I am no one of great consequence, in the overall scheme of the World. But, for some reason, someone in social media recently demanded that I account for having challenged former-Secretary Hillary Clinton on one of her campaign agenda items. ‘Who was I’, this person demanded, ‘to question someone of Clinton’s stature and accomplishments?’ I replied simply that I am a voter - that no person is entitled to elected office, to a nomination, or to my vote.
In my haste, I did not take the time to explain why stature and past accomplishments are not enough for to me. Rather than return to the discussion, in which it also was intimated that Clinton is entitled to the nomination, this little essay was borne.
Bill and Hillary Clinton were unknown to most of us, until the 1992 election. The Democratic party was in disarray, and it would remain so for the next eight election cycles, in the wake of an emerging Republican mantra of the 1980s. The mantra, that our economy and our collective futures would be prosperous, if only they could do away with the laws and regulations imposed on Wall Street businesses since the New Deal Era, was persuasive to many. Once elected, President Clinton gave many of us socially-inclined voters hope. It was hope that this savvy politician would navigate successfully through the onslaught of deregulation and the gutting of individual rights, and possibly return us to the focus on the Middle Class and the disadvantaged Americans left behind as a result of the deification of Wall Street.
But, even before he took the Oath of Office, the Republican machine was hard at work scheming how it might render Bill Clinton a one-term President. Sound familiar? Still stinging from Watergate and basking in the glow of President Reagan’s two scripted terms, the GOP began to dig up dirt on President Clinton and the First Lady, Hillary Clinton. According to Republicans, the invisible octopus which would come to be known as “Whitewater” seemed to touch everything Clinton . . . despite that none of the leads, announced almost monthly, actually led anywhere, and definitely not to the Clintons. Troopergate and Paula Jones were regular features of the evening news. A Republican propagandist’s book, “The Seduction of Hillary Rodham”, proved that, if they could not fault President Clinton’s politics, then they would use anything else to take him down.
Through all of it, I stood by the Clintons. I defended them in my dinner table debates with friends and family. I urged others to focus on the real problems of our Nation, rather than the petty diversions raised by Ken Starr and numerous mealy-mouthed Senators and Representatives. At a time when a politician’s morality was as important as his or her record, I was unmoved by the specious attacks.
But the Crime Bill of 1994, NAFTA, and the deregulation of Wall Street, culminating in the endorsement of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, were problematic for me. Deals were made by the White House to soften some of the harmful bills which cruised easily through Congress. These were contrary to everything for which the Democratic Party stood. They included provisions which inherently were harmful to the goals of the Civil Rights Act, to the labor force, and to the economy. Granted, it was the GOP which controlled Congress, but the Democratic Party was rudderless. It gave little, if any, opposition. Anything that President Clinton and the First Lady had hoped to accomplish, including health care reform, was relegated to the dust of the baseless personal accusations made against them.
I voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primary. While I was unsure of her then-current stance on mandatory sentencing laws, trade, Wall Street regulations, and other matters which had resolved themselves disastrously for the American and World economies, I felt that her brilliant, innovative opponent, a young Hawaiian-born Senator, required a bit more seasoning in Congress before he would be ready for the White House. I voted for her without question. This election, however, is different.
Just as it did to President Clinton, the GOP vowed to make President Barack Obama a one-term President. American voters, fortunately, felt otherwise. However, Republicans succeeded in blocking many of the initiatives of President Obama, just as they did to President Clinton. The now-familiar false alarms, all fueled by lies and propaganda in a deregulated media environment, are reminiscent of those proffered by the GOP during the eight years of the Clinton Administration. And Americans are struggling more today under the supply-side paradigm than they did when it was initiated during the Reagan Administration.
When it was announced that David Brock, the principal GOP propagandist who attacked the Clintons, would spearhead Hillary Clinton’s media machine, I wondered what implications that might have for a new Clinton presidency. When that same Brock-led organization questioned whether Bernie Sanders - who has voted with Congressional Democrats more than many Congressional Democrats - is a “real Democrat”, I could only cringe at the irony and the double-standard. Her reluctance to restore protective regulations stripped out more than 20 years ago by veto-proof votes raises far more questions about her plan for America than it answers. And the recent repetition of the “super-predator” argument by President Bill Clinton while campaigning on her behalf, less than a year after his expression of regret for the effects of the 1994 Crime Bill, is a dissonant echo of a time which most socially-minded Americans wish to put behind them.
I question as anyone who faces facts should. My opinion is no more or less valid than that of anyone else, nor is my vote is more or less important. But it is my vote. It is my America. It is my future. No politician may rest on his or her stature or accomplishments, when a voter demands to know why that politician seeks that person’s vote.
So, to the person who demanded an answer, I am the one who controls my vote. Plain and simple. It is my right and my duty to question those who aspire to government. To you, the patient reader, please revere your right to vote. We Americans are more fortunate to possess the right than we realize.