All entries for Saturday 20 January 2007

Hillary's In

It doesn’t come as a surprise to see Hillary Clinton announce a bid for the U.S. Presidency. But it does feel strange to hear her talking about it openly and passionately.

You see, for over a year now, Hillary’s said things like “We’ll see when the time comes”, “Whatever will be, will be”, and my personal favourite “I haven’t decided”.

She’s dodged every question about a potential run for the White House and so it’s nice to finally see her open up about her intentions. For one thing, it looked like a relief to her. When asked about a run, “I haven’t decided” was probably as close to a barefaced lie as you’ll get out of Clinton. She’s been working towards this for months.

There’s a train of thought that the last thing America needs is a inward-looking Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton theme to the Presidency. Hey, Jeb Bush might even make it five in a row!

But I’m not sure I give this ‘problem’ much truck, if only because the two families – apart from their obsession with politics – are so different.

For now though, I still find Barack Obama the more interesting candidate. Clinton spent eight years as the most proactive First Lady in history. We know pretty much what she stands for and what her priorities would be in office.

But Obama turns the personality up to 11. So if he can find a good reason to run, offer good answers to America’s problems and steady the rocky ship, then he’s got a pretty good chance of undoing the Bush/Clinton lock on the White House and ruining Hillary’s plans.

: 20 Jan 2007 20:26 |  Tags: Elections Hillary Clinton Politics Race For 2008 United States |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem