She does not want to do things to win the primary that will make her general-election victory more difficult.While there is the politically practical reason for the lack of an apology the Podhoretz notes, there is another, there are far too many quotes and videos out there on her support for military action that can be easily sidestepped, including statements when she was First Lady.
Saying she is sorry to have voted for the war and that her vote was a mistake would be a gigantic gift-wrapped treat for a Republican rival, and she and her team know it.
Consider the larger meaning of such a statement. Hillary would be presenting herself to the American people as follows: Iraq is the most important issue facing the nation, and the most important matter on which I have cast my vote in the Senate. And on this most important matter of our time, I was wrong.
She wouldn't phrase it in that way, but that would be the gist of it.
I have long believed that she shouldn't apologize for her vote. While she is not the favored candidate of the netroots, the netroots does not have a particularly good record supporting winners and Hillary Clinton desperately wants to be a winner.
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"While she is not the favored candidate of the netroots, the netroots does not have a particularly good record supporting winners and Hillary Clinton desperately wants to be a winner."
Matt, before you dismiss the Democratic opposition to Hillary as "those kooky Netroots," you should consider that much of the most intense antipathy for Hillary has been coming not from the wired set but from traditional Democratic constituencies, such as workers in labor unions.
This is a common fallacy, that "Hillary is unpopular with the Netroots but has deeper support among the general Dem constituency," and I swear it will kill the Democratic Party in 2008 if we don't dispense with it.
I've been involved in Democratic fundraising for many years and I was actually partial to Hillary for a while. But in the last few Democratic fund drives and local drives I've attended, I've been profoundly upset at the level of furious animosity toward Hillary by fellow Dems.
I've never seen anything like this before, such intense opposition to one of our own. And contrary to what you and many others in the party still think (and I'll admit, I used to be guilty of this same thinking), the most intense anti-Hillary sentiment is not coming from the Left Wing netroots types.
It's coming from the economic populist types, the working class people.
And this points to something else interesting and very seriously worrisome about Hillary Clinton. As incensed as grass-roots Democrats are at Hillary over her Iraq War stands-- and it's not just the original IWR vote in 2002, it's much more a matter of Hillary's continued support for the Iraq War even as the scale of the disaster has become apparent-- that's not the main reason that the rank-and-file viscerally don't like her.
The rank-and-file increasingly loathe Hillary because she's seen as a tool for corporate interests against the working classes, essentially as a Trojan Horse within the Democratic Party.
One constant refrain I hear is how Hillary is the apple of Rupert Murdoch's eye, how she's a supporter of outsourcing-- sheez, of all the idiotic stands to take, why in the world did Hillary cast herself as a supporter of offshoring when among other industries, the computer and engineering sector is being virtually decimated by outsourcing to Bangalore? (One can argue this point 'til one goes blue in the face-- the fact is, this is a very strong perception in the industry, and Hillary's suppport of outsourcing is killing her own support base.)
Then there's Hillary's support of that corrupt, incredibly cruel bankruptcy reform bill that rewards rich credit card companies and firms that have screwed up and want to declare, yet penalizes ordinary working Americans who've been hit hard by illness or an auto accident, for example.
This is what came as such a surprise to me, but the most strident anti-Hillary voices in the Democratic fund drives have not been among the young, Leftist Netroots set, but among the working-class Joes and Janes who see her as a sell-out.
These people are adamant in that they will not vote for Hillary, period, in a primary or in a general election. Some will sit out the election. Some will contribute to and vote Third Party. Some will even cross over and become "Giuliani Democrats." I guess Rudy's seen as nontoxic enough-- especially with a Democratic Congress to rein him in-- that people can tolerate a 4-year hiatus with a chance to vote in a genuine populist in 2012.
This in fact may be reflected in the Gallup polls-- while Hillary has a plurality of Democratic support (name recognition helps), she has nowhere near a majority, not even 40%, and that other 60+% is largely an anti-Hillary vote, thus far split between Obama and Edwards.
Matt, honestly, there comes a time when we have to put aside all our pretexts and brush-offs and accept a very cold, hard, unpleasant reality-- Hillary Rodham Clinton cannot win in 2008. Not only would she unite the Republicans as they haven't been united in decades, she's positively radioactive even to large segments of her own party.
With all the resources that the GOP will be amassing for 2008, we at the very least need to have our own base strong and united behind our candidate. Hillary's support right now is a mile wide and inch deep-- plenty of name recognition but little in the way of the really broad-based, reliable support that actually brings people out to fight for our candidate.
Obama has this, even though his deep support isn't nearly as broad. Even Edwards has this-- whatever happened with Iraq, he's enough of an economic populist that he gets that support from the working class. Hillary manifestly does not.
We're courting utter catastrophe if we nominate her for the 2008 election.
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