When I read Gail Collins' column I couldn't tell if she was serious or not. It would be amazing to me that a Democrat would be happy that her candidate would rather duck the issue than answer a question as long as she has a snappy comeback line. Someone who refuses to answer a question, no matter how many ways it's asked:
“My health care policy is bigger than your health care policy.”You Democrats need to ask yourselves why would we want to buy a pig in a poke? Why would we want to risk our own healthcare to see what's behind door number 2 that will only open after the election?
Right out of the box, Wafflegate reared its ugly head. Prompted by moderator Wolf Blitzer, Barack Obama complained that Hillary Clinton refuses to give “straight answers to tough questions” and listed her now-infamous wishy-washy positions on Iran, immigration and Social Security.
What was Hillary going to say in response? Provide a new explanation for the Iran vote? A paean to the virtues of political nuance? No, she whipped around and told Obama that his health care plan “would leave 15 million Americans out. That’s about the population of Nevada, Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire.”
Didn’t see that one coming, did you?
Now, kudos to Hillary for finding a new way to remind us that nothing makes any difference in this campaign unless it can be directly linked to the states that vote first. And although her response was totally unrelated to the issue at hand, it worked really well.
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THE ISSUES There is a good reason we don’t talk more about them.
The bottom line on that health care argument, which required some outside reading to comprehend, is that the Obama plan does not force people who aren’t covered by their employer or the government to buy health insurance on their own. The Clinton plan does require that they do so. This is an extremely important distinction, and Hillary will let you know how it is actually going to be accomplished right after the election.
Democrats, despite what Gail Collins tells you (whether jokingly or not) it isn't good that your candidate can't answer a simple question and won't let us know how she will govern when elected. The nominating process is where you find out how your candidate will govern. She won't tell us, so the only way we'll know is what we can observe from her actions and it appears from the way she is behaving in the debates and on the campaign trial, she will be controlling and secretive when she gets to the White House -- sound familiar?
But more importantly, when she does take a stand you know she will change her position when pressed (as we saw during the debate where she flip-flopped right before our eyes). Democrats, do you really want to elect the mother of all flip-floppers after seeing Kerry go down in flames? What the Republicans did with his "I voted for the $87 million before I voted against it" will be nothing compared to what they can do with her flip-flop on the Iraq war vote (here's a video), giving licenses to illegal aliens, NAFTA, torture, using nukes against Iran, Peru trade agreement, energy, etc. Do you really want to give them that much ammunition?
