Hillary Clinton’s comments last week about Karl Rove and
his alleged obsession with her are really nothing short of
ludicrous. Her comments are a response to Rove’s rather
unoriginal prediction that Clinton would win the Democratic
presidential primary, but lose the general election in 2008.
It seems a bit odd that Clinton would charge that Rove’s
predication amounts to the level of obsession when anyone can spot
Clinton’s intention to run from a mile away. Her claim that
she is much more focused on the upcoming midterm elections is
hardly convincing when one considers that she occupies one of the
most secure Senate seats in the country.
Also, for the past couple of months, she has been positioning
herself (unsuccessfully) to appear as a centrist and as the hero
who will save this country from what she has termed “one of
the worst” administrations in U.S. history.
Why, then, would Clinton make such a big fuss over Rove’s
statement when she has given him every indication that she will
indeed run for president and intends to win?
She tries to tell us that Rove is diverting attention away from
what she perceives to be a series of Republican missteps, but
really it is Clinton who is doing the diverting.
When she told us some of her plans for this country, such as her
single-payer health care proposal, they were rejected by the
American public.
Because of this, Clinton seems to be borrowing a page from
Howard Dean’s playbook from two years ago and running a
campaign based on fear and anger. She knows that what she really
wants will never come to fruition, so she adopts a
blame-the-other-guy strategy for everything.
The reason Clinton and the Democrats have so frequently resorted
to this tactic recently is that they are scared.
Having lost the last presidential election, they are scared of
becoming extinct and need a villain to pin their woes on. Hence,
Rove and the Bush administration become the targets.
The Democrats in this country have no substance anymore. They
have been reduced to a meaningless faction that needs something,
anything at all, to talk about.
Clinton and the Democrats are adherents of an archaic political
philosophy that believes in the absolute power of the government
over the lives of individuals. It is the philosophy that dominated
American politics from the late 1930s to the early 80s but,
thankfully, has been in decline ever since Ronald Reagan’s
election to the White House.
Despite the massive failures and moral reprehensibility of big
government intervention and the “it takes a village”
mentality Clinton loves, she and her party inexplicably cling on to
their ideals.
They are frustrated that election after election, they are
soundly defeated by a grown-up American people who now rightly
reject inappropriate government intrusion into their everyday
lives.
They have become a party without ideas and offer nothing but
“no.” They told us no to Social Security reform, strict
constructionists on the Court, making the Bush tax cuts permanent,
and in California, they spent millions to prevent reform on teacher
tenure and the budget.
Republicans have the job of repairing over fifty years of havoc
that leftists unleashed on this country, and the Democrats can do
nothing but desperately try to preserve the old ways at any
cost.
The tides have turned against the Democrats, and they can no
longer run on platforms of higher taxes, more regulation and
increased entitlement spending.
Lacking fresh ideas and a clear vision for America, Clinton must
resort to childish name calling and bizarre conspiracy theories
about obsession in order to make a point. The only thing she got
right was that the Republicans have made some mistakes and are
nowhere near perfect ““ I readily admit the deficit is a
problem.
What she doesn’t realize is that the alternative is far
worse.
Ellis is a fourth-year economics and political science
student and the treasurer for Bruin Republicans.