Hillary Clinton

Wow, I just read an article in the Economist which points out to me all the reasons I wanted Hillary Clinton to win the democratic nomination, the things I like and dislike about Obama, all the reasons I like and dislike McCain, and all the reasons that having Sarah Palin as his running mate scare me. (I don’t have any particular feelings about Joe Biden.)

Instead of voting, can we do a “Make your Own Candidate?”

Pasted directly from the descriptions of the candidates in the article from the Economist The Battle of Hope and Experience, here’s my MAKE A ‘DATE!

A working mother of five who grew up shooting moose for the freezer she is an athletic 47. Half-black, half-white, her rise from modest roots embodies the American dream. Not only does she preach racial reconciliation; her election would help achieve it. And a generation of black children would grow up with an ideal role model: a black president with a loving, intact family.

She approaches policy questions with an admirable mix of intellect and pragmatism. Her advisers marvel at her capacity to weigh complex arguments and pick solutions that seem both sensible and politically feasible.

She is a war hero who endured years of torture in Vietnam. She has often defied her own party in pursuit of centrist policies, such as banning torture, welcoming immigrants and tackling climate change. She has been a senator for 36 years and knows a lot about foreign policy.

She is a brave politician, who has often tried to do the difficult not the expedient thing. She would stay the course in Iraq, arguing that a hasty withdrawal would spark chaos. She would stand up to Russia and Iran. Like her rival, she would close Guantánamo.

On the economic front, she is a staunch free-trader. She would offer Americans near-universal health care. She endorses low taxes, but would raise taxes on the rich and [big] businesses, and trim them for the great bulk of the middle class. She agrees that Wall Street needs firmer oversight. She would set up a cap-and-trade system for curbing carbon emissions and lavish cash on alternative energy.

Her election would also help mend America’s shredded relations with the rest of the world, though probably less than her foreign fans imagine. Unlike George Bush, she soothingly espouses international co-operation. Her nuanced manner reassures Europeans. Her surname is African, her middle name is Arabic, she has Muslim forebears, she grew up partly in Asia and her skin colour is close to the global average. A recent poll of 22 countries by the BBC found that people in all 22 of them preferred her to her rival.

She wins top marks for raw talent. She can also claim sound judgment: though no pacifist, she opposed the Iraq war from the start, and backed the “surge” before it was popular.

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