Americas
Viewpoints
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton
NAIROBI The Nation (independent), Nov. 13: I must confess to having had reservations about the hectic pace of life in this city when I attended the U.N. Special General Assembly held there in June. But, rest assured, I had a swift change of heart when the results of the Senate poll came....All is forgiven, New York!…What a woman! What a role model! If ever there was evidence of affirmative action at its best, it would have been in the way New Yorkers said a resounding “yes” to Hillary’s candidature. She set out as a rank outsider, wooed the electorate with the determination and strong will that is the essence of her character, and emerged victorious.
—Lucy Oriang
EDINBURGH Evening News (independent), Nov. 8: I hope I’m wrong, because it’s a dreadful thought to carry around for the next four years, but Hillary Clinton seems to be moving inexorably toward her bid to become the next Democratic candidate for the White House. We all wondered as to the real reasons for her willingness to humiliate herself in public to protect her husband. Having seen the ruthlessness of her campaign to win the New York Senate seat, we now know. She will do anything to be president.
—Margo Macdonald
SINGAPORE The Straits Times (conservative), Nov. 12: She will be one of the most important Democrats in Congress—the most important if Vice President Al Gore is not elected president. Mrs. Clinton will be the person every TV show and reporter will want to talk to. In one respect, she will be in her definition of heaven. Her real interest is policy, and she believes passionately in several liberal issues like universal health care....Her greatest failings, though, are the very opposite of her husband’s virtues. He is the humanizing force in the partnership, the politician who knows how to appeal to the people. He is the one who ran her campaign from the sidelines. The question now is: Will he stick with her, providing her with the dimension she lacks? And will the duo again try for the White House?
—Louise Branson
LONDON The Observer (liberal weekly), Nov. 12: As many have pointed out, Hillary Clinton has remained an essentially aloof and distant figure, carefully allying herself with her husband’s achievements and sidestepping his failures. She may have won her own electoral identity through the long, tough New York campaign, but the question remains: What exactly is it she has won? As a junior senator from New York in a Republican-leaning Senate, she will chair no subcommittees and be unable to hire more than a bare-bones staff. Although she has said she wants to serve on the committees on foreign relations and appropriations...Republicans will do their best to stall her efforts.
—Edward Helmore
GLASGOW The Sunday Herald (independent weekly), Nov. 12 : Hillary Clinton was supposed to lose New York for the inescapable misfortune of being Hillary Clinton. In the end, however, it was Rick Lazio who lost for not being Hillary. If the scales seemed stacked against Hillary early on, a do-gooding, self-righteous baby boomer with a patently cynical reason for settling in New York, they were also stacked against Rick Lazio: a nobody. No other city in America covets celebrity as much as New York....In the Oprahfied politics of today, Hillary was careful to say everything and nothing at all. She talked in platitudes, just like every other politician, and rarely ever gave details. The race became a game of snakes and ladders in which Clinton got to climb a few levels each time she paid the requisite lip service to one of the city’s multifarious communities, and slipped a few for each...she made. But when it came to policy, her views were decidedly sketchy.
—Aaron Hicklin
WARSAW Zycie (centrist), Nov. 9: Much attention was paid to the race for the senatorial seat in the state of New York. Unfortunately, the Republican Rick Lazio lost to Hillary Clinton despite the fact that she is not originally from New York.…It turned out that New York—traditionally the most liberal city in the U.S.A.—has blind faith in anyone who declares himself to be a Democrat. In several years, when Mrs. Clinton decides to become the first woman president, will the majority of Americans put their faith in her?
—Lukasz Warzecha
Viewpoints includes items drawn from the U.S. Department of State’s daily digest of international media opinion.
