Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is notoriously keen on avoiding questions of substance from members of the press. But her latest non-answer to a citizen’s question about the Keystone XL pipeline takes Clinton question-dodging to a new level.
During a town hall in New Hampshire Tuesday, Clinton was asked by an audience member about her stance on the pipeline. The former secretary of state responded with a non-response, saying that she didn’t want to risk second-guessing President Obama.
“If it’s undecided when I become president, I will answer your question,” Clinton said.
Clinton said that the fact that she previously helped Obama stall the pipeline as the nation’s top diplomat makes it inappropriate for her to address the issue as a candidate for commander in chief.
“As you know, I was the secretary of state who started that process. I was the one who put into place the investigation. I have now passed it off — as, obviously, as I’m no longer there — to Secretary (John) Kerry. This is President Obama’s decision, and I am not going to second-guess him because I was in a position to set this in motion and I do not think that would be the right thing to do. So I want to wait and see what he and Secretary Kerry decide,” she said.
The remarks provide a pretty clear representation of Clinton’s mindset as the likely Democratic nominee: Her past decisions don’t matter and she is unwilling to take strong positions until she’s elected.
That mindset has a lot to do with the Clinton campaign’s attempts to portray the longtime member of the political establishment as a fresh new candidate with progressive ideas for the future rather than a friend of Wall Street with a history of working against her base and conservatives in equal measure.
Republican National Committee spokesman Michael Short said of Clinton’s Keystone approach, “With her second dodge on Keystone in as many days, Hillary Clinton is making it abundantly clear she’ll say or do anything to get elected.”
Clinton had earlier told a reporter in Iowa that she wasn’t willing to discuss her views on Keystone.
While conservative criticisms of Clinton’s refusal to take a position are expected, her lack of a firm anti-Keystone message is also creating tension with environmental activists just as the candidate is trying to appeal to the group with global warming rhetoric.
“As president, I’ll do everything I can to lead us toward that clean-energy future,” Clinton recently said during a spiel about how she’d force Congress to focus on climate change.
In other news, fellow female presidential contender Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO seeking the GOP nomination, spent Tuesday telling voters very specifically what she’d do as president during a speech at the Reagan Presidential Library. http://ift.tt/1IHp9sz
In terms of a Fiorina/Clinton comparison, here’s an excerpt from the speech that really stands out:
My second call will be to the Supreme Leader of Iran. He might not take the call, but he will get the message. I will tell him: new deal. Unless and until Iran opens itself to full and unfettered inspections of all nuclear and military facilities, we are going to make it very hard for Iran to move money around the global financial system. U.S. companies should not be profiting off of this murderous regime. The next President of the United States will have a lot to do with whether Apple and McDonald’s are doing business in Tehran.
When Clinton was recently asked whether she supported the deal, she said … well, nothing. http://ift.tt/1M94XQL
The post Hillary Clinton: You’ve got to elect her to find out where she stands appeared first on Personal Liberty®.
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