Getting Along

If you dial the time machine back to April of 2006, Hillary Clinton was giving a speech at the Economic Club of Chicago back when she was burnishing her centrist credentials and expecting a primary challenge from the right from Mark Warner or Evan Bayh. Barack Obama was, at the time, a young and promising senator. And Clinton had a health care agenda, including a bill on health care information technology she did with Bill Frist and working with Newt Gingrich because "we actually agree that the private sector could demand much more accountability from the insurance industry and get it," and the punchline:

And I'm working with Senator Obama on his grand bargain bill offering American auto companies voluntary for retiree healthcare costs in exchange for their commitment to use the savings to build more fuel efficient cars.

That would be this plan which is now, I guess, a forgotten relic of the past.

Comments

It is heartening to reflect upon the fact that this primary season could so easily have been a rehash of 2004, with a clutch of identical white guys competing for the overwhelmingly huge conservative white male militarist Democratic vote. Obviously the 2006 election did a heck of a lot to change the dynamic, but I think we can genuinely expect the candidate to emerge from a liberal party primary to govern as a liberal. That really hasn't happened for a long time.

Posted by Marshall | January 18, 2008 12:12 PM

Hillary circa 2006:
And I'm working with Senator Obama on his grand bargain bill offering American auto companies voluntary for retiree healthcare costs in exchange for their commitment to use the savings to build more fuel efficient cars.

Hillary circa 2007 on Obama/Feingold ethics bill:
The American public deserves to be certain that their elected officials are not being swayed by lavish gifts offered as quid pro quo for promoting special agendas.. I support the sweeping ban on lobbyist-paid gifts in the Senate bill. This ban includes not just meals but also gifts of travel and lodging, areas that have been the subject of notorious abuse."

Hillary today..
When Senator Obama was asked, what is your major accomplishment in the Senate," Clinton said, "he said it was passing ethics reform and getting legislators to be prohibited from having lunch with lobbyists. And then, you know, Charlie Gibson said, 'Well, wait a minute. You can have lunch if you're standing up, not if you're sitting down.' So if that's his main claim for legislative accomplishment, people deserve to know that.”

I guess her opinions did change once she ran for President. Her 35 years should of told her not to have voted for Obama/Feingold ethics bill..

Posted by Ann | January 18, 2008 12:17 PM

I think we can genuinely expect the candidate to emerge from a liberal party primary to govern as a liberal

No, we can't. What's changed about where they're getting their money from? Clinton is still a corporate candidate with a corporate background backed by corporate money. Obama is still backed by corporate money. As long as politics runs on money - and as long as money is controlled by a handful of multinational corporations - then laws will be written primarily for the benefit of those same corporations.

Posted by Christmas | January 18, 2008 12:31 PM

This is excellent - thanks for pointing this out.

Posted by CJN | January 18, 2008 12:34 PM

"...in exchange for their commitment to use the savings to build more fuel efficient cars.."

They're already building them in Europe, where fuel prices are much higher. Our pols want it both ways: talking up "conservation" while pandering to the publics' lust for cheap fuel, which encourages consumption.

People will conserve fuel when prices are high enough to make fuel worth conserving.

Posted by kafka | January 18, 2008 1:23 PM

"People will conserve fuel when prices are high enough to make fuel worth conserving."

Or when we are offered a replacement energy supply at the same cost. Automakers could make all cars in this country hybrids and charge what they charge now. Sure they may initially lose some of their profits, but if reducing our dependence on oil was really that important the federal government could easily offset the lost profits with rebates and tax breaks to automakers funded with taxes on oil company profits or by actually making oil companies pay their taxes and drilling rights.

Posted by Ricky | January 18, 2008 1:42 PM

So... If Tim Russert had dug up this quote and compared it to what HRC is saying today... that would have been dangerous charlatanism?

Posted by Sam M | January 18, 2008 1:43 PM

Christmas--the "obama backed by corporate money" is the most laughingly absurd criticisms I see, and yet it's everywhere on the leftist blogosphere. Um...I'm pretty sure the guy raised more money from small donors (under $200) than Edwards raised altogether, or at least came close. "Corporate money" indeed. 500,000 + individual donors.

Posted by Michael | January 18, 2008 2:26 PM

What's up with "relic of the past"? Isn't "of the past" part of the definition of relic? Which is why one never hears "relics of the present" or "relics of the future".

Posted by Steve F | January 18, 2008 10:59 PM