Can a leopard change her spots?
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Long called a liberal, Hillary Rodham Clinton emerges as a moderate
Mon Jul 29, 1:07 AM ET
By SHANNON McCAFFREY, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - When Hillary Rodham Clinton ( news - web sites) began her Senate bid, some on the right warned she would make even liberals such as Ted Kennedy look conservative.
Fund-raising letters that raised millions of dollars for Clinton's Republican opponents decried her "wild-eyed radical leftist views" and branded her as "a liberal's liberal."
But since she won election in 2000, Clinton's behavior has often belied those predictions.
On Monday, she was giving the keynote address at a Democratic Leadership Council meeting in New York. The centrist group, whose "third way" ideas were popularized by her husband, is also home to Democrats including Louisiana Sen. John Breaux ( news, bio, voting record), whom President Bush ( news - web sites) courted for his Cabinet, and Georgia Sen. Zell Miller ( news, bio, voting record), who flirted with becoming a Republican.
Once a supporter of Republican Barry Goldwater, Clinton now receives high marks from liberal groups. The U.S. Public Interest Research Group scores her 85 out of 100 while Americans for Democratic Action gives her a 95 percent positive rating.
But far from aligning herself with Kennedy, Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone and the other members of the party's liberal wing, Clinton has cast herself as a New Democrat on some key issues.
"I have always tried to strike a balance and to be someone who was a New Democrat, a third-way thinker, about how we end the gridlock and brain-dead politics of the past," Clinton said Friday.
"I think you have to view the world as it is, not as you would wish it to be," she added.
Clinton supported bankruptcy changes even though critics complained they did not do enough to protect mothers owed child support or those facing catastrophic medical bills.
She is co-sponsor of a welfare bill that increases child care aid but also work requirements. That so angered some poverty advocates they protested outside her Washington home.
She bucked her liberal Hollywood supporters and teamed with Sen. Joseph Lieberman ( news, bio, voting record), D-Conn., on a bill that would penalize the entertainment industry for marketing sex and violence to children.
Supporters say it is no recent conversion.
"This has always been who Hillary is," said DLC founder Al From, who worked closely with both Clintons leading up to Bill Clinton's presidential bid.
"From her days as first lady of Arkansas, when she was pushing teacher accountability standards, she has never been the wild lefty," From said.
Former California Rep. Vic Fazio, a pioneer in pulling Democrats toward the center, agreed.
"The mythology of the Clintons is very different than the Clintons themselves. That is especially true for Hillary," Fazio said.
Others see a calculated makeover intended to position her for a return trip to the White House.
"She is a complete and utter opportunist," said Morton Blackwell, the Virginia Republican committeeman who formed an "Emergency Committee to Stop Hillary Rodham Clinton" during her Senate bid.
"The Madonna ( news - web sites) of politics," added Tripp Baird, Senate analyst for the conservative Heritage Foundation, likening Clinton to the pop star famous for makeovers. "It's phony. I think she's angling for the presidency and she can't do it as a Ted Kennedy liberal."
While Clinton has said she will serve out her six-year Senate term and not run for president in 2004, she is not as definitive on 2008.
It is notable that the three Democrats considering presidential runs in 2004 — Lieberman, John Kerry of Massachusetts, and John Edwards of North Carolina — are all DLC members.
Clinton's DLC credentials are not quite as clear.
Her most visible foray into policy as first lady was the attempt to bring about a national health care reform, a plan critics denounced as socialized medicine. It was shelved.
"People from the right and the left kind of project on to me their ideals without any sense of where I am or what I am doing," Clinton said.
"I have always tried to do what I thought was both right and practical," she said. "It's important to have core principles and values, but if you're going to in active in policy and politics you have to be a realist."
Any similarity to the former president's message should come as no surprise, said Mike McCurry, one of Bill Clinton's former press secretaries.
"Politically, these two human beings have been so connected for so many decades, their thinking is intertwined like DNA strands," McCurry said. |
