A Novel Theory
Published by BG on Thursday, June 14, 2007 at 12:16 PM.Cliff Schecter - The Truth About Hillary
(...F)rom the way (Russ Douthat at The Atlantic and many on the Right talk about the Senator from New York, it often seems that there's some special reason why social conservatives should fear her above any other Democrat. This, in spite of the fact that it's pretty clear that Hillary would be the most rightward nominee to emerge from the Democratic primaries.
Have you ever wondered that maybe it's not the spectre of socialism or the projection of militant feminism that's really the big concern? Maybe that's just a smokescreen. Maybe they fear a "centrist Democrat" in the wake of eight years of neoconservative failure. Maybe they know that Hillary Clinton as President will actually be appealing to some centrist Republicans after GWB's reign, and that they're better off facing a true Progressive in the general than they are a middle-of-the-road type who isn't totally unappealing (compared to her competition) to big business.
Hillary Clinton is not an extreme liberal, no matter what the religious right or the right-wing noise machine tries to tell you. She likely represents the left's best chance at building from the center out, which will invariably attract attention and support on the more agreeable of her policies from some on the right. Obviously, the health care thing is ambitious, but European nations have socialized health care without socializing bread lines and providing government-issue olive drab to the population, so what exactly is the slippery slope here?
Demonizing Hillary as the Uber-Feminazi Antichrist Abortionist Lesbian Who Will End Capitalism As We Know It is entirely disingenuous to what she will likely do if elected to office, so why does the right keep trying to tar and feather her with that rhetoric?
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