Hillary’s been a part of my life for a long time for better or worse, simply because I’ve lived a long time in the USA (and in New York, to boot). I didn’t warm to her at all until her stint at SOS. She was my 4th choice for President in 2008, for example, and I was pretty livid when she spent heavily to run up the score in her 2006 Senate campaign (clearly in preparation for her 2008 coronation), rather than donate her large war chest to more needy Congressional candidates. That was actually the first time I felt personally let down by Hillary, and not the last.
AUMF didn’t alienate me as much, at the time, because it arose in an environment, manufactured and pumped up by the Bush administration. I remember being not so pissed off about the authorization and being furious that Bush didn’t let the inspectors finish the job. So, yeah, I was duped. Hillary had access to more information and she made the wrong choice, and I'd like to think I’d have stood with Bernie if I were in the Senate— but that’s hindsight (Edwards and Kerry both voted aye, for example).
Once Hillary started working at State I did notice that she went out of her way to champion issues that went beyond her ordinary portfolio, especially issues related to human trafficking, women, and gay people (yes, she’d been part of the problem with gays before she was part of the solution; I think her evolution has been, at least by now, sincere...took a while). She elevated these issues and they became a part of the international dialog.
I began to warm to her while she was at State.
When she decided to run for President I was ready, just not so enthusiastic. The lack of enthusiasm came as much from the way she’d always presented herself publicly— the carefully scripted poorly delivered, heavily parsed speeches, as from her corporate ties, occasional bad votes (the 2001 Bankruptcy bill comes to mind), and triangulation (selling out principles to get a few crumbs).
I was hoping Elizabeth Warren would jump in. I didn’t think Bernie had a chance to get much traction and worried about electability, due to his past. Once he became a candidate I started to feel that Bern, and it hasn't stopped.
I believe Bernie would do better against Trump than Hillary (though I have some reservations about how he stacks up against Rubes). He’s all policy and there’s no opening for Trump to attack him on character, trustworthiness, truthfulness, or corrupting influences, other than on past “radical” behavior. I don't see that sticking actually, especially given how it stacks up against Trump’s own past Yugely racist, misogynist and simply disgusting behavior (all the bankruptcies and the consent orders in the 70s due to his policy of denying blacks apartments at his dad’s big complexes in Queens, plus all the libertine excess, Studio 54 and the like, while Bernie was protesting and running for Senate in VT)
Which brings me up to last night...
What I saw in Hillary's speech last night was a kind of pivot to what I think is a potential winning strategy against Trump, should she get that far (and this Primary is by no means over; I want to make that clear; we’ve got 2 ½ weeks to go before the “writing’s on the wall” one way or another). She sees a winning strategy in being able to move to an authentic space for herself, which is love and compassion.
I have never doubted that Hillary is possessed of both of these emotions, as her history with the Children’s Defense Fund exemplifies, as does her her unsuccessful and very public failure to achieve universal health care more than 20 years ago. There’s the cold calculating self-aggrandizing Hillary, the “palling around with oligarchs” Hillary, Hillary the policy wonk, and, I firmly believe, a loving compassionate Hillary. Pivoting from policy wonk Hillary to a more human, vulnerable, authentic persona doesn’t come easily to someone so guarded but I think she’s finally realized that she has no choice. And, I applaud her for that. And I think what we saw in the last 5 minutes of her victory speech shows real authenticity.
This is a change year, a year where anger and frustration with the status quo and the institutions that perpetuate it have boiled over. Hillary rightly or wrongly is certainly seen as representing the forces that have a vested interest in keeping the status quo, and she’s been very comfortable in their midst. This has tended to work against her, by shifting attention from her mildly progressive (and she’s definitely moved well to the left for it) messaging and policy proposals to her positioning with the very institutions that are in need of deep pervasive structural change.
That said, I think she’s gotten the message in terms of where the electorate is at in this very volatile year. I think that Bernie’s lit a fire under the asses of a lot of people and, unlike the hatred that Trump’s unleashed, this is a fire of righteous indignation with unacceptable moral behavior equivalent to a religious “holy” war.
As long as we can keep fanning these flames I think Hillary can and will be a good and possibly great President for this country. She needs to know, however, that her master is the people of the United States, not its wealthiest and greediest citizens and corporations.