From The Nation:
Clinton’s evolving approach–call it Brand Hillary–is sincerely rooted in her not-easily-categorized worldview, but it’s also a calculated response to today’s political realities. In effect, she’s taking her husband’s small-issue centrism–its trademark combination of big but often hollow gestures toward the center, pragmatic economic populism and incremental liberal policy gains–and remaking it in her own image, updating it for post-9/11 America with an intense interest in military issues.
At the same time, she’s also experimenting with an increasingly national message about smart government and GOP extremism and testing new, unthreatening ways of revisiting her most politically disastrous issue: healthcare. In one setting after another, she offered the same impromptu-seeming refrain: “You may remember that when my husband was President, I tried to do something about healthcare. Well, I still have the scars to show for it. But I haven’t given up.” That’s a line worthy of the man Hillary married–you can picture Bill sitting at the kitchen table in Chappaqua, repeating the line and chuckling, “That’s good. That’s really good.”
“I haven’t given up.” In other words, no matter what you hear about Hilary Clinton moving to the center, she’s still going to Cubanize the American health care system, because what is wrong with it should be obvious to everyone: insufficient socialism.
I won’t be at all surprised if she’s the next President. Chelsea’s not ready and after two terms of a Bush, it’s clearly a Clinton’s term.
Isn’t that how it works?