Hillary’s First 100 Days
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Any sort of insider article that seeks to forecast the first days of a presidency needs to be taken with a huge salt lick. But if this piece on Hillary’s early priorities as president is accurate, it shows the mixed bag one would expect. If her top legislative goal is immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship, then that’s an objectively good thing, even if the actual bill is probably not going to be a gigantic triumph of righteousness. While I’d personally like to see her top priority be a minimum wage increase, that really only happens if the Democrats retake the House as well as the Senate, and that’s unlikely, no matter how bad she blows out Trump.
If another of her top goals is to name women in at least half of the Cabinet, fine. I’m more concerned with the idea of her bringing in a bunch of tech CEOs, not that Obama has shied away from courting CEOs.
My biggest fear though is that, like Obama, she thinks she can overcome the partisan divide in Washington. Evidently her strategy is doing shots with John McCain and then finding common ground. Literally.
Mrs. Clinton’s ability to use alcohol as a political lubricant came up repeatedly when allies and advisers were asked how she might work with Republicans. Her tale about a drinking contest with Senator John McCain of Arizona is now a Washington legend. (She said they called it quits before things got out of hand.) She believes that a relaxed, frank discussion is more authentic than trying to bond awkwardly with adversaries over sports — and more productive than keeping them at arm’s length, as Mr. Obama has often done.
“She likes to cajole, she likes to make deals, and she likes to make friends,” said Richard Socarides, a former policy adviser to Bill Clinton and a longtime supporter of Mrs. Clinton. “And she knows it’s much harder to go after someone who you basically like, who you’ve had a drink with.”
Well, OK. But as far as a political strategy, does anyone believe Republicans won’t use the same extreme obstructionism on Clinton as they did on Obama? The only way this might not happen is if Clinton decides not to govern as a Democrat, which say what you will about her, is not going to happen. The sooner she is disabused of the notion that she can work with 2016-era Republicans, the better.
As for Clinton pushing a bunch of big progressive goals, I’m less worried about that. It’s not that I think she is going to have a legislative program of single-payer health care, reviving the Employee Free Choice Act, and ending all coal mining. But she will move forward a step at a time with executive orders on this or that, with a bill on immigration, with some kind of minimum wage increase, etc. And if the Democrats actually do win the House, she will sign most any bill they actually manage to pass. Maybe that’s not the kind of leadership progressives want from a president, but then we shouldn’t look to presidents for political leadership on our issues to begin with. We should demand they follow us and build the grassroots base and the electoral base to ensure that said president supports us because it’s the right thing to do politically. And I think the Sanders campaign has showed that she will do that if the pressure is turned up.