is in what they do, not what they say.

Agree with much that's been said. Time will tell if the "move towards the center" is genuine. As mentioned before, I don't think Hillary would do well in a national election; too many negatives. I have to admit I kinda react to her negatively too(though I liked Bill). Hopefully, this isn't some deep-seated anti-woman sort of thing.