Where is the beef with Hillary Clinton?

[draft_mario_cuomo]

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/

I went to her site and it essentially consists of biographical information and news about her campaign. There was nothing about her views on the issues. It is Barack Obama who the media criticizes for a lack of substance but he has several ideas on his website. http://www.barackobama.com/issues/ . So do Edwards (http://johnedwards.com/about/issues/), Richardson (http://www.richardsonforpresident.com/issues/#security), Kucinich (http://kucinich.us/issues), Biden (http://www.joebiden.com/issues/), and Dodd (http://www.chrisdodd.com/issues). What is her campaign's rationale? What is her message? What is her vision for America?

[hiaasenrocks]

1. What? Hillary has no views on the issues?

Of course she has views. They just change depending upon which audience she's speaking to.

[mtnsnake]

2. That's not the correct site to get the issues on. Try this one

http://clinton.senate.gov/

Or go directly to this one for her stances on the issues:
http://clinton.senate.gov/issues/

[draft_mario_cuomo]

3. Obama, Dodd, and Biden have issues on their presidential sites

HRC and her handlers are not dumb. They know the vast majority of people who want to learn about what she plans to do as president will go to her presidential campaign site, not her Senate site. Obama, Dodd, and Biden, the other senators in the race, all understand this and provide ideas on their presidential sites. The difference is they want to provide information on their views...

[mtnsnake]

4. I just got done giving you the site where she goes into detail on the issues

It's an official site of hers in NY.

What happened here is that perhaps you made a mistake where you thought she didn't give any details of how she stands on the issues, or you're just trying to portray her as that way. I would hope it's the former.

[draft_mario_cuomo]

5. They know where voters will look for policy

Here is what a Google search for "Hillary Clinton president" yields (in order):

www.hillaryclinton.com/
votehillary.org/
votehillary.org/CMS/
hillaryrodhamclinton2008.blogspot.com/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Rodham_Clinton
www.hillary.org/
www.time.com/time/columnist/klein/article/0,9565,1059000,00.html
www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/20/clinton.announcement/index.html
www.43things.com/things/view/46146
clinton.senate.gov/

Her Senate site is 10th, at the very bottom of the page.

HRC and co. know where most voters will look for policy. So do Obama, Dodd, and Biden. That is why they didn't limit their stands on the issues to their Senate sites.

I don't believe she has no stands on the issues. I do believe, though, and her website supports this notion, that she is running as vague, generic, focus-grouped campaign as possible. That means saying as little as possible on the issues and when you do be as vague as possible in order to minimize the number of people who will disagree with your positions. If your positions are generic and murky enough some people will project their own views onto your blank state. This is a strategy George W. Bush used in the 2000 primaries.

[mtnsnake]

7. Her Senate site is the 2nd one listed if you google Hillary Clinton

Anyway, no biggie, now that we know she does have in-depth stances on the issues. That's what counts.

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

6. Funny. When I go to the site & click on press releases I

find lots of positions.

From the Senate: Senator Clinton Continues Fight for Our Troops and Veterans

Clinton Launches Petition Calling on Bush Not to Veto Iraq Withdrawal Bill
From the Senate: Senator Clinton Calls on Circuit City to Reconsider Layoffs
From the Senate: Senator Clinton Calls on Circuit City to Reconsider Layoffs
Clinton Introduced Autism Bill to Promote Services for Those Affected by Autism
From the Senate: Clinton, Mikulski, Murray, Snowe Applaud FDA Decision to Maintain Funding for Office of Women's Health
Hillary Clinton: Expanding Health Care for Children
New HillCast: Clinton Details Plan to Expand Health Care for Children
From the Senate: Statement of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on the Firing of U.S. Attorneys
North Country Leader, Healthcare Advocate McLeod Endorses Senator Clinton for President
Clinton Calls for More Cops on America's Streets
Statement of Hillary Clinton on the Projected Shortfall in HAWK-I Program
From the Senate: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on Halliburton's Move to Dubai
Clinton Statement on Bush Administration's Yucca Legislation
Transcript: Equal Pay HillCast
Clinton, Mayor Villaraigosa Kick-Off Great American Cleanup in Los Angeles
New Video: Clinton Details Plan for Strategic Energy Fund
New Video: Clinton Details Roadmap for Ending War, Protecting Troops
Fact Check: Hillary Has Long Supported Phased Redeployment

[patrice]

8. I am worried by her use of the word "redeployment" rather than

withdrawal of the Troops in Iraq.

And sorry, but I also don't trust when someone says s/he has "no plans for permanent occupation or bases". Forces handy somewhere in or near the region, i.e. redeployed, and something comes up to make it "necessary" is a euphamism for permanent occupation.

[ElizabethDC]

9. First of all, this is like the fifth thread I've seen on this topic in the past few weeks

Really, is it that hard to look around the website?

Here are short videos where she discusses a number of topics:
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/video/hillcast/

And here are more videos where she discusses issues:
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/video/other/

You can also check out her blog:
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/blog/

Or read her speeches:
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/speech/


The issues are *not* absent at Hillary's site.

[draft_mario_cuomo]

10. We--and all the other campaigns know most people will not do that

How many voters will look at speeches and videos? We have to realize DU is an exception. Most people who will search online will look at the policy points on the issue pages of a candidate. Every other candidate for president has such a page for that very reason. Why doesn't HRC? No one thinks she has no views on the issues. She is obviously a very intelligent individual who conceivably could do a great job as president. The problem is that her campaign is about biography (chiefly a last name) and not about ideas and a vision for America. This is reflected on her website. She is following the Bush in 2000 playbook and being as generic and vague as possible.

[churchofreality]

11. The truth is not convenient if you are trying to slam Hillary

[ronnykmarshall]

17. Thank YOU!!

It's amazing the straws people will grasp at to attack Hillary.

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

15. Her positions are also on the site the OP linked to.

I guess because they're two clicks away, it was too much. :shrug:

[MGKrebs]

12. Clinton to propose rebuilding government

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2007-04-13-clinton-2008_N.htm

[rinsd]

13. self delete dupe

[rinsd]

14. This crap again? She has speeches and videos.

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/speech/

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/video/

I guess Hillary treats the voters as intelligent enough to let them see what she has said rather than a bullet pointed issues page.

Its also nice to see this BS dragged up again a week after its been debunked.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3197164

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

16. Debunking once isn't good enough. It has to be debunked

weekly. Or maybe daily. :shrug:

[LeFleur1]

18. Evil Seers

Those who see evil in everything Hillary does do not want to see anything else.
They are like the 29% who still support Bush. If he shot Laura and his kids, that 29% would still support him.

It doesn't matter that Hillary overwhelmingly votes liberal on issues before the Senate.
These evil seers will still see her as evil.

[MGKrebs]

19. Yes but many of these threads aren't really about policies.

they are HSIT's, or Hillary Supporter Identification Threads. After all, many view politics as a team sport, and it's helpful to know who's on what team. A form of compartmentalization.

At least, that's my opinion.

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

20. Here's the irony: I for one, am not a strong Hillary supporter.

In fact, I haven't decided which Dem to vote for in the primaries. (It goes without saying that I'll votefor, campaign for & support the Dem who wins the primary in the general election.) I'm just not going to sit by & watch Sen. Clinton get smeared. Just as I won't sit by & watch any other Dem get smeared.

[MGKrebs]

22. I feel the same way. I've gotten involved early before, but

no one really inspires me at this point, so I'm taking a pragmatic approach. I want all the candidates to have as good a chance of succeeding as possible, and that means resisting the BS thrown at them by those on our own team. They MUST show the ability to run an effective campaign, and they MUST show the potential to win the general. Beyond that, I'm not going to get too bent out of shape regarding policy yet because I have confidence that any of the likely winning candidates would be a good President.

I don't begrudge anyone supporting "the most progressive" candidate they can identify (or any of the likely Dems for that matter), but castigating the other candidates because they don't meet criteria specifically crafted for them to fail or ever-changing litmus tests is unfortunate, and in my opinion unhelpful. It just becomes a team sport kind of thing, where "your" team is always wrong and "my" team is always right. This thread is one example. It is admirable that Edwards and Obama et. al. have pretty nicely detailed policy positions conveniently laid out on their campaign websites as of mid-April, but my experience is that it is not unusual for candidates to not have a lot of specific new initiatives this early in a campaign. They usually tend to roll them out on an ongoing basis and there are reasons for this, one is that it is an excuse for media attention when a speech is coming up. Another is that by laying out the details of your ideas early, your opponents have that much more time to find ways to attack them. Not only that, very few voters are looking that deeply at the issues yet, so there is little downside to waiting. Somebody like HC, who is a sitting Senator, has a voting record and speeches and a voluminous record to look into for the wonks who care to at this stage of the game. The rest of America doesn't care yet. (I was asked yesterday by a friend whether "that guy who's wife has cancer" was a Democrat or a Republican.)

And I might also say that arguably HC is in a sort of special circumstance, which many here have pointed out, because she has been the target of so much vitriol for many years now. I am confident the campaign is very carefully planning their progression to overcome the negativity that exists as best they are able, and my understanding is that she has more than a couple very experienced and very capable managers (or at least expensive anyway).

It's funny, to read these threads:
HC either has no positions or she is hated for her positions;
She has been annointed by the media or she can't possibly win;
She blows in the wind or is clearly a corporatist.
She triangulates too much or she is too polarizing.

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

23. Excellent points.

:thumbsup:

[enough already]

21. Conversations....

We're having conversations right now. Issues are for suckers.