Continued Analysis of Hillary Clinton

If you have not ready my first article regarding Hillary Clinton's website, here is a quick rundown. I am going through her issues page on her website and analyzing it. This article is a continuation of that discussion.

Restoring American's Standing in the World

This topic page is quite possibly the most vague of all. She talks about how she will work with other countries and make our standing in the world better and improve relations with other nations. I know that there is not a lot of specifics you can do with this, but it would be nice to hear some. Are we going to revert back to the Kyoto Protocol that Bush ignored? Are we going to start adhering to the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty that Bush ignored? These are specific things that she could have mentioned but fails to do. Again, it is easy to say you can do something and actually put forth policies that will do it. On the "Ready to Lead" section, it is once again all about Hillary. She talks how she has visited over 80 countries and worked with other nations, but so has Bush. Why are her policies doing to be different? I would like to see a lot more specifics on this matter. As a side note, I know that former President Bill Clinton has mentioned that his main role as the first husband would be doing exactly this, working with other nations. I think that is a great idea, because Bill Clinton was almost universally liked by the rest of the world. However, no mention of this is on her website, plus it would still be nice to see specifically what he would be doing if he was in such a role. A Champion for Women

Depending on where you stand on the life issue, you are going to either strongly agree or disagree with part of this section, so I'm going to skip it because a discussion on abortion leads to nowhere. You know where you stand, and where she does. However, the rest of the section I would like to say that she does do a good job of being specific on some major issues that are affecting women. First off, she cites specific laws that she has introduced and will continue to support to try and equal the pay of women in the workforce and end discrimination. I also like her point that she talks in specifics regarding helping low-income women in regards to school fees and investing in health care for women in general. She also points out the Prevention First Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act, both of which have done some good. What I don't like is that this is all lumped into women's health with Abortion. Shouldn't the life question be a separate issue from the overall health of women in our society? I guess pro-choice groups don't want it, but why not? If I am a pro-life person, but want increased access to quality health care for all women, why wouldn't I want it separate. As it is now, if you are pro-life and look at this issue, you are against her. However, you are probably not opposed to increasing quality health care for women. I would like to see this as more of a separate issue instead of put together, but really that is a personal belief and not against her site. This is one of the few issues where she is specific about the programs she supports and would continue to support, and for that, this section is better than most.

Comprehensive Government Reform

I like how her first statement is a direct implication of President Bush saying that "American's are ready for a government that puts competence ahead of crony-ism." She spends the first part on this page directly attacking the Bush administrations policies of appointing people who had connections and giving no-contract bids to companies that had connections to the white house such as Halliburton. She states that we should have a government with no crony-ism, no corruption and no deception. That's a great idea, but are we sure Hillary Clinton is going to be able to do that? Well, she has a plan to improve the credibility of our government including strengthening whistle-blower protections, creating a public service academy (not sure what this is, and she gives no explanation, which makes me question exactly its purpose and effectiveness), ending abuse of no-bid government contracts and posting all contracts on-line and tracking and eliminating corporate welfare. These all seem to be great ideas and would be a welcome change I feel. However, once again, stating something and actually getting it done is a whole different level. However, I do give her credit for being more specific with her ideas then she has been on previous pages.

She continues this section by getting into more detail on the Justice Department. This makes sense because of the fallout of the various justice department officials who were fired under suspicious circumstances. However, she again states that she wants to do certain things, but doesn't really give us any legislation or policies on how she would accomplish it. For example, she states that she will "combat ongoing racial and sex discrimination in the labor market by improving laws and expanding enforcement." How is she going to improve the law? How will she expand enforcement? How will she pay for it? All of these issues that she talks about are not found here.

She then looks to ending the Bush administration's policies regarding, as she says "war on science and restore scientific integrity to government decision-making." Basically, if you have been opposed to the Bush administration's policies regarding stem cell research, political appointees interfering with scientific research or having departments pressure scientists to fit their agenda, you are going to agree with Hillary. She is pretty specific on these topics because there is no need for legislation, just the policy that she would adopt, and in this case, it is more a policy of not doing what President Bush did.

Overall, she has a lot of rhetoric on this page with little solutions other than talk. There is very little specific discussions regarding laws or policies that she would enact to fix our government. While I do agree that a lot of this topic is more an attitude that she takes into the White House, it would be nice to see a little bit more specifics on this topic.

Strengthening Our Democracy

This issue is clearly an attack on the election process (and therefore results) of the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections and the supposed fraud involved. I'm not going to get into the argument of whether or not President Bush stole the elections, but rather, let's just look at her ideas. Overall, if you support democracy, these ideas actually are pretty good and is one of the clearer arguments that she makes. Hillary states that she has introduced a "Count Every Vote Act" which does several things and she would push for its passage if elected President. The act does several things including providing a paper trail for each vote. This is clearly intended for the electronic voting machines that worry a lot of people. One thing I rather like is the idea that it designates Election Day as a national holiday. This would be a good change for several reasons. First off, it would prevent the long lines at the voting booth in the mornings, over lunch and after work. A lot of people who are serious about voting would still vote, however, some people run out of time or there are massive problems and long lines which prevent people from sticking around. Let's face it, we are all too busy to stand in line for 2 hours to cast a vote in which a lot of us don't think it will do any good. Do I advocate that attitude? No I don't, however, it can help the process out. I also like her idea of same-day registration. However, we need to make sure that people are not abusing the system by registering two or three times (vote early and vote often as Chicago would say). Overall, I think there are some other things that can be done, but her ideas would be a welcome beginning to solving some serious voting problems that we have experienced for several years.

One idea that I would really like to see her support, if she truly wants to strengthen our democracy, would be to support the National Association of Secretaries of States Presidential Primary Plan. If you don't know what it is, check out my article on the topic. It's a great idea that needs to come about in order to make our Presidential election cycle bearable.

Reforming Our Immigration System

This issue seems to be a major issue with voters this year, or at least for the candidates are seen in Wednesday's Republican Debate, and Hillary spends a good amount of time discussing what needs to be done. On this topic, she still talks in mostly generalities that she wants to improve this and improve that with little presentation on how it would be done. This is especially evident on stopping illegal immigration. She talks a lot about establishing an employer verification system, but how? Again, zero specifics on this issue. Also, she never really address the problem of illegal immigration and how to stop it, which most American's feel is the major sticking issue. The only time she talks in specifics is when talking about legal immigration and trying to improve that system. These stances are good and she gives some very good specific policies and acts that she supports and would support as President. It would be nice if she could do this regarding illegal immigration as well.

Final Analysis

In the end, there is far too much Rhetoric and very little substance on Hillary Clinton's websites. While some of her ideas are very admirable and sound fantastic, achieving those results is an entirely different animal. I was constantly asking myself "How?" How is she going to achieve this, or pay for it, or get it done? These questions need to be answered before I would look more seriously at Hillary as a Presidential candidate. However, if you are conservative, you probably don't like any of her issues (except the more universal arguments such as improving our democracy and improving the lives of the Middle Class). In the end, we all have to decide if she will be the right person to lead or not.