Hillary Answers The Question: Here's My Experience
Hillary is asked directly by Wolf Blitzer: What exactly is that experience you keep claiming, anyway? It's the question many have been asking. Her full answer, for posterity, is after the jump.
Well I would go back 35 years, Wolf, because when I first got out of law school I didn't want to go work for a law firm. I wanted to go to work for the Children's Defense Fund, and to work on behalf of abused and neglected kids, and kids with disabilities, and kids who didn't have education or health care. And I really spent a great deal of my early adulthood, you know, bringing people together to help solve the problems of those who were without a voice, and were certainly powerless.I was honored to be appointed by Pres. Carter to the Legal Services Corporation, which I chaired. And we grew that corporation from a hundred million to 300 million. It is the primary by which people are given access to our courts when they have civil problems that need to be taken care of.
You know, I've run projects that provided aid for prisoners in prisons, I helped to reform the education system in Arkansas and expand rural healthcare. And I've had a lot of varied experiences both in the private sector as well as the public and the not-for-profit sector. And certainly during those 8 years that I was priveledged to be in the White House, I had a great deal of responsibility that was given to me to not only work on domestic issues like healthcare.
And when we weren't successful on universal healthcare, I just turned around and said, "Well, we're gonna get the Children's Health Insurance Program." And I'm so proud we do, because now 6 million children around the country every month get health care.
And I took on the drug companies to make sure that they would test drugs to see if they were safe and effective for our kids, and began to change the adoption and foster care system. Here in California, because of the Adoption and Safe Families Act, we have three times more children being adopted out of foster care.
And certainly the work that I was able to do around the world, going to more than 82 countries, negotiating with governments like Macedonia to open their borders again, to let Kosovar refugees in, speaking on behalf of women's rights as human rights in Beijing, to send a message across the world that this is critical to who we are as Americans. And to go to the Senate and to begin to work across the party lines with people who honestly thought they would never work with me.
But I believe public service is a trust. And I get up every day trying to make change in people's lives. And today we have 20,000 National Guard and Reserve members in California who have access to healthcare because I teamed up with Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to get that done. Really positive change in people's lives, in real ways, that I am very proud of.















Hillary is really poised tonight.
January 31, 2008 9:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thought her answer sounds very similar to Obama's. It's lots of nice liberal things, but she leaves out the work she did in Arkansas. Wasn't she a corporate lawyer for most of those years - a good chunk of the 35? This whole 35 year thing is just a phrase she says and says and says.
January 31, 2008 9:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, and she didn't point out a single thing that made her more qualified than Obama or Edwards or anyone else. I hope the viewers noticed, her experience argument is vacuous.
January 31, 2008 9:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hillary says: "It took a Clinton to clean up after the first Bush. It may take another Clinton to clean up after another Bush."
That was clever and it got many laughs, but it makes me sad because there will be a lot of people to repeat this non sequitor as an actual argument.
January 31, 2008 9:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's my understanding that after finishing law school, Hillary did a year of post-grad work, and it was during this one year that she worked for the Children's Defense Fund. Once her post-graduate studies were completed, she and Bill moved to Fayetteville, ARK, where he was elected Attorney General and she worked teaching law at the U of Arkansas Law School.
SO maybe she was with the CDF for a semester?
Anybody have anything more definitive?
January 31, 2008 10:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
She's running for Health & Education Secretary?
January 31, 2008 10:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I do not get cable television, so I was not a viewer last night. That said, reading this argument this morning I disagree that it is vacuous (and I am a thorough-going Obama supporter). I grant you that there was nothing there that made me think that she was more qualified than Obama, but I think that her answer spoke to a good set of experiences to qualify a person for the presidency. I am still voting for Obama on Tues, but I must say that every time I see these folks in a debate I am struck by how pleased I am with both of them.
February 1, 2008 11:44 AM | Reply | Permalink