New York Times
By Patrick Healy
May 7, 2015
It
has been only three weeks since Hillary Rodham Clinton declared her
candidacy for the White House, but she already looks more confident than
she did during the almost
17 months of her last campaign.
Sure,
no serious rival has yet emerged to get under her skin the way Barack
Obama did in 2008. But Mrs. Clinton and her team have also shown a
determination not to be
thrown off course: not by the blowback on her use of personal email
while at the State Department, not by reports critical of the Clinton
family foundation, nor by congressional investigations of the 2012
attacks in Benghazi, Libya.
Such
flare-ups used to make Mrs. Clinton go cold and cautious. Now, she is
projecting a scandals-be-damned attitude and barreling ahead with her
agenda. In Las Vegas on
Tuesday, she was unafraid to court controversy on an issue dear to her —
families and children — by saying that she would go beyond President
Obama’s executive action on immigration and try to protect tens of
thousands of parents who are still facing deportation.
It
was a vivid contrast to a low point in 2007, at a Democratic primary
debate, when she avoided taking a clear stand on an issue that was
similarly divisive among voters:
driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants.
Mrs.
Clinton’s embrace of citizenship for many illegal immigrants, bold
executive action and even those driver’s licenses, which she endorsed
recently, will allow her
to play offense against Republican candidates who are divided on
immigration.
What
she does not say is that she used to side with many Republicans on some
cultural and social issues. She now sees a constitutional right to
same-sex marriage, for
instance, after years of saying that marriage was only between a man
and a woman.
It’s
not every day that a lawyer like Mrs. Clinton discovers a new
constitutional protection, but Democratic primary voters increasingly
favor same-sex marriage — and
she is determined to catch up with them.
It
may be early to jump to any “Hillary unbound” conclusions, and she has
yet to engage in any freewheeling back and forth with reporters. But
from her full-throated speech
last week about ending mass incarceration to her bullish decision on
Wednesday to court donors for a “super PAC,” Mrs. Clinton has shown a
new willingness to take stands that turn off some voters or interest
groups.
This
is a meaningful development. Mrs. Clinton twisted herself into knots
during her last campaign when trying to mollify Democrats over her Iraq
war vote without admitting
any fault. After spending 2007 and 2008 refusing to apologize for
events in Iraq, she now seems increasingly capable of saying what
liberals want to hear.
“We
are seeing a bolder and more confident candidate this time out,” said
Geoffrey Garin, a Democratic strategist who worked on Mrs. Clinton’s
first presidential bid.
“As a result, I think voters are getting a much better look at the real
Hillary Clinton.”
He
continued: “At a similar point eight years ago, the mind-set of the
Clinton campaign was to be cautious and avoid rocking the boat.”
Mrs.
Clinton’s advisers, who were sometimes accused of overkill in defending
her in the 2008 contest, are fighting back against opponents with a new
tone and style intended
to appear eminently reasonable. Her lawyers are trying to strike a
compromise with Representative Trey Gowdy, the Republican leading an
investigation of the Benghazi attacks, to have her testify in public. A
Clinton spokesman, Brian Fallon, appeared this week
in a campaign video adopting a genial, Wally Cleaver manner as he
attempted to eviscerate the new book “Clinton Cash” and the credibility
of its author, Peter Schweizer.
The
steadier hand is particularly noticeable to old Obama aides, who recall
Mrs. Clinton as a more tactical than strategic-minded opponent in 2008.
“Her
presidential campaign seems a lot less distracted by the day-to-day
news stories than it was in 2008,” said Bill Burton, who was the press
secretary for Obama’s first
presidential campaign. “That means her ability to project a cleareyed
focus on the American people is a lot more effective.”
Her
near-term strategy, in the view of some Republicans and political
analysts, is to catch up with the steady migration of many Democratic
primary voters to the left
wing of their party.
“Secretary
Clinton has always run the campaign that she has politically calculated
is the most advantageous for her at the time,” said Tim Miller, a
spokesman for Jeb
Bush, the former Florida governor and a likely Republican candidate.
“She’s making a tactical choice that her best chance at winning is to
protect her left flank from a challenge and run a divisive general
election campaign.”
New
opinion polls this week suggested that Mrs. Clinton’s approach is
working, especially among Democrats. Americans now view her more
favorably than they did earlier
this year, despite weeks of critical reports about her use of personal
email and about donations to the Clinton Foundation, according to a New
York Times/CBS News poll. Four out of five Democrats say she is honest
and trustworthy, and that she shares the values
most Americans try to live by.
One
important challenge will be following up on her rhetoric with policy
details. After Mrs. Clinton’s remarks on immigration in Las Vegas, the
White House press secretary,
Josh Earnest, said that President Obama had used “as much authority as
he could” to help parents and others facing deportation, and appeared at
a loss about what more Mrs. Clinton might do.
Clinton
advisers said on Wednesday that she wanted to try an additional
approach of providing a new application process for some parents who are
illegal immigrants to
pursue a path toward citizenship.
It
remains to be seen how this would work in practice, and what positions
Mrs. Clinton will take on complex economic issues that she has barely
begun to tackle. But her
allies in the Democratic Party seem grateful to have so much now on
which to agree with her.
“My
sense is that she rightfully perceives a much better political
landscape for her today than eight years ago,” said Carter Eskew, a
Democratic political consultant
who is not involved with her campaign.
“Then,
voters were looking for a clean break from President Bush, and she
carried the burden of voting for the Iraq war,” he continued. “In this
cycle, voters seem to
be much more focused on candidates with confidence, experience and
perceived ability to get things done — which have always been her
greatest strengths. Unless Republicans crack those, they may find
running against her very frustrating.”
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
No comments:
Post a Comment