New York Post [editorial] - June 1, 2006
HILLARY'S HOPES
Hillary Clinton yesterday won the unan imous approval of delegates at the state Democratic Party convention in her bid for re-election to the U.S. Senate.
She earned it. The senator's been a hard worker, a good listener, more moderate than many expected and a champion of the state.
Plus, New York Republicans - who opened their own convention yesterday in a cavernous, largely empty Long Island meeting hall - haven't offered much by way of opposition.
But let's not be coy.
She's running for more than re-election to the Senate.
Which is fine. New Yorkers expect their pols to be national contenders.
Sometimes it pans out - as with Teddy Roosevelt and his cousin Franklin.
Sometimes it doesn't, as with Al Smith, Tom Dewey and Nelson Rockefeller.
And sometimes it's a joke, as with George Pataki, who addressed the GOP convention yesterday to limp applause and empty seats - a condition for which he has no one to blame but himself.
Meanwhile, Sen. Clinton yesterday delivered a policy address which demonstrated that, when it comes to fundamentals, she still gets it mostly wrong.
She blamed oil companies for gas prices - even though it is her own Democratic Party that has sought to over-regulate the industry, super- tax its profits and block oil exploration.
And she started to waltz away from the war she voted for: "Stand with me," she asked New Yorkers, "as we put pressure on both the administration and the new Iraqi government."
But having backed Operation Iraqi Freedom, she should be willing to "stand by" . . . her vote - and admit that no war goes perfectly or exactly as planned.
Instead of obsessing about how to "bring our troops home," Clinton - and her fellow Dems - ought to back President Bush's efforts to win the war in Iraq, and to make sure that that infant nation is strong enough to resist terrorists and insurgents who want to use it the way al Qaeda used Afghanistan.
Clinton even dared to mention the one subject that so galvanized her enemies in the '90s: health care.
Yesterday, she griped merely that some Americans have no insurance. Maybe that's progress: Back then, she sought to socialize the entire industry - i.e., about one-seventh of the U.S. economy.
Again, New York could do worse than Hillary Clinton - a blue Democrat in a blue Democratic state.
But the junior senator also made mention of her immediate predecessor: Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
Should she follow more closely in his footsteps, not only New York, but the nation, might be a whole lot better for it.
Is that too much to hope for?