Hillary Clinton: Renaissance Woman (2 page)
Clinton's prominent role in her husband's Governorship of Arkansas, which arguably included her later controversial partnership at Rose Law, continued into his presidential candidacy, during which time Bill Clinton described his future presidency as a 'two for the price of one' deal for Americans, in which he and Clinton would play equally important roles. This statement and the relationship that indeed followed has led to accusations that either or rather both Clintons were 'co-president'. Certainly both critics and admirers agree that she, along with Eleanor Roosevelt, was the most politically active First Lady in American history. And of course, the President can appoint whoever they like as an advisor, including their spouse, so there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the idea that the First Lady (or Gentleman) should play a key role in government, especially if they are willing and have the qualifications to do so – and Clinton certainly did.
Bill Clinton's willingness to be brutal was highlighted during the campaign, with his decision to support the execution of Ricky Ray Rector. Rector, while undoubtedly guilty, was in no state to stand trial, having effectively lobotomised himself during an attempt to commit suicide: In an infamous and horrible demonstration of Rector's degraded mental state, he didn't finish the dessert of his last meal, telling guards that he was saving it 'for later'. The harshness displayed here by Bill may have its mirror image in his wife's famously hawkish foreign policy outlook: An attempt to appeal to the crueller side of American culture and American conservatism resulting in a shockingly callous disregard for the humanitarian consequences of such an appeal. A recurrent theme in Clinton's life is whether her various positions and decisions have owed more to political opportunism or serious conviction, with the verdict usually coming down on the side of the latter. A key moment for Clinton in this period was the failure of the Clinton administration to achieve universal healthcare coverage in America. The initiative, spearheaded by Clinton, failed to pass Congress despite Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate.
Fierce and well-organised opposition from Republicans backed by vested interests in the healthcare market, from insurers to doctors, ensured not only the plan's comprehensive defeat but also a dramatic fall in popularity for Clinton. The backlash against the plans proved so fierce that the Democrats lost their majority in both Houses and healthcare remained a toxic issue right up to the presidential candidacy of Mitt Romney, who was said to have implemented 'Hillarycare' style legislation while Governor of Massachusetts, proving, to some 'small-state' Republicans that he was, despite his protestations, 'big-state'. This chastening experience led to a renewed focus for Clinton and she was subsequently able to achieve significant healthcare reform by playing to her established strengths and focusing on the plight of American children. The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) was comparatively modest, but after the controversy and red tape of the previous plan, this could only be viewed as an improvement.
With the Democratic majority in Congress lost in Newt Gingrich's Republican Revolution, Clinton, with the White House's backing, successfully sought bipartisan support for the reform, which ensured more children were covered by health insurance than ever before. Clinton's ability to work with both parties – a theme she would return to repeatedly during her subsequent career – was first established with SCHIP. One could assume that her ability to relate to Republican ways of thinking was related to her own early political involvement with the American right wing.
As First Lady, Clinton also effectively began her preparation for the role of Secretary of State which she would take up during the Obama administration, although she cannot have known it at the time. She became the most well-travelled First Lady in history (she is now also the most well-travelled Secretary of State in history), visiting seventy-nine countries. The various purposes of these visits demonstrated a further broadening of her expertise, and included diplomatic visits intended to improve relations with various Asian countries. She also spoke on women's issues, becoming an international figurehead and spokesperson for the rights of women, describing 'human rights as women's rights and women's rights as human rights'. If she indeed becomes president of the US, she will renew her continued position as a role model for girls and women around the world and a living demonstration of how far humanity has come since women in the West won the right to vote.
Another significant aspect of her husband's presidency which would later be taken up more strongly by Clinton was the unfortunately patchy support of the Clinton administration for LGBT rights. While 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell', the rule that allowed homosexuals into the military but only if they kept their sexual orientation a secret is now widely and rightly derided and has fortunately been repealed, it was a step forward from the previous position of the military, where individuals could be investigated and kicked out of the armed forces if they were found to be homosexual. Likewise, Bill's decision to appoint openly homosexual people to his administration has been praised. However, this, too, is marred by the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which he signed into law, although he later spoke out against it and both Clintons have affirmed their support for gay marriage.
Indeed, today, Clinton describes herself as 'a forceful champion for rights and opportunities for LGBT people'. That a presidential candidate can now describe themselves as such is to some extent a testament to the progress made by the Clinton administration, however patchy and inconsistent that progress seemed at the time. Lest this be seen as political opportunism in an age of increasing acceptance of homosexuality (today, most Young Republicans support gay marriage), in her role as Secretary of State (explored in more detail below), Clinton has already made clear her support for LGBT people, telling the UN Human Rights Council that 'Gay rights are human rights' in an echo of her earlier statements regarding women's rights, made during her time as First Lady.
It's probably not possible to talk about Clinton – and certainly not her husband – without mentioning the Lewinsky scandal, which out of deference to Monica Lewinsky should probably be renamed the Bill Clinton scandal. There's no need to go over the details here. Clinton's decision to stay in her marriage was seen by some at the time as a case of political pragmatism extended into the personal life of the President and the First Lady, but the subsequent endurance of their marriage and Bill's vocal support for his wife as senatorial and subsequently presidential candidate (twice) is some indication that, whatever influenced her original decision to stay with her husband, she made the right call for her and her marriage.
Clinton finished out her time as First Lady by successfully running for the New York Senate seat. In a hotly contested and occasionally controversial election, she proved herself a dedicated and effective political campaigner. Never very much at risk of being overshadowed by her husband, her decision to run for a separate, elected office while still First Lady – she remains the only First Lady ever to do so – absolutely confirmed her standing as a woman with political career of her own. Although, after the Bill Clinton scandal, maybe she just wanted to get out of the White House for a while.
Despite accusations of carpet bagging – she'd never lived or worked in the State of New York prior to her Senate bid – Hillary was able to win the election, becoming the junior Senator for the State of New York. She initially adopted a relatively low profile in the Senate, perhaps wishing to avoid the double media scrutiny she might have received as both First Lady and US Senator. She used the time to build up connections with Republican Senators, sticking to her now-established approach to building bipartisan support wherever possible. Her time as Senator was of course overshadowed, like all of American politics, by the September 11
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attacks on the World Trade Center. In the subsequent tumult, Clinton voted in favour of the controversial USA Patriot Act and strongly supported the US invasions of Afghanistan and of Iraq, opposing an amendment that would have required the exhaustion of diplomacy at the UN and Congressional authorisation before launching any attack on Iraq. Her reputation for hawkishness thus began to establish itself.
Subsequently, she backed away from some of these positions. She voted for a renewed USA Patriot Act which had fewer restrictions on civil liberties. She also became an outspoken critic of the way the invasion of Iraq was planned and executed without due regard to rebuilding the country. However, she failed to support withdrawal from Iraq, to the annoyance of many Democrats, while also opposing President George W. Bush's open-ended approach to troop deployments. Of course, not all the responses to 9/11 were military: Clinton helped secure funding to rebuild the parts of the New York City that had been damaged or destroyed in the attacks. Her strong support for 9/11 first-responders eventually won her the support of New York's firefighters, who had opposed her initial Senate run.
Perhaps without 9/11, Clinton would have stayed in the background in the Senate, before the attacks forced her to take a national position as one of the Senators of the location of the most serious and deadly attacks. As always, though, it's difficult to imagine her taking a background role for long. It seems more likely that she was adopting a 'slow-and-steady' approach to her new job, as she always had done since her college days, where she opposed her fellow student's demands for political revolution and overthrow of the established order in favour of reform and working within the political paradigms of the day. The only time she ignored this approach was in her somewhat hot-headed attempts at healthcare reform as First Lady, a mistake she was clearly determined not to repeat as Senator – or whatever other role might come her way.
She was also part of the Committee on the Budget from 2001-2003, during which time she opposed both major sets of the Bush administration's tax cuts which, she argued, would irresponsibly reopen the deficit that her husband's administration had successfully eliminated. This far-sighted intervention would be helpful further down the line, when the US budget deficit ballooned following the '07 financial crisis. Suddenly, Republicans who had voted for the deficit-expanding tax cuts rebranded themselves as 'deficit hawks', while Clinton and other Democrats who had voted against the cuts from the beginning, defending the budget surplus, and were able to take the moral high ground.
She continued her dedicated pursuit of universal healthcare for Americans, advocating for incremental steps in this direction after her earlier giant leap that way failed. These and other actions helped lay the groundwork for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as 'ObamaCare', the most significant step toward universal health coverage in the US since Medicare and Medicaid. It remains to be seen if Clinton will make the continued expansion of healthcare to all Americans a plank of her second presidential campaign as she did in her first.
Following on from the work of her husband and his Vice-President Al Gore in promoting the internet, Clinton championed the expansion of broadband in the US (although the US still has one of the lowest rates of broadband coverage in the developed world) and fought for more federal funding for new technologies. This is something of a contrast with the Republicans, who make a habit of conveniently forgetting that all the most significant telecommunication developments of the second half of the 20
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Century – the internet, email, and the World Wide Web – were in large part funded and developed by various governments. As usual, for Clinton, the facts are more important than political convenience.
Clinton continued to support the rights of children internationally, a theme she had held to throughout her political career and would later bring to the international stage as Secretary of State. Clinton advocated for proper education on a global scale, particularly in places where the only education available is within oppressive, old-world religious institutions. This would prove to be an early manifestation of the 'smart power' she would advocate for as Secretary of State, an approach which, to paraphrase former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, could be described as 'tough on terrorism, tough on the
causes
of terrorism'.
She also helped draw a line under her husband's patchy support for LGBT rights by twice voting against the Federal Marriage Amendment which aimed to ban same-sex marriage. This advocacy for LGBT rights would come to greater prominence as the issue of gay marriage gradually reached majority approval in the US. Clinton and others could legitimately paint themselves as early advocates for LGBT rights before the political mainstream caught up with them.
Hillary easily won both the Democratic primary and the subsequent election during the US Senate elections in 2006, increasing her majority over her opponent. In line with her toned-down hawkishness, she opposed the 2007 'troop surge' in Iraq, despite having previously (in 2005) introduced legislation calling for 80,000 new troops to be deployed in Iraq despite her opinion at the time that large parts of the country were doing well. It subsequently became apparent that this opposition was made more out of political convenience – an attempt to hold off Barack Obama's rival presidential bid – than conviction. Her dedication to US influence abroad became increasingly clear when she called on the Iraqi Parliament to replace the Prime Minister, an unhelpful and unnecessary interference in the internal workings of a supposedly sovereign country.
Throughout the financial crisis, Clinton supported bills to rescue and stimulate the economy. She also proposed Roosevelt-style legislation to assuage the worst effects of the crisis and get the American economy back on track. She also voted for various versions of what became the DREAM Act, eventually passed under Obama, allowing amnesty for the children of illegal immigrants. This track record would help her in Latin America while Secretary of State, as she was able to point to her personal support for immigrants even while various anti-immigrant laws, particularly in Arizona, infuriated Latin Americans.
Despite initial criticism of a non-New Yorker running for New York's Senate seat, Clinton left office with high approval ratings (they were higher still prior to her presidential bid). Clearly whatever her state of origin, she brought intelligence and pragmatism to the Senate and had a largely positive impact, paving the way and providing a model for other already high-profile women to begin political careers.