Hillary Needs to Channel Elizabeth Warren

We haven’t heard from Hillary Clinton on whether she’s going to run or not. I think she is, because I got a call Sunday from a volunteer in Illinois asking me to volunteer for Ready for Hillary. I was directed to Hillary’s Ready for Hillary Iowa director and given her phone number. I’m holding back because I still hope that Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) will run for president. Sen. Warren has a populist, anti-Wall Street, anti-big bank chicanery message. Hillary doesn’t. Hillary’s holding back so I’m holding back. She doesn’t have a message for us right now.

The one thing I know she’ll do is protect, defend, and promote equal rights for women. I know she’ll be strong and decisive in foreign policy. Both strengths are attractive to me. I’m so tired of Obama’s cowardly stances on Wall Street’s criminal bankers (none indicted or convicted) and indecisive foreign policy that I long for a decisive leader – not a Bush “Decider,” but someone informed and savvy like Hillary.

What I don’t want is someone who cozies up to Wall Street like Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have. That would be disastrous for the economy and the country’s future. The way Dodd-Frank and its detractors stand today, the crash of 2008 could happen all over again.

Hillary was known as the “Supreme Court” during Bill Clinton’s presidency. She was his most valued consultant. However, he didn’t always follow her advice. She didn’t want him to intervene in Bosnia, fearing it would be another quagmire like Vietnam. He intervened anyway and didn’t lose a single soldier. She wanted him to intervene in Rwanda where the Hutus engaged in genocidal murder of the Tutsis, and he didn’t. Later he admitted that not intervening was one of the worst mistakes he ever made.

It’s sexist to conflate Hillary with Bill, as so many critics do. Bill and Hillary are not the same. What is significant about both of them is that they’re very different from Obama, and thank God for that. The Clintons know how to get things done in Washington and they are under no illusions about who they face in Congress.

Obama tried to be a high-minded post-partisan. He tried to make nice and compromised with Republicans. It didn’t work. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. After Obama was soundly rejected in the 2014 midterms, he started poking Republicans in the eye. That’s the only thing he’s been decisive about, and it’s not enough.

Hillary would hit the ground running. She wouldn’t have the lengthy learning curve that Obama has had for the last six years. I hope she’s learned from her 2008 mistakes. I hope it’s not fear that keeps her in the closet. She was treated badly by sexists in the media and in Congress on both sides of the aisle. Anyone would be bruised and sore in the immediate aftermath of that election, but I hope to see her emerge renewed and strengthened. We need to hear her intentions and her campaign promises, and we need to hear them soon.