Slate Magazine: John Dickerson: Hillary Clinton's New Book Hard Choices Plays it Safe

(via Hillary Clinton’s Hard Choices: Former secretary of state’s new book plays it safe.) 

Hillary Clinton did a book event last Friday with a local Washington book store Politics and Prose and was interviewed there by a women who worked for her at the White House in the 1990s and when Hillary was Secretary of State during the first Obama Administration. In her speech she was talking about hard choices even though she really didn’t mention any that she made herself. And also talked about big ideas even though she really didn’t mention any of her own. 

This is the major weakness of Hillary Clinton as a presidential candidate and why she’s not President of the United States right now. She doesn’t let people know what she is about politically and doesn’t want to take hard stances on key issues other than the traditional key Democratic issues as it relates to women’s issues and civil rights. But then doesn’t seem to want to be on the record of the 21st Century Liberal Democratic issues as it relates to the War on Drugs and marijuana. To go along with privacy especially at it relates to the War on Terrorism. 

Hillary wants to be where she believes is the safest place for her politically. But she sees and American political scene that is looking for a strong leadership and strong leaders. So she believes the way to capture those voters is to talk about those things and try to convince people without giving much evidence to support herself as a strong leader that she believes in strong leadership too. So she talks about the need for ‘big ideas’ and writes a book called Hard Choices without laying out those things. 

If Hillary Clinton can’t communicate to the American voters Democrats and otherwise of why she should be the next President of the United States other than the need for electing a female President, she’ll lose another Democratic presidential contest where she was the heavy favorite going in. Because at the end of the day American voters want to know who they may vote for and what would come with electing that person and where they are on the key issues of the day.