Clinton A Lightning Rod for Both Sides Ahead Of 2008 Race

[Mark E. Smith]

7/31 Copley News Service

WASHINGTON - For very different reasons, Republican and liberal Democrats found themselves together last week protesting Hillary Rodham Clinton's efforts to stake out ground in the political center.

But the New York Senator holds such a dominant position in the jockeying for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination - even 2 1/2 years before the first caucus - that she has been able to brush of the early attacks from both her right and left.

When Clinton appeared in Columbus at the annual meeting of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, Ohio Republican Chairman Bob Bennett hurried to the scene to make sure reporters knew that the GOP was not about to let her shed her liberal reputation quite so fast.

"Hillary is now a centrist? I don't think so. We're not going to let that happen," Bennett said. His comments were echoed by the republican national Committee, which said in a statement that "she can't run from her hard-left record."

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20050731-9999-1n31hillary.html

I can't help wondering if the right and the left understand that the more they attack her, the more a perception of her occupying the political center becomes possible.

[madrchsod]

1. duh...she`s always been a centerist.

when she was in high school she was a moderate republican then in college she moved towards the left but since the republicans have moved so far to the right she was perceived as a " leftist democrat". she`s always been a centerist and she always will be.

[Son of California]

2. that last line there

really shrewd statement. So the radical Left or Right is not happy with her? so be it.

[Mark E. Smith]

4. Seems obvious, doesn't it?

I seriously doubt Hillary is losing any sleep over the attacks she's been subjected to lately. Be they from the right or the left.

I suspect it's what she hoped would happen.

[Larkspur]

3. I'm sure Corporate America will support her because

1) they may want to get the boobs out of the White House and get better PNAC/PPI management team in place or
2) they want to make the Dem Party a permanent minority party.

Hillary will continue the PNAC agenda. All that will change is the face of who sends more to die in foreign lands for oil.

[sandnsea]

5. Who is this Thomas Mann???

They think it's the liberals who support her? Oh good grief, the only Democrats I know who support Hillary are the moderates and independents. How can these people be so out of touch. It's mind boggling.

[Moderator]

6. Mark E. Smith

Per DU copyright rules
please post only four
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Thank you.


DU Moderator

[ibegurpard]

7. I wonder when the deluded people

who seem to think that Hillary will be able to stake a claim to moderate centrism are finally going to wake up to the reality that there is no way in hell that the Republican dominated media is going to allow her to be portrayed as anything but a radical-feminist communist-pinko-democrat.
This is, of course, after she gets the nomination (which they want to happen). You'd think Hillary would be smart enough to see this but apparently the only thing bigger than her IQ is her ego.

[election_2004]

8. It will happen when....

...those of us who realize how Hillary would be bad for the country in the White House are able to effectively persuade those people who currently have "soft" support for Hillary.

But that won't happen if we just brush it under the rug until December 2006.