Hillary Clinton is not a Republican.

I have been reading quite a few supporters of Barack Obama who argue that Hillary Clinton is actually a Republican. They point to her vote to authorize force in Iraq. They also claim that when Hillary stated that John McCain was more experienced than Obama, she was actually endorsing him. I disagree.

Richard Nixon famously gave this advice to Bob Dole when he ran for president in 1996. You run to the right in the primaries, but not so far right that you can't run back to the center for the general election. The opposite advice would apply to a candidate running in the Democratic Party. Run left in the primaries, but run back to the center in the general election. I think Hillary took this advice to heart but missed a step.

I believe that Hillary has been planning to run for president since before she ran for the Senate from New York. Since taking office she has taken care to vote in such a way that her record would appear moderate to the general electorate. She wanted, understandably, to make it difficult for a Republican opponent to portray her as too liberal the way Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, and John Kerry were portrayed. She assumed it was safe to vote as a moderate because she believed her liberal bona fides were beyond question. Then Barack Obama came along and questioned them anyway. He has been very successful running to Hillary’s left. But when push comes to shove there is not much difference in their positions.

As for Hillary’s “endorsement” of John McCain over Obama, I believe what she was trying to say is that she would be a stronger candidate against McCain. There really is no question that out of the three candidates McCain has the most experience. McCain will attempt to use his advantage in experience against whoever is the Democratic nominee. Hillary was trying to say that the experience argument will be less effective against her. I am sure she would say that experience is not the only thing to consider in choosing a president and that for any number of reasons Obama would be preferable to McCain.

A fair criticism of Hillary, however, is that by making her argument the way she did, she weakened Obama. When McCain makes the experience argument it is likely to resonate more strongly because Hillary made it first. Remember, in 1988, the first candidate to raise the issue of the Massachusetts prison furlough program was Al Gore, not George Bush. Perhaps the Democrats would be better served by following Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican” or in their case fellow Democrat.