2016 Presidential Candidate Profile: Hillary Clinton

Follow this link to read about my 2016 Presidential Candidate Profiles.

Candidate Profile: Hillary Clinton

Current Office: None

Age: 68 (born October 26, 1947)

Party: Democrat

Real Clear Politics Poll Average (as of December 19, 2015): National 55.9% (1^st); Iowa 51.7% (1^st); New Hampshire 42.7% (2^nd) [out of three candidates]¹

Campaign Website: hillaryclinton.com

Hillary Clinton is seeking the Democratic nomination for President. She was first lady as the wife of President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 2001. From 2001 to 2009, Clinton served as a United States Senator from New York. From 2009 to 2013, Clinton served as Secretary of State under President Barack Obama. Clinton previously sought the Democratic nomination for President in 2008, when she lost narrowly to now-President Barack Obama despite garnering more votes nationwide. Prior to entering politics, Clinton was a lawyer.

Immigration:

As a Senator, Hillary Clinton supported many attempts at “comprehensive immigration reform.” She supports a path to citizenship for those here illegally. Clinton supports both DACA [see blog] and DAPA, and pledges to expand the deferred action initiatives to protect families. Clinton seems to end family detention [see category] and focus immigration enforcement against those who pose a violent threat. She pledges to expand access to healthcare (including under Obamacare) to undocumented immigrants. In her 2008 campaign, Clinton opposed a border fence but supported more personnel on the border. Clinton has opposed measures to penalize “sanctuary cities.” Clinton supports admitting 65,000 Syrian refugees over three years.

Israel:

Hillary Clinton has pledged to improve relations with Israel if she becomes President. She cites her roll in brokering a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in 2011 on her campaign website. Clinton states on her website, “If anyone challenges Israel's security, they challenge America's security.” However, it must be noted that Clinton supported President Obama's efforts to forge the disastrous Iran nuclear deal both as Secretary of State and after leaving office. Then-Secretary Clinton was insufficiently wary of the Muslim Brotherhood when it took over Egypt after elections in 2012, although she now states that the uprising had a destabilizing impact. Clinton also supported President Obama's ill-conceived decision to withdraw American troops from Iraq in 2011.

Issue of Interest - Trust:

Hillary Clinton has been investigated by the Congress over her use of a private email server while she was Secretary of State and for her actions about the terrorist attack on Benghazi on September 11, 2012, where she also came under scrutiny for presenting the discredited theory that the attack was caused by an anti-Islamic move trailer. It will be interesting to see how Clinton handles the attacks in the general election provided that she is the Democratic nominee.

Conclusion:

If you have read the profiles on the Republican candidates that I have done, you should not be surprised to learn that I am not “Ready for Hillary.”

She has boilerplate left-wing positions on immigration that would provide benefits to those who have broken the law without any serious corresponding effort to buttress border security and immigration enforcement. Furthermore, she pledges to continue President Obama's lawless tendencies and act without the Congress. These policies may sound appealing to some, but in reality they are not permanent solutions because they continue to provide perverse incentives to break our immigration laws.

Although Clinton would be an improvement on Israel over the atrocious Obama/Kerry policies of the last three years, she would be far worse for Israel than nearly all of the Republican candidates. While she often says the right things, it is important to remember that she was a key architect of the Iran deal and has not consistently taken the threat of Islamist terrorism in the region as seriously as she should have.

I do not have a horse in the Democratic race, but a second President Clinton would probably be the least bad (everything is relative) of the three options. However, I hope that she is defeated in the general election by a strong Republican such as Chris Christie [see blog], Marco Rubio [see blog], or Jeb Bush [see blog], each of whom holds nearly categorically superior positions on the most important issues facing the next President.

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1. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/2016_democratic_presidential_nomination-3824.html (retrieved on December 20, 2015)

Resources and Materials:

http://www.ontheissues.org/Hillary_Clinton.htm