This is the second in a four part series — my reaction to each of the opinion pieces the candidates write for The DP and finally my reaction to The DP’s endorsement. I write purely critiquing each candidate’s piece, and not from my own political point of view.

I’ve read this piece a couple of times now, and compared to Senator McCain’s contribution, this is infinitely better. I have no compunction in saying that this is an extremely strong piece. Senator Clinton gave many reasons why she should be elected president. Coupled with these are plans with numbers (oh, how numbers make everything more convincing).

I pour caution on a couple of things. First, the Senator’s promise to “create” five million more “green jobs.” Sorry Senator, but I can’t let you off that easy.

The government does not create jobs, unless you are planning a new Department of Greenness or just planning on giving the EPA five million more people. The Senator must therefore explain how she expects to encourage the generation of five million green jobs. That’s a huge number and requires much further explanation. Right now, it smacks of an empty campaign promise.

(Empty? Surely not! You mean she might not have meant what she said?)

Senator Clinton also devotes a big chunk of her time going after the President and his record. As I read it, the Senator is trying to demonstrate that she is already thinking about the general election in November and campaigning against McCain.

Not to be too condescending to anyone who is passionate about the following problems I’m about to quote (I am too), but there were several big student trigger words by the end — Darfur, AIDs in Africa, women’s rights, human rights. I am making it very clear that these topics are very important and not to be marginalized. Commendable as it is that she mentioned them, they each get about eight words — no more. It again smacks of the vote grab, but hey, McCain hasn’t mentioned them, and I’m pretty sure Obama won’t either in his editorial.

All in all, a very strong case for her being “ready on day one.”

Tags: hillary clinton

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 at 2:37 pm and is filed under Penn, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.