Pen is Mightier.
Dueling fund-raising letters were recently released by the New York State GOP and Hillary. State Republican Chairman Stephen Minarik wrote that "our favorite carpetbagger is up for re-election in 2006 and hungrily eyeing a run for the White House in 2008. If we soundly defeat her in 2006, her hopes of running for President will wither on the vine." Political veterans, however, believe New York Republicans should consider a close loss to Sen. Clinton in 2006 to be a moral victory, rather than dreaming of "soundly" beating her. The anti-Hillary letter continued: "If the thought of Hillary Clinton as our commander-in-chief strikes fear into your heart, you are not alone." It continued, "There are millions of Republicans and even a few common-sense Democrats here in New York whose biggest fear is another President Clinton." The GOP letter also noted Hillary's recent support for legislation allowing ex-felons to vote, saying that "Hillary's vision of a better America is one where your vote is canceled out by a murderer or a rapist." The state party is also making phone calls, with one script telling listeners that "Hillary Clinton is using her Senate seat as a springboard to the presidency, and that would be a disaster for America." The phone calls appear to be working at this point, as one party aide recently said, "We took in $50,000 from our calls last week. Normally, the calls raise about $11,000 a week." However, Hillary is not taking these hard-hitting attacks sitting down. She has asked supporters to write checks because "you have to fight back, and you can't sit back and let baseless attacks go unanswered." Mentioning the recent GOP ads, she continued: "As you know, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and their right-wing allies have already begun invoking my name to try to build support for their radical political agenda and policy goals...blasting out negative attacks designed to distort my record and undercut my support with the voters of New York." Hillary also says, "If there is one thing that I have learned in my years in politics, it's that you can't let the opposition set the terms of the debate," and promised a "strong, forceful campaign from the very start, so that our political opponents do not get the upper hand in the early going."
Hill Attacks Alan.
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan appeared before a Senate committee recently to talk about Social Security reform, and Hillary was waiting for him. When the talk turned to the promising surplus forecasts that Greenspan relied on to support President Bush's 2001 tax cuts, the former First Lady pounced. "It turns out that we were all wrong," Greenspan admitted. But Hillary quickly snapped: "Just for the record, we were not all wrong, but many people were wrong." Hillary had joined with most of her Democrat colleagues to vote against the 2001 tax cuts, and one of their stated reasons was that the federal deficits would explode. Of course, this was before the 9/11 attacks and the global War on Terror, which helped to both slow economic growth and vastly increase federal spending.
Old Man Rivers.
Back in January, Hillary had appeared at a fund-raiser in Boston for a faith-based group led by the Rev. Eugene Rivers. Although it appeared back then to be a smart move by the senator to appeal to religious voters, the Village Voice recently reported that Rivers is-gasp!- "willing to do business with the Bush White House." In addition to going to the White House not even a week after appearing with Hillary, Rivers has appeared in documents issued by the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives pushing "one of its most controversial elements-that faith-based charities be allowed to ignore state and local anti-discrimination laws but still receive federal money." But worst of all, Rivers is an outspoken opponent of homosexual "marriage." He even dared to appear at forums hosted by the "anti-gay" Family Research Council and denounced homosexuals for co-opting "civil rights" to advance their cause. But although the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's Policy Institute called HRC's appearance with Rivers "disturbing," for the most part her affiliation with this "demagogue" has gone unnoticed by liberals. One Democrat operative thought the venue made the difference: "I don't think Hillary would've shown up with someone like that in New York." According to her press flack Philippe Reines, Hillary didn't know of Rivers' previous comments on homosexual "marriage" until right before she delivered her speech, and her participation in the event was in no way an affirmation of those views. In fact, Reines claimed, Sen. Clinton opposes gay marriage, even though she voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment and has been a long-time supporter of civil unions.
