Posted on 08/08/2005 12:24:47 PM PDT by Dems_R_Losers
If Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s rightward march continues, her media cheerleaders will relaunch her as “Hillary Rodham Goldwater.” Sympathetic commentators have ballyhooed the New York Democrat’s shift toward the center. Each of her less-than-socialist utterings confirms her mounting moderation.
Don’t believe the hype: The Duchess of Chappaqua remains a committed liberal Democrat. Her capture of the White House would advance limited government about as much as a Walter Mondale or an Al Gore victory would have.
Clinton’s votes, rated by both conservative and liberal groups, expose her as an Exacta-grade thoroughbred to statist liberals and a scoliotic nag to free-market conservatives. From 0 to 100, “the middle” should rest somewhere between 33 and 66. Clinton scores well below 33 on conservative vote tallies and far higher than 66 on liberal evaluations.
The American Conservative Union gave Clinton a zero for her 2004 Senate votes. Her career ACU rating is just 9. Among other things, Clinton opposed a bill to criminalize the injury or death of a fetus during a violent offense. She also favored hiking the top tax rate from 35 percent to 36 percent and spurned legislation to promote testing and deployment of a missile defense shield.
For her 2004 Senate votes, the National Taxpayer’s Union gave Clinton an 11 percent rating — an F.
In addition, NTU’s Bill Tally for the 108th Congress revealed that Clinton is the Senate’s second biggest spender, right behind Jon Corzine (D., N.J.). She sponsored or cosponsored 211 bills to boost expenditures and only three to curb outlays. Were they all enacted, new federal spending would have jumped $378.2 billion annually.
“That’s the largest number of bills to increase spending supported by any Senator,” says NTU’s Pete Sepp. “Corzine would have spent more money annually ($440.7 billion), but he backed fewer pieces of legislation than did Hillary Clinton.”
Clinton’s 2004 votes scored her 8 percent approval from Citizens Against Government Waste, matching her 8 percent lifetime rating.
“Hillary Clinton’s 2004 rating, the 19th worst in the entire Senate, was far below average for a Senate Democrat,” according to CAGW president Tom Schatz. “Senate Democrats had an average rating of 16 percent in 2004 and 19 percent lifetime. The entire Senate’s average rating in 2004 was 40 percent.” CAGW’s complete 2004 ratings will be released later this month.
Clinton and New York’s senior Democratic senator, Charles Schumer, were CAGW’s “Porkers of the Month” last February for fighting President Bush’s proposed reforms of the Community Development Block Grant Program. While Clinton called it “a lifeline for many individuals already struggling to make ends meet,” the administration has criticized its “unclear purpose, loose targeting requirements, and lack of results.” These grants included $25,000 to help construct a music conservatory and $500,000 for “streetscape improvements” — both in Westchester, one of America’s poshest counties.
The American Security Council, a conservative foreign-policy organization, gave Clinton a 20 for her record in the 108th Congress. Her votes to shift $5.03 billion from Iraqi reconstruction to domestic programs and to strike research funds on a nuclear “bunker buster” weapon, among others, violated ASC’s credo: “Peace through strength.”
Clinton’s grand slams on the left parallel her strikeouts on the right.
Americans for Democratic Action calls its ratings “the standard measure of political liberalism.” The April 2005 ADA Today awarded Clinton a 95 rating for opposing nearly all of the “vile reactionary projects that this extremist regime raised before Congress this past year.”
For her 2003 votes, Ralph Nader’s Public Interest Research Group gave Clinton a 95 percent rating, exceeding her 87-percent career average.
Clinton earned a 100 percent rating for 2004 from AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, the bureaucrats’ union. This matched her perfect career record for advancing the agenda of government workers.
Clinton scored a 100 percent rating for 2004 from NARAL Pro-Choice America, the former National Abortion Rights Action League. It applauded Clinton for opposing the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004. As its website explains: “The legislation would recognize the ‘unborn child’ as a seperate [sic] victim when a pregnant woman is assualted [sic] or killed.”
What about Clinton’s call last January for Americans to find “common ground” on abortion? What the press trumpeted as an overture to pro-lifers “turns out to be recycled remarks from when her husband was still president,” the New York Post’s Eric Fettmann discovered. Clinton delivered the same remarks to NARAL gatherings in 1999 and 2005, only this time they somehow showed her sympathy for the pro-life cause. Fettmann isn’t buying: “Same speech, same sentiments, same audience. Doesn’t anyone use Google anymore?”
Even by the nonpartisan National Journal’s analysis, Clinton is solidly left of center. For 2004, the Washington-based publication gave her a composite liberal score of 71 and a composite conservative rating of 29.
Clinton’s secret weapon may be star-struck Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich who love to be seen in public with her. Gingrich — who once famously said about Bill Clinton, “I have a real problem. I melt when I’m around him” — looked like a runny pat of butter beside the former First Lady as they promoted a health-records modernization proposal last May.
So, with Republican help, the fake’s progress continues. As journalists wave their pom-poms, Hillary Rodham Clinton blurs her image and increasingly calls the political center her base. Just one little thing spoils this pretty picture: Her Senate vote record.
— Deroy Murdock is a New York-based columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a senior fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in Fairfax, Virginia.
Amazing, isn't it? But all predictable. THE BIG LIE marches forward. Excluding voting Dems, how stupid do they think people are ???
Or a Republican President with a Republican Congress.
The only decent thing that might come out of her (or some other democrat) being elected as POTUS would be that the Congressional and Senatorial Republicans might actually band together and block her initiatives and grand spending designs. The current deal between Bush and legislative branch isn't working.
Remember, Bill had no choice but to play ball with Gingrich
I hope she runs - I intend to put up a billboard saying "Let's Impeach ANOTHER Clinton~!!"
A FReeper Keeper to be pulled out during the campaign....
Not stupid enough, evidently, which is why she wants to give felons the right to vote.
I disagree. Hillary has never been a "committed liberal Democrat". She is now and always has been committed to her own advancement and nothing else.
What an excellent moniker. Hope it sticks.
Senator FLAKE!
Although it might take in a few gullible "undecided" voters,
the real purpose of the present Legacy Media wall-to-wall
coverage of the "shift" is to put the faithful on notice
that it's all a sham, and that they shouldn't get too
concerned about it.
15 years ago, it would have worked (taken in more voters,
as pretty much the same gambit did when Hillary's
supposed spouse ran).
Not today.
My sentiments exactly. I was about to post a nearly identical comment to yours. If the republicans continue passing pork-laden spending bills like they have the past 4 years, the small-government conservatives will sit the election out and Hillary will be anointed
We'll need info like this to try and refute the existing and coming media campaign to make 'Hillary' synonomous with 'moderate.'
So when does the MSM start demanding that she release her college thesis? Privacy is a wonderful thing but inquiring minds want to know. Even transcripts of private meetings are being requested of Judge Roberts. What gives HRC the privilege of non-disclosure?
And this Gingrich quote about Bill Clinton is amazing. Imagine him going to do battle with him with such a disposition.
It may be severe, but Republicans really should avoid any photo-ops with Hillary.
.
"NEVER TRUST ANOTHER CLINTON" =
...Freeper Ron Dog's Sign held outside HILLARY's Vroman Bookstore Booksigning in Pasadena CA, 6/29/2003
FITS.
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/938640/posts
.
Blech.
What in the heck is Gingrich's problem these days?
Exactly.
With a President like Bush, who needs a Clinton?
If Hillary was really going to the right she would change parties. Democrats are lefties, we all know that except for the few idiots that will believe she is really switching to a condervative view.
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