Hillary Clinton Wins in 2008; What Does She Do Differently From Obama?

I'm going to disagree on this. I can easily see her going in as deeply as in Iraq, confrontation with the Russians has been a hallmark of the Clinton foreign policy since they took office. The Cold War restarted, (worse than now) with the possibility of direct Russian/Nato confrontations in former Soviet states (Georgia, Crimea, Ukraine) and enough Russian bitterness to last two generations. Whatever his faults, I honestly believe she would have made things much worse domestically than Pres. Obama ever did. He was capable of nuance and negotiation, she isn't.

I think any direct Russian confrontation in any the of former Soviet states would likely lead to WW3. Honestly she likely would have been the last president as the world would be covered in glass.
 
I think she would have done more with the economy in '09 and would have put less emphasis on health reform. I dont think she would have taken a tougher stance against the Russians. Syria and the Ukraine are under their sphere of influence. Bank reform would have gone differently. She would have absolutely crucified Ted Cruz for his bullshit shutdown in '11 and I think although R opposition would have been just as fierce I think Hilary would have done a better job of fighting back. A bit of Machiavelli would have helped the D's from '09-'12.
 
I think she would have done more with the economy in '09 and would have put less emphasis on health reform. I dont think she would have taken a tougher stance against the Russians. Syria and the Ukraine are under their sphere of influence. Bank reform would have gone differently. She would have absolutely crucified Ted Cruz for his bullshit shutdown in '11 and I think although R opposition would have been just as fierce I think Hilary would have done a better job of fighting back. A bit of Machiavelli would have helped the D's from '09-'12.

Ironically, Machiavellian is one of the last words I'd use to describe Hillary Clinton. She honestly strikes me as a bit naive and hung up on how politics is "supposed" to be conducted. That's why she was so vulnerable to nonsense scandals like the emails, because she didn't consider that even nonsense could be dangerous.
 

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Ironically, Machiavellian is one of the last words I'd use to describe Hillary Clinton. She honestly strikes me as a bit naive and hung up on how politics is "supposed" to be conducted. That's why she was so vulnerable to nonsense scandals like the emails, because she didn't consider that even nonsense could be dangerous.
Really? Sounds more like Obama, she was much more realistic about having to go toe to toe with the GOP in the 2008 primary, which was a major difference in that race between her and Obama. The secret server was pretty much to get around FOIA requests and avoid public scrutiny for anything she did in office that the GOP or media could attack her with. She misjudged that situation badly and thought she could hide it like Colin Powell did. It was a real fear about political attacks that led her to try and hide her work from the public eye, a more realistic appraisal of what would happen in the general election when she ran.
 
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Really? Sounds more like Obama, she was much more realistic about having to go toe to toe with the GOP in the 2008 primary, which was a major difference in that race between her and Obama. The secret server was pretty much to get around FOIA requests and avoid public scrutiny for anything she did in off that the GOP or media could attack her with. She misjudged that situation badly and thought she could hide it like Colin Powell did. It was a real fear about political attacks that led her to try and hide her work from the public eye, a more realistic appraisal of what would happen in the general election when she ran.

She talks like and presents herself as a realist, but just like Henry Kissinger, I don't think she understands what it means to be truly unsentimental. Honestly, it's probably a good rule of thumb that the harder you try to present yourself as a hard-headed realist, the less likely that it's true. As for Clinton, she's not the "I can work with Republicans" idealist that Obama was, although she talked about reaching across the aisle a lot when confronting Sanders, but rather of the "we just have to stand up to the vast right-wing conspiracy and the truth will out" kind of idealist. It's not just that she dismissed the email controversy as nonsense and, yes, thought she could hide it (although it is definitely not realistic to think that you can keep a lid on things like that in this day and age, especially once the media showed interest in it), but also that she saw it as more effrontery from the right and therefore something to be scorned.
 
I think she would have done more with the economy in '09 and would have put less emphasis on health reform. I dont think she would have taken a tougher stance against the Russians. Syria and the Ukraine are under their sphere of influence. Bank reform would have gone differently. She would have absolutely crucified Ted Cruz for his bullshit shutdown in '11 and I think although R opposition would have been just as fierce I think Hilary would have done a better job of fighting back. A bit of Machiavelli would have helped the D's from '09-'12.

Bill enlarged Nato considerably during his tenure, and it grew even more later, unnerving the Russians. Additionally, there was the intervention in Yugoslavia, which nearly resulted in a conflict between US and Russian troops over the airport. Hillary's foreign policy would have been a continuation of Bill's.
 
Bill enlarged Nato considerably during his tenure, and it grew even more later, unnerving the Russians. Additionally, there was the intervention in Yugoslavia, which nearly resulted in a conflict between US and Russian troops over the airport. Hillary's foreign policy would have been a continuation of Bill's.
Ultimately, neither the US nor Russia actually wants WWIII. That's why the various incidents always "nearly resulted" rather than actually resulted. That's even more true now than it was during the Cold War, which also saw plenty of "nearly" conflicts. At the end of the day, both sides will always find some way to save face. We had an incident in 2015 where a Russian fighter was shot down by a NATO aircraft (which is more or less an explicit act of war, on both sides if you accept that it was in Turkish air space when it happened), and both sides made a lot of bluster but again, WWIII was avoided. At the end of the day, no one sane actually wants a war between the US and Russia, and Clinton is sane.

There's this image (mainly coming from the primaries and the memory of the Iraq vote) of Clinton as a giant war-monger. She isn't. Sure, she was a bit more hawkish than Obama, but not to an extraordinary extent. There's a reason he was willing to make her Secretary of State, and it's worth remembering that one of her first big initiatives was the "Reset Button" with Russia. That didn't pan out in the long term, but that had more to do with Putin's domestic needs than it did with Clinton. And of course, Bill Clinton got along famously well with Boris Yeltsin during his presidency (during which, again, WWIII failed to break out).

More broadly, there isn't really that much difference between Obama and Clinton. They are both normal, blue-state Democrats, and are constrained by similar pressures. Either one will face a Tea Party insurgency in 2010 and be essentially reliant on executive orders after that.
 

Deleted member 1487

She talks like and presents herself as a realist, but just like Henry Kissinger, I don't think she understands what it means to be truly unsentimental. Honestly, it's probably a good rule of thumb that the harder you try to present yourself as a hard-headed realist, the less likely that it's true. As for Clinton, she's not the "I can work with Republicans" idealist that Obama was, although she talked about reaching across the aisle a lot when confronting Sanders, but rather of the "we just have to stand up to the vast right-wing conspiracy and the truth will out" kind of idealist. It's not just that she dismissed the email controversy as nonsense and, yes, thought she could hide it (although it is definitely not realistic to think that you can keep a lid on things like that in this day and age, especially once the media showed interest in it), but also that she saw it as more effrontery from the right and therefore something to be scorned.
I'm not saying she's doesn't have her own brand of political ignorance, but in 2008 Obama was the one that thought he could transcend politics and got played hard by Yurdle the Turtle. Clinton I don't think would have fallen for that crap, but would have been just as stymied in Congress and would have made worse foreign policy choices.
 
One big question is whether she wins in 2012. The right wing would probably go even crazier slinging mud against her during her first term than they did with Obama (if imaginable), and she probably wouldn't inspire as much enthusiasm as Obama in the Democratic electorate.
 
Again who knows. It's not guaranteed; maybe we'd have nuclear war because Russia gets involved and challenges the no fly zone?

Maybe I should just ask this on its own thread, but I have for a while wondered what a post New Start levels nuclear war vs. 1983 worst case scenario nuclear war would look like. Are we to a point where countervalue no longer makes strategic sense?

...for the record, I live about 15 miles from Offut AFB, so I would be turned into air pollution, regardless.
 
I'm going to disagree on this. I can easily see her going in as deeply as in Iraq, confrontation with the Russians has been a hallmark of the Clinton foreign policy since they took office. The Cold War restarted, (worse than now) with the possibility of direct Russian/Nato confrontations in former Soviet states (Georgia, Crimea, Ukraine) and enough Russian bitterness to last two generations. Whatever his faults, I honestly believe she would have made things much worse domestically than Pres. Obama ever did. He was capable of nuance and negotiation, she isn't.

This is all assuming Putin acts exactly the same as OTL. I think a strong case could be made that Putin felt emboldened enough to make a move on Crimea because Assad called Obama's "red line" bluff with no consequences.

A world where the US is conducting air strikes against the Syrian government and providing direct aid to the opposition is one where Putin will not risk confronting the US.
 
Going by what we've seen from Pantsuit Dukakis, she loses a winnable election to the GOP ticket of McCain/Watts.

No way does she lose to McCain. The fundamentals of the election strongly favored a Democrat win; worst case she wins on 2012 instead of 2008 levels.

Before you start going off about how "pantsuit Dukakis" (which, I have to say, is a terrible nickname by any stretch of the imagination) losing a winnable election to Il Douche, please keep in mind that it took the GOP, the FBI, basically all of American news media, the Trump campaign, and the Russian intelligence service to defeat her, and even then she won the popular vote by nearly three million.

Absent a once-a-century aberration like the Orange One, she cleans McCain's chronometer.
 
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We kind of forget how hard the economic freefall was affecting people in contrast to the feeling of stability in the mid-2000s, it would be very hard for a Democrat without Edwards type baggage to lose.
 
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If Hillary is tougher on foreign policy, Russia isn't going to invade the Ukraine. They did it because they knew Obama wasn't going to do anything.

Russia only entered Syria after the US refused to. If Hillary intervenes like in Libya OTL, Russia won't have a chance.

Hillary will definitely be more economic driven. But she might lose in 2012 to Romney. Hillary's victory in 2008 is going to be smaller then OTL because of lower black turnout unless we picked Obama as VP.

Since Romney significantly gained in white votes over McCain, he might beat Hillary
 
Exactly how involved would Hillary Clinton be in Syria? A full-on ground invasion a-la Iraq?
Probably more like what we did in Libya, with some extra force to compensate for the fact that the Syrian airforce is much more competent than the Libyan airforce. I can't see Congress approving of a ground invasion, not in 2012.
 
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