The Iowa Caucuses

Just read Salon’s round-up of talking heads’ and celebrities’ (?!? yes I know, not happy Jan) endorsements for president. My hero Gloria Steinem unsurprisingly supports Hilary Clinton. The support for John Edwards is powerful, sincere and well-grounded. Obama’s support seems too dreamy and idealistic. Arguments made for Joe Biden (and against—I didn’t know or had forgotten that he was anti-choice) and Chris Dodd are convincing as well.

In the letters section, people have come up with idealistic combinations that echo my own feelings that I’d like the whole Democratic field—and several Republicans as well—running the country. I’ll take Rodham-Clinton’s pragmatism with Obama’s optimism, Edwards’ populism, Dodd’s stick-to-it-ness, Biden’s experience, Kucinich’s idealism, Richardson’s multiculturalism, along with John McCain’s military wisdom, Ron Paul’s refusal to buy into the dominant paradigm, Mike Huckerby’s ability to reach out without condescending to religious populists, Fred Thompson’s Reaganesque good-naturedness and actor presence, and Rudy Guiliani’s ability to reconcile pro-choice and pro-gun control positions with true conservatism.

Unlike many people, I don’t want Al Gore in this presidential race. Al Gore has found his calling and I want him doing exactly what he’s doing—someone suggested making him the Climate Change Czar: That suits me fine.

As a feminist, I’d really love to see a Ms POTUS. Up until just a month or so ago, I swore I couldn’t support Hillary Rodham Clinton (not least b/c of her acquiescence from Ms Rodham to Mrs. Clinton :-P). I felt a specific betrayal of my feminist consciousness —in an era when hard-fought changes in language, treatment and payment and recognition of women, reproductive rights, and general status of women is sliding backwards, Ms Rodham Clinton’s willingness to cast off the most obvious trappings of feminism was a huge disappointment.

But looking at the bigger picture—surprising as it may be, even to me, a shock in and of itself—I now believe that she is the BEST qualified candidate. I’ve long loved John Edwards and his message of populism, and I’d be thrilled if he won. But the best possible choice has got to be Hillary. Not only is a Hillary Rodham Clinton presidency a two-for-one deal, she has (to echo Gloria Steinem, though I did think of these things before I read her endorsement) 8 years of on-the-job experience, she knows exactly what she’s getting into, she won’t take 2 years to learn the job.

This latter is, to me, probably the crux of the matter. Bush has so messed up the country and the world that we don’t have time to wait for someone to learn the job. No matter who is elected, things are going to get much worse before they get better—if they ever do get better. Which of course brings into question what it would mean for things to get better … but that is another story. I do believe that Ms Rodham Clinton has the background to effectively reverse some of the Bush administration’s assault on civil liberties at home—an issue on which her position has never been at question—and that she will end the war in Iraq as it exists, although her hawkishness is the one thing I question.

More than that, however, she will appoint supreme court judges who have the best interests of the US people at heart; she will work to pass legislation that reverses or reduces some of the excesses of the current government; she will not be an impediment to national health care or fairer immigration practices or environmental protection and climate change preparation. I think she is a very, very practical woman/person, and that is what this country needs right now.
As far as the US’s role in the world, there could be no better presidential spouse than Bill Clinton. I, and millions of other people, love Elizabeth Edwards and I do believe that she, like her husband, is sincere and would be graceful, charming, informed and influential. But the whole world knows and loves Bill Clinton, and it’s going to take exactly that kind of respect and admiration to patch up the hash the Bush administration has done to the US’s standing in the world. I can’t think of another person to do it. Whether officially, as Secretary of State, or unofficially as the First Gentleman, Bill Clinton is the only person I know of who could go out into the world and restore something of our reputation.