Clinton Is A Politician Not Easily Defined

Senator's Platform Remains Unclear

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 30, 2006; Page A01

Hillary
Rodham Clinton has fashioned a political persona that generates intense
passions but defies easy characterization. She is viewed as a hawk on
Iraq and national security, stamped as a big-government Democrat for
her work on health care in the 1990s, and depicted as seeking the
middle ground on abortion.

After three decades in public life,
New York's junior senator is one of the most recognized women in the
world, her every move and utterance interpreted amid the assumption in
Democratic circles and her own circle that her reelection campaign this
fall will pivot into a run for president in 2008. Yet for all her fame,
there are missing pieces to the Clinton puzzle: What does she stand
for? And where would she try to take the country if elected?

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is a potential 2008 presidential candidate. (By Charles Dharapak -- Associated Press)

Clinton's roles as senator, first lady, governor's wife, lawyer and
children's advocate have given her a depth of experience that few
national politicians can match, but she is still trying to demonstrate
whether these yielded a coherent governing philosophy. For now, she is
defined by a combination of celebrity and caution that strategists say
leaves her more vulnerable than most politicians to charges that she is
motivated more by personal ambition and tactical maneuver than by a
clear philosophy.

In recent weeks, Clinton has moved to clarify
her agenda with major speeches on the economy and energy. Later this
summer she will help present a new strategy for the Democrats. She has
also given speeches setting out her foreign policy views. But she has
yet to wrap up her ideas in a kind of package like the "New Democrat"
philosophy her husband, former president Bill Clinton, used in his 1992
campaign or the "compassionate conservative" label George W. Bush
adopted in 2000.

To the contrary, she made clear in a telephone
interview on Friday that her governing philosophy may never be easily
reduced to a slogan. "I don't think like that," she said. "I approach
each issue and problem from a perspective of combining my beliefs and
ideals with a search for practical solutions. It doesn't perhaps fit in
a preexisting box, but many of the problems we face as a nation don't
either."

As a result, everyone seems to have a label for her.
Roger Altman, a former Treasury Department official and one of her
outside advisers, calls Clinton "a modern centrist." William Galston of
the Brookings Institution, who was domestic policy adviser in the
Clinton White House, describes her as "a progressive without illusions"
and a politician who has been "consistent but complicated."

Her
detractors find much -- and much different -- to criticize. Liberal
columnist Molly Ivins dismisses Clinton as the embodiment of
"triangulation, calculation and equivocation." Markos Moulitsas, whose
Daily Kos Web site often attacks the Democratic establishment,
ridicules her as a leader who is "afraid to offend." The Rev. Jerry
Falwell, echoing a view shared by many Republicans, calls her a liberal
"ideologue" who is far more doctrinaire than her husband.

A
selective reading of Clinton's record can produce evidence to prove she
is a centrist, a liberal and much in between. But there are clear
patterns. On defense, she has consistently supported the use of force
abroad, having advocated military intervention in the Balkans during
her husband's administration. She differs with Bush administration
officials on many aspects of how they have conducted foreign policy,
but not on combating terrorism or the imperative of winning in Iraq.

Domestically,
she has a more complex profile, a product of life experiences that have
shaped and refined her approach to issues. She is an activist who
believes in the power of government to solve problems, but those
pro-government instincts have been tempered by the health-care debacle
of 1993-94 and the nation's budgetary squeeze. On family policy, she
has some traditional, even moralistic, instincts that those who know
her best say are genuine and deeply felt.

Asked whether there is
anything that connects her different interests and positions, she
answered in spacious language: "What's framed all the work I've done in
the Senate and all the years before that is my belief that our most
important obligation is to take care of our children . . . and that as
a nation, America should remain as a symbol of freedom and hope around
the world."

She believes government is an essential partner in a
three-sided relationship that also includes the free market, and a
"civil society" of churches and nonprofit groups. "I am a big believer
in self-help and personal responsibility and a work ethic that holds
people responsible," she said. "But I know one of the reasons our
country has been one of the most successful organizations in the world
is because we got the balance right."

A Polarizing Force

The
debate about Clinton's beliefs is linked to one about her electability.
Many Democrats fear she carries so much baggage that, if she becomes
the party's standard-bearer in 2008, she would prove too polarizing and
lead it to a third straight defeat. Many Republicans see a shrewd
politician who they fear would be a formidable opponent in a general
election and who, if elected, would move the country leftward.