It Takes Two Senators. Sen. Rick Santorum (R.-Pa.) has written a new book, It Takes a Family, which describes how liberal politics have hurt our culture, and whose title, of course, is a take on Hillary’s It Takes a Village. The two authors had a slight confrontation in the basement of the Senate, as they briskly walked by each other. “It takes a village, Rick, don’t forget that,” said Hillary. “It takes a family,” Santorum countered, to which Hillary responded: “Of course, a family is part of a village!” That was the extent of this intellectual debate, as the senators continued on in opposite directions. (Look for an exclusive interview with Santorum in Human Events in the coming weeks.)
Going Mexican. Hillary recently gave a speech in front of 2,500 members of the National Council of La Raza, a Latino advocacy group. She gave her audience what they were looking for: a presidential-type stump speech filled with all sorts of partisan attacks and campaign promises. “You are doing your part to make sure that every child and every American family has access to the tools necessary to live out their dreams, to have a piece of the American dream,” she said. “But I don’t know that your government is doing its part right now—I’m not sure that we are doing everything we should to make your job easier, to make sure that the opportunities in society are alive and well for everyone.” She spoke about how Hispanic kids need education, even if they came here illegally: “We need to open the doors of college to immigrant children who came here, did well in school and deserve to go on with their education.” She was specifically thinking of the DREAM Act, which offers in-state tuition to illegal aliens who graduate from American high schools (so much for her supposed stand against illegal immigration). Hillary was interrupted several times by loud applause and standing ovations.
Presidential Ambitions. Political experts viewed her appearance before the National Council of La Raza as being a practice run for the White House. One professor of public policy remarked, “This is about building this national constituency in this election that she’s going to run,” and the issues she spoke about, such as education and health care, “are exactly the topics you would expect her to talk about. They resonate the best with the organizations involved.”
In the Army Now. Hillary joined with three of her Senate Democrat colleagues in introducing a bill that would increase the Army’s numbers by 80,000 soldiers over four years. Hillary has urged bipartisan support for the bill, calling the situation a “crisis” that transcends political partisanship. “There have been other [end strength] proposals that have not fared well, although in recent months there seems to be an increasing recognition by the Department of Defense that they’re going to have to increase the end strength of the Army. And we hope that we can enlist the support of the Pentagon. But I would hope that this could be viewed as a national priority that we have to start addressing now,” she said.
Fund-raising Machine. Hillary raised $6 million over the last three months, leaving her with a total of $12.6 million on hand for her 2006 re-election. Her fund-raising pace is ahead of any of her Senate colleagues, and is especially impressive considering she doesn’t even have an officially announced opponent as of yet. Her campaign reported receiving money from 66,000 individual donors, almost all of whom gave $100 or less. However, the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics says that Hillary also led all Senate candidates in receiving donations from big industries and business donors, including lawyers, real estate and health professionals. They also noted that Sen. Clinton got the most money from the entertainment industry, i.e., Hollywood. Ann Lewis, Hillary’s campaign communications director, said that the sky is the limit in terms of how much Hillary wants to raise. “We’ll have to take one step at a time. We don’t know who her major party opponent will be, and there are independent parties, all of whom said they are planning to raise a lot of money.”
