Chicago, IL, December 2005

Ooh-ooh, hot. Hot. HOT! The presidential election bath water cools for one year. Then Windy City radicals turn the “H” spigot up all the way by year's end. Oh screw it: Just jump right in!

With talk of the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primaries heating up in '06, a classic face-off on the home front is erupting. As always, it's a question of change. Will front-runner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) develop a bold, progressive spine involving Iraq and military spending? Or will anti-war, non-anarchist activists develop a “realist/centrist” frontal lobe, support her inevitable bid, and wave Red, White and Blue (and pink) flags on the rocky road towards electioneering our first woman U.S. president?

Early signs during a Hillary swing through chilly Chicago last December—where she met an equally chilly, vocal and well-publicized protest—indicate: Neither conversion is likely.

For those undecided who lean anti-war, the question of whether to support history-in-the-making in 2008 is its own quagmire. Is Clinton's quiet stance on the war worth shutting down her considerable political capital and name recognition to back some other candidate in 2008 that sounds like Howard Dean without the scream?

Out of curiosity more than allegiance, my Chicago friends woke up early Saturday, December 2, to grab nose-bleed seats at a Hillary Clinton speech for The American Democracy Institute at the packed Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University. We were welcomed by light security; she was greeted with heavy derision by anti-war protesters. As Clinton started speaking, at least a dozen people stood and tried to shut her up by chanting “Troops Out Now,” tossing flyers, and raising umbrellas and banners. Clinton handled the outburst by trying to shut them down from the stage. For the most part, she did just that with the help of a majority of the 4,000 attendees—though hair-pulling Secret Service agents reportedly played their small role, too (see http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/66431). I missed the violence, sat anxiously, and had a smile on my face during the whole affair.

My first thought was smarmy: There's definitely a How-To book for politicians in Washington for this. Possibly a “Shutting Up Hecklers for Dummies” pamphlet for light readers.

My second thought: This is damn awkward. Visceral, even. And thrilling. Democracy in action is usually all three and much more—it's bizarre. I relished watching Clinton go toe-to-toe with kindred '00s versions of her and Bill in the '60s. Yet I doubt those two wonks were ever brave enough to actually be the vocal .5% dissidents of any audience. Face it, they're conformists. Today's Hillary Clinton would have made both Dicks—Nixon and Daley I—proud: Talking over the chants, she prompted the overwhelmingly pro-Hillary masses to cheer and out-boo the protestors, asking if we'd rather listen to her speak. As if on cue, the milquetoast moderate crowd essentially bashed the True Pacifist Believers into silence. I sat this one out.

To sum up my firsthand impression of the protest: Yea!, the dissenters had their say; and Yea!, eventually we got to hear Hillary speak; but Nay!, she didn't say much that was substantial on the issues involved in an Iraq pull-out–or her mostly Yea! Senate votes authorizing war and spending.

She didn't truly answer the protestors as she promised when pleading for them to hush up. When she finally got to Iraq, her I-wish-I-could-turn-back-time-but-I-can't excuse was worthy of Cher, not an engaged and thoughtful assembly. She barely defended her position, and that's the problem.

Clinton comes across as intelligent, warm, inclusive, and insightful, but that's the political veil of a veteran speaker. The real point should be one of substance: What IS Hillary's stance on…well, everything—specifically, the never-ending and costly “War on Terrorism” and our short-sighted foreign policy that perpetuates anti-American sentiments abroad. These unstable external political follies directly affect treasury spending and any hope on breakthrough domestic issues (i.e. universal healthcare, “Clinton's Baby”). What are Clinton's stances on strong and consistent human rights? (To her credit, she did make strong statements in Chicago on the genocide in Sudan.) An equitable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? (She's overwhelmingly pro-Israel, despite the 3:1 ratio of Palestinians to Israelis killed.) Is she capable of putting principal above politics on domestic spying, torture, and “enemy combatant” military tribunals sans habeas corpus—or does she not want to appear “Anti-American” or hurt her personal chances in 2008?

Where are her bold calls for solutions on any of the above after six years as junior senator from New York?

If you consider yourself progressive or liberal, do you really care if her stances as the Democratic hopeful sound closer to the Bush's neoconservative administration than a Kucinich or Mosley-Braun creeping among the grassroots plains of colleges and fundraiser banquets?

If you do, I suggest you start your Googling, Yahooing, and librarying on Hillary Clinton. One place to start is to understand Clinton's role on the high profile Armed Services Committee, where her pro-defense “third-way” approach on foreign policy is eroding her base on the left. In the end, she rides the center-to-right on most issues outside this country, and is silent on issues if they hurt her politically.

Many in Chicago and elsewhere have already done their homework.

Clearly, public support is turning strongly against the war, and all-women peace groups such as CODEPINK aren't just turning their backs on Clinton, they're stalking her. In fact, CODEPINK's plan in their “Bird-dog Hillary” nationwide campaign is to hunt Hillary wherever she goes, shame her with colorful signs, and rustle an out-of-Iraq-now pronouncement away from of her current Bush-lite position. One large sign outside the $500-per-VIP Crobar fundraiser that first Saturday night in December said it all: “Healthcare Not Warfare.” It's guns-and-butter choices, and she didn't mention the $195 million-per-day war inside the hoity-toity Crobar, either.

Overall on December 2, protesters and rabble-rousers made their claims known. Everyone from the TV stations to the independent media covered it. Some did so more sensationally than others.

Which begs the cliche: How Does it Play in Peoria? Honestly, maybe not always as well as agitators hope. In terms of finding answers to the many questions of Clinton's words and voting record on the war, there has been some fall-out.

To begin with the mainstream press, a December 12, 2005, Washington Post article (“Hillary Clinton Crafts Centrist Stance on War” presents Clinton's outline for Iraq withdrawal as weak-kneed and counter to a belated but growing throng in the Democratic party. “I reject a rigid timetable that the terrorists can exploit,” says Clinton, while continuing, “and I reject an open timetable that has no ending attached to it.”

Basically I've known this for a long time: correctly or not, right or wrong, there's a paradigm in the United States. To run for president, you need to posture as a Hawk. Paradoxically, this runs counter to the political notion that if you stand by your convictions, Americans don't care. Bush wins on both counts in '04, so that's hard to test. Hillary Rodham Clinton (like her husband Bill before her) essentially does fly the skies with flesh in teeth. In fact, her two-term Commander-in-Chief hubby said as much on 60 Minutes on New Years Day, 2006. Bill deftly (or slickly) eluded the Dan Rather trap set to make him admit any desire to be the first “First Husband” and return to Air Force One, and instead stayed on Clinton Dynasty message by propping up the archetype that a woman presidential candidate—whoever she may be—has to appear “strong” to the American people.

I remember when she was once tagged a “liberal” out of touch with the American people. Now she's consciously shaking that label, with Bill's help and Team Hillary's machinery.

Hillary Clinton got protested for a reason. Clinton does not want to get out of Iraq now, unlike many anti-war activists, and disagrees openly with the Democrat's vanguard former-Hawk, Rep. Jack Murtha, D-Pa, who calls for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. She calls Murtha's ideas “a big mistake,” and adds, “I think that would cause more problems for us in America. It will matter to us if Iraq totally collapses into civil war, if it becomes a failed state the way Afghanistan was, where terrorists are free to basically set up camp and launch attacks against us.” Here, she sounds no different than Cheney on the Sunday talk-show circuit.

Yet her fan base is knee-jerk. It's telling that so many Democrats and liberal people want her to run and WIN for president. Why is this, beyond the obvious equation: Clinton + Strong Woman = Rabid Fan-base? Sure, the idea of a first woman president is appealing—and important on countless levels. But at what cost? Hillary represents the pro-corporate wing of the Democratic Party. She is also ostensibly pro-war.

Personally, after hearing her in Chicago, I believe she has the credentials, brains, X-factor, and can actually SPEAK, ahem, “Presidentially.” Clinton's smart. She could beat a John McCain or a Chuck Hagel in a debate. I was impressed with her style, but what about her substance? Can she follow through? Can she be trusted? I have doubts, because like her husband before her, she wants to be everything to everybody…in short, a politician, and I guess I never expected any different. But you always hope.

When it comes to the issues, it's obvious there are candidates I'd prefer—like Dean, who won't run (and yes, who is doing important work as chairman of the DNC). I'll keep an open mind when it comes to the primaries. Even regarding Hillary. In the end, one has to choose one of three routes: a liberal Democrat (most likely for me, I'll support campaign finance reformer and Patriot Act dissenter Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), ; a “political animal” centrist Democrat who supports Iraq and is “tough on crime,” and compromises left and right (Clinton, to a lesser extent, Kerry); or, gulp, go Green (not again!).

These are our choices, between God and Mammon (and Nader). Hillary, it seems, is serving All the Above.