Jennifer Rubin: Hillary Clinton's Speech Succeeded Entirely

Again, Tom Brown pointed me to what the conservatives are saying.

Jennifer Rubin liked what she heard:

"As to her description of her own policies, many Americans will disagree with her assertion that the Iran deal left the U.S. safer than before we gave the mullahs $100 billion and a pathway to nuclear breakout. We, and others, recognized that her speech avoided discussion of the military funding, as if a foreign policy including a plan to defeat the Islamic State does not need a robust military as its foundation. She is no Jeb Bush or Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), to be sure. She is a Democrat in a party moving steadily left. We are left to hope she will act on her past assertions that we must be more proactive in checking Iran’s regional aggression, missile tests and human rights abuses. (As for bolstering the military budget, that will no doubt require a strong push from Congress, requiring that Republicans hold the majorities in the House and Senate.)"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/06/03/hillarys-best-speech-to-date/

Yes, she's not Jeb Bush, Thank God. And Ms. Rubin, while I appreciate your positive analysis of Hillary Clinton, it's helpful for you to point out she's no Jeb or Tom Cotton. No doubt some liberals think it's a bad thing that you find anything about her praiseworthy.

Not me. I welcome all GOPers attracted to Hillary's basic competence and sanity. But it helps to remind everyone that she is not a GOPer. She won't raise military spending or send in ground troops.

"Certainly this speech had a more centrist, hawkish tone than what we have heard from the president for seven years. In defending our alliances as essential to national security she implicitly rejected both President Obama’s and Trump’s griping about free riders. “Yes, our friends need to contribute their fair share. I made that point long before Donald Trump came onto the scene – and a number of them have increased their defense spending,” she said. “The real debate here is whether we keep these alliances strong or cut them off. What he says would weaken our country."

This is part of a complicated debate about the legacy of President Obama's foreign policy. Could Hillary be the best of both worlds? A little less reticent to use American power than the President, but nothing like the GOP desire for perpetual war?

"In sum, her purpose was to paint Trump as a menace to the country and herself as an experienced, sober leader. She succeeded entirely with the former, and to the surprise of many of her critics, made a strong argument for the latter. That should be of comfort to the millions of Republicans and independents who cannot bring themselves to vote for Trump."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/06/03/hillarys-best-speech-to-date/

Dan Drezner notes it's hard to say whether Hillary's foreign policy is Left or Right wing.

"It’s a compelling argument, both in terms of foreign policy and in terms of the 2016 campaign. When the best defense that elected Republican officials can offer for Trump right now is: “We have a Congress. We have the Supreme Court. We’re not Romania,” it suggests that the presumptive GOP nominee for president is not to be trusted with power."

"Josh Barro ably sums up why Clinton’s thesis is compelling:

"A great thing about this argument is that it’s a good reason for a conservative to vote against Trump, or for a moderate to do so, or a liberal, or a socialist, or somebody almost anywhere else on the political spectrum. If you’re against nuclear war and global economic crisis, then this argument speaks to your concerns.

The thing is, this speech was almost entirely about Trump and very little about Clinton. Sure, she referenced her foreign policy experience, but as other commentators pointed out, politicians ranging from Bernie Sanders to Marco Rubio could have said 95 percent of that speech without any alterations whatsoever. It was not so much a speech about Clinton’s positive attributes as Trump’s negative qualities."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/06/03/why-hillary-clintons-foreign-policy-speech-is-almost-impossible-to-analyze/

Sure, but why is this a problem? Elections are binary choices. The next President of the United States will be either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

The Berner complaint: but Bernie Sanders is more progressive than Hillary Clinton is meaningless. If you don't want Hillary than you choose Trump or vice versa.

Why voters select one choice over the other is a complex process. There are all kinds of reasons. When a candidate gets 60 million people to vote for him or her, the reason why each pulled the lever will vary.

Some will vote affirmatively for Candidate A. That's me and the Hillary supporters in this primary. Our choice for Hillary is affirmative. Because we think she's' the best candidate.

But loyal partisans are not enough in the general election. There you also need the Tom Browns of the world who less love the Democrats than simply hate the Republicans who less love Hillary than simply have nightmares at the thought of Donald Trump having the nuclear codes.

It''s not like Hillary does not have some strongly liberal policies that she's drawn out in great depth.

But with a candidate like Trump she has the opportunity to win even the Jennifer Rubins of the world. Matt Yglesais called her speech yesterday a 70-30 speech.

Some ideological liberals want her to run a 51-49 campaign.

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2016/06/hillarys-70-30-speech.html

Why not go for 70-30 if it's available?

When you can win with the layup why insist on an backwards slam dunk on every drive?

Hitting Trump on being someone you don't want anywhere near the nuclear codes in a million years is the layup. You have a layup you take it.

It's not going to be her whole campaign. A succesful campaign will always proceed on several tracks.

She has a strong agenda for raising wages and incomes, to expand Medicare, and taking on college debt.

But pointing out Trump's utter unfitness for office is clearly a big part of it-she'd be stupid not to and Hillary Clinton is not stupid.

"This leads to the second problem: Commentators are already saying that Clinton is to the right of Trump on foreign policy, following up on previous pundit claims that Clinton is more hawkish than Trump on matters of national security."

I think this is dead wrong. How can someone that talks about using nuclear weapons, engaging in torture, and killing the families of suspected terrorists be the less hawkish candidate?

My sense is a President Trump could very easily lead us into war. After all, look at the way he handles conflict when he doesn't have access to the nuclear codes. Some think his advisers will save us from Trump going nuclear. Who? Roger Stone? Corey Lewandowski? That Trump lawyer who says that married women can't be raped? That vitamin water salesman who is defending Trump U?

Chris Christie who shutdown the George Washington Bridge to punish political opponents?

"But those appellations don’t really work in this case. Left-right distinctions are pretty useless when it comes to talking about foreign policy. Hawk-dove distinctions can be more useful in general but not in this case. Trump has made so many nutty statements that it’s pretty easy to paint him as the more hawkish candidate."

"Look, if you want to intellectualize the foreign policy portion of this campaign, let me suggest relying on Walter Russell Mead’s typologies. On foreign policy, this election is about Clinton uniting the Hamiltonians and Wilsonians, the Jacksonians finding their savior in Trump, and the Jeffersonians pulling their hair out in despair. But I’m not even sure that’s completely accurate."

"As I’ve said for a while now, trying to use Trump as a crowbar to open up a larger debate on foreign policy won’t work, because he is the worst messenger ever."

"Clinton gave a good foreign policy speech. Just don’t think about it too much, because her core argument is “I’m an adult and therefore not Donald Trump.”

Take the layup.