Wednesday, December 17, 2008
If HRC, why not CKS?
Not sure why Caroline is being reviled as far as the senate seat. When Hillary moved to NY and ran for that office, her only qualifications were that she had lived in the White House (as did Caroline) and been married to the President (Caroline was his daughter) and been an advocate for health care reform (different cause but similar advocacy). Caroline brings the connectedness of a Kennedy which is good and bad news, of course, but that's like Hillary, too. Caroline's previous reluctance to be involved in politics might even mean that she's only getting into it now because her heart is finally leading her where her head probably still tells her to stay away (or it vice versa?). Anyway, I'm not sure why there's any question.

P.S. Doesn't playing Beg-The-Governor almost guarantee unseemly and/or untoward behavior (cf. Illinois)? Shouldn't replacing a statewide elected official be done with a special election?

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Permalink | | posted by jau at 9:11 AM


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Anonymous Anonymous — at 4:55 PM, December 17, 2008:
HRC was much, much more than "just" Bill's wife. To borrow a commenter at Corrente:

After leaving law school she did a one year internship at the Children's Defense Fund, which resulted in her writing "Children Under The Law" - to this day, one of the most cited briefs on the subject. She joined the board of the CDF, not as a well-connected off-spring, but as one of the most brilliant young attorneys of her generation. She served on the panel of Watergate. Once she moved to Arkansas, she opened a legal aid clinic for lower income families dealing with family issues. She was asked to join the board of the Corporation Of Legal Services, which does similar work as her legal aid clinic, and was quickly made chair of the Board. During her time, the Reagan administration sought to cut the budget. Clinton went to DC, and not only prevented the cuts (again, not using a family name either), but actually sold them on expanding the budget. Back home, she discovered that rural Arkansan's didn't have access to healthcare because building clinics in isolated areas is not financially viable. She returned to DC, and rounded up money to build healthcare clinics in the countryside. Headstart was, as ever, overbooked, so she developed a home schooling program for parents who couldn''t get their kids into headstart. She took on the teacher's union - a job no Democrat wants to touch - and succeeded in getting new standards in place for teachers. On and on like that. The microloans, her work as First Lady of US - she was one of the foremost advocates for the administration in both development and execution of policy.

Clinton was constantly, aggressively, looking to create programs that changed the lives of ordinary people in tangible ways. She was familiar with DC in her own right because of the work she had done - not because she was born connected or married right. She was still the one in DC working with the Reagan administration on the budget cuts to the Board Of Legal Services. She was still the one who went to DC to find funding for health care clinics. Her paper on children's rights is authored by Hillary Rodham - it's her name that is there.

From Hillary's web site:

Hillary went to Wellesley College, where she was chosen by her classmates to be the first-ever student commencement speaker. She talked about the tumultuous times that her generation was living through and said, "The challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible, possible."

Next came Yale Law School, where Hillary focused on questions about how the law affected children and began her decades of work as an advocate for children and families. As a law student, Hillary represented foster children and parents in family court and worked on some of the earliest studies creating legal standards for identifying and protecting abused children. Following graduation, she became a staff attorney for the Children's Defense Fund.

After serving as only one of two women lawyers on the staff of the House Judiciary Committee considering the impeachment of Richard Nixon, Hillary chose not to pursue offers from major law firms. Instead she followed her heart and a man named Bill Clinton to Arkansas. They married in 1975 and their daughter Chelsea was born in 1980.

Hillary ran a legal aid clinic for the poor when she first got to Arkansas and handled cases of foster care and child abuse. Years later, she organized a group called Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. When she was just 30, President Carter appointed her to the board of the United States Legal Services Corporation, a federal nonprofit program that funds legal assistance for the poor.

When Bill was elected Governor of Arkansas, Hillary continued to advocate for children, leading a task force to improve education in Arkansas through higher standards for schools and serving on the board of the Arkansas Children's Hospital, helping them expand and improve their services. She also served on national boards for the Children's Defense Fund, the Child Care Action Campaign, and the Children's Television Workshop.

She also continued her legal career as a partner in a law firm. She led the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession, which played a pioneering role in raising awareness of issues like sexual harassment and equal pay. Hillary was twice named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America.

When her husband was elected President in 1992, Hillary's work as a champion for women was recognized and admired around the world. She traveled the globe speaking out against the degradation and abuse of women and standing up for the powerful idea that women's rights are human rights.

In the White House, Hillary led efforts to make adoption easier, to expand early learning and child care, to increase funding for breast cancer research, and to help veterans suffering from Gulf War syndrome who had too often been ignored in the past. She helped launch a national campaign to prevent teen pregnancy and helped create the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, which moved children from foster care to adoption more quickly. Thanks in part to her efforts, the number of children who have moved out of foster care into adoption has increased dramatically.

As everyone knows, Hillary's fight for universal health coverage did not succeed. But her commitment to health care for every American has never wavered. She was instrumental in designing and championing the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which has provided millions of children with health insurance. She battled the big drug companies to force them to test their drugs for children and to make sure all kids get the immunizations they need through the Vaccines for Children Program. Immunization rates dramatically improved after the program launched.

In the Senate, Hillary has not wavered in her work to expand quality affordable health care to more Americans. She worked to strengthen the Children's Health Insurance Program, which increased coverage for children in low income and working families. She authored legislation that has been enacted to improve quality and lower the cost of prescription drugs and to protect our food supply from bioterrorism. She sponsored legislation to increase America's commitment to fighting the global HIV/AIDS crisis, and is now leading the fight for expanded use of information technology in the health care system to decrease administrative costs, lower premiums, and reduce medical errors.

Her strong advocacy for children continues in the Senate. Some of Hillary's proudest achievements have been her work to ensure the safety of prescription drugs for children, with legislation now included in the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act, and her legislation to help schools address environmental hazards. She has also proposed expanding access to child care. She has passed legislation that will bring more qualified teachers into classrooms and more outstanding principals to lead our schools.

Hillary has been a powerful advocate for women in the Senate. Her commitment to supporting the rights guaranteed in Roe v. Wade and to reducing the number of abortions by reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies was hailed by the New York Times as "frank talk...(and) a promising path." Hillary is one of the original cosponsors of the Prevention First Act to increase access to family planning. Her fight with the Bush Administration ensured that Plan B, an emergency contraceptive, will be available to millions of American women and will reduce the need for abortions.

Hillary is strongly committed to making sure that every American has the right to vote in fair, accessible, and credible elections. She introduced the Count Every Vote Act of 2005 to ensure better protection of votes and to ensure that every vote is counted.

In 2006, New Yorkers reelected Hillary to the Senate with 67 percent of the vote.
 

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Blogger jau — at 5:39 PM, December 17, 2008:
Defensive much?? Sheesh. Quoting from HRC's site is a tad over-kill don't you think?

Anyway, I wasn't casting even a whiff of an aspersion at Hillary, just saying that Caroline - having been a practicing attorney and a published writer as well as an active advocate for various causes - isn't any more un-qualified in terms of prior elected experience than Hillary. I was not - not - not saying anything negative about Hillary, just something positive about Caroline. Ok?
 

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Blogger mkfreeberg — at 6:51 PM, December 17, 2008:
Nobody's allowed to say anything negative about anybody anymore.

Unless your name is "Hillary."

Then, apparently, you can say negative things about people every time your lips move. She's the most negative, acrid, toxic public figure ever to achieve prominence in my lifetime. And if anyone doesn't like that they can go make me a samrich.
 

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Blogger DADvocate — at 3:58 PM, December 22, 2008:
I'm tired of the political dynasties. We don't need an endless stream of Kennedys, Bushes, Clintons, etc. New blood would do us good.
 

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