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December 13, 2004

Hillary To The Right

Hillary is getting ready for 2008, and this is her first attempt to move to the right:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is staking out a position on illegal immigration that is more conservative than President Bush, a strategy that supporters and detractors alike see as a way for the New York Democrat to shake the "liberal" label and appeal to traditionally Republican states.

Mrs. Clinton — who is tagged as a liberal because of her plan for nationalized health care and various remarks during her husband's presidency — is taking an increasingly vocal and hard-line stance on an issue that ranks among the highest concerns for voters, particularly Republicans.

"Bush has done everything he can to leave the doors wide open," said Robert Kunst, president of HillaryNow.com, a group dedicated to drafting Mrs. Clinton to run for president. "Hillary is the only one taking a position on immigration. She will win that issue hands down."

In an interview last month on Fox News, Mrs. Clinton said she does not "think that we have protected our borders or our ports or provided our first responders with the resources they need, so we can do more and we can do better."

In an interview on WABC radio, she said: "I am, you know, adamantly against illegal immigrants."

"Clearly, we have to make some tough decisions as a country, and one of them ought to be coming up with a much better entry-and-exit system so that if we're going to let people in for the work that otherwise would not be done, let's have a system that keeps track of them," she said.

Unlike many pro-business Republicans, Mrs. Clinton also has castigated Americans for hiring illegal aliens.

"People have to stop employing illegal immigrants," she said. "I mean, come up to Westchester, go to Suffolk and Nassau counties, stand on the street corners in Brooklyn or the Bronx. You're going to see loads of people waiting to get picked up to go do yard work and construction work and domestic work."

In contrast, Mr. Bush backs a guest-worker program that allows foreign citizens entry into the United States and an eventual path to citizenship. One of the president's first acts after his re-election was to push for it again, before both domestic and foreign audiences.

Mrs. Clinton's position has been noticed by Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican and leading proponent of stricter immigration controls.

"She's not a dumb woman," Tancredo spokesman Carlos Espinoza said. "She's got a great liberal base, and she realizes there's no better way to draw in more conservative voters. She has really come out to the forefront on that."

Hindrocket:

It's interesting that she apparently doesn't believe that going conservative on immigration will hurt her among Democratic primary voters--another indication that immigration reform is a bipartisan issue. Looking toward the general election, assuming Hillary were to win the nomination, her opponent, obviously, won't be President Bush. So being to his right on immigration is of limited relevance.

As we've said before, a large majority of Americans wants immigration reform. The main reason we haven't seen it so far is that both parties have been willing to ignore the will of the majority. Once that monopoly is broken--again, assuming Hillary is the nominee--it's hard to imagine that the Republican candidate won't likewise take a more conservative position on immigratiion. Which could, perhaps, lead to real reform at last.

One more thought: Hillary's relatively conservative stand on immigration is part and parcel of her relatively conservative view (for a Democrat) of the war on terror. She is betting, I think, that in 2008 security will be as pivotal an issue with voters as it is now. If the Bush administration is as successful over the next four years in preventing terrorist attacks as it has been for the last three, that may or may not prove to be true.

Hillary is the ultimate chameleon. If she finds that this issue doesn't work for her, she'll have a hundred more to pivot on before the primaries of 2008.

Whatever it takes.

Posted at 07:06 PM Pacific