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Tuesday 6 January 2009

Hillary talks God and the economy

The sub-text of Hillary Clinton’s event in Columbia was that black voters shouldn’t feel bad about not supporting Obama.  Clinton had prominent New York Congressman Charlie Rangel, the most powerful African-American in Congress, and former New York City mayor David Dinkins vouch for her and the opening speaker, a local female black politician, urged the audience not to vote on “pure emotion” but in the best interests of the community.

Rangel repeatedly hit Obama on the question of whether he is ready. He declared that Democrats should vote for “someone who could do a job as opposed to someone who you hope and dream could do a job.”

Hillary was relatively low energy but full of her usual policy wonkery and emphasising the economy at every turn which really does emphasise her strength that she is ready to lead from day one. Interestingly, here in a College Chapel she emphasised her religiosity far more than usual saying it is “prayer we ultimately rely on.”

On foreign policy, she is now fully embracing the Iraq good Afghanistan bad line; announcing that the next president has “a war to end in Iraq and a war to win in Afghanistan.”  She also hit the Iraqi government in cheap nationalistic terms, saying “we’re going to make it clear to the Iraqi government that their blank cheque is no longer valid.”

Hillary, though, gives no hint about what happens next in Iraq. US troops, she says, will begin withdrawing in 60 days and she does to her credit talk about how withdrawing can not be done over night but there is not even an inkling of a regional strategy or how the US stabilises the country after it leaves.

Hillary events are low on inspiration but high on policy—her new slogan is “solutions for America.” The only time the crowd, largely made up of students, really got going was when she went after the student loan companies. But you sense that she knows now that all she needs to do here is avoid an embarrassingly large defeat as the contours of the campaign are now playing to her advantage. Indeed, as long as ihe economy remains centre stage it is hard to see how Obama gets round her on Super Tuesday.

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