Why did Hillary Clinton vote

in favor of the Iraq war?

Could she claim to be a hapless victim of the hype

and was hypnotized by the neocon war drums

so what was she to do?

Get on her hind legs and take a stand

against the irresistible zeitgeist?

Clinton is furiously trying to calculate how much

she needs to reassure her base with core beliefs

and how much she still needs to hedge for the center ground

American politics has no left wing

Although republicans use the term 'liberal' to acuse

a Democrat of being a virtual Socialist,

Democrats are, in fact, conservatives with a conscience

Hillary Clinton knows hat you can't become President

by espousing too liberal a line

You have to appeal to the majority,

In America, most people are deeply conservate

In Getting Iraq Wrong, which was published yesterday in the NY Times Magazine, Michael Ignatieff, as with Hillary Clinton, makes one ask the inevitable question: With liberals like this, who needs Republicans?

And, for that matter, who needs intellectuals when we have upholstered human hyenas such as George Bush, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney?

When he isn’t beating us over the head with all the pitfalls to which all intellectuals are heir, Michael Ignatieff, now an MP in the Canadian parliament, tells us in “Getting Iraq Wrong” that his judgment was faulty because:

“In the real world, bad public policy can often turn out to be very popular politics indeed. Resisting the popular isn’t easy, because resisting the popular isn’t always wise.”

Shorter Ignatieff: “I was a hapless victim of the hype and was hypnotized by the neocon war drums so what was I to do? Get on my hind legs and take a stand against the irresistible zeitgeist?”

Exactly the same could be said of Hillary Clinton. Her basic conservatism wouldn't allow her to go against the flow. She was too scared [as were almost all Democrats] to appear an appeaser and not a fully paid-up member of the patriot class.

However, To accuse a Democratic politician of excessive calculation is a little like blaming an ice skater for too much balance.

It is intrinsic to the profession. But the best politicians, like the best skaters, make you forget about the calculation and watch the show.

Hillary Clinton learnt the hard way what it is to be a Democrat in a Republican era.

Every time you open your mouth, you fear your opponents will corner you into the lefty liberal stereotype.

So you play relentlessly against type, and hedge yourself aggressively against critics, and aim for the golden center ground where people will no longer even think of you as they once thought of your immediate predecessors.

Clinton is haunted by the specter of Jimmy Carter, of liberalism, of the old left that became so stigmatized in the 1980s and was used to devastate the Clintons in the early 1990s. She still won’t call herself “liberal” in public.

The problem with this strategy is that it makes you seem both afraid of your opponents (you suspect their ideology is more popular than yours) and more circumspect (you’re always trying to avoid a mistake that will reveal your true views).

Voters can smell fear and they can smell pure positioning. That’s fatal. In politics, “be not afraid” is good counsel.

Hillary has a serious disadvantage when facing Barack Obama.

Obama is a post-Clinton Democrat.How can Hillary compete with that? Does she distance herself from the Bill Clinton era? Impossible.

Clinton and Obama are of different Democratic generations. Clinton is from the traumatised generation. Obama isn’t.

Clinton has internalised to her bones the 1990s sense that conservatism is ascendant, that what she really believes is unpopular, that the Republicans have the structural power of having a majority of Americans on their side.

Hence the fact that she reeks of fear, of calculation, of focus groups, of triangulation.

She might once have had ideals keenly felt; she might once have actually relished fighting for them and arguing in their defense. But she has not been like that for a long time. She has political post-traumatic stress disorder.

Her classic formulation today - recently made to a group of Aids activists - is what it was before: “We’ll have as much spine as we possibly can, under the circumstances.”

Obama is different. He wasn’t mugged by the 1980s and 1990s as Clinton was. He doesn’t carry within him the liberal self-hatred and self-doubt that Clinton does.

The traumatized Democrats fear the majority of Americans are bigoted, know-nothing, racist rubes from whom they need to conceal their true feelings and views.

The non-traumatised Democrats are able to say what they think, make their case to potential supporters and act, well, like Republicans acted in the 1980s and 1990s.

The choice between Clinton and Obama is the choice between a defensive crouch and a confident engagement. It is the choice between someone who often hid her beliefs in a welter of fear; and someone who has faith that his world view can persuade a majority.

Clinton is facing a wobble. Although she still leads Obama commandingly in national polls, he is outpacing her in fundraising, and new polls show him tying with her in New Hampshire and edging her in South Carolina.

Clinton is furiously trying to calculate how much she needs to reassure her base with core beliefs and how much she still needs to hedge for the center ground.

American politics has no left wing. Although republicans use the term 'liberal' to acuse a Democrat of being a virtual Socialist, Democrats are, in fact, conservatives with a conscience.

Hillary Clinton knows hat you can't become President by espousing too liberal a line. You have to appeal to a majority, In America, most people are deeply conservate.

Look how many overtly liberal Democrats have failed to win the Presidential race. From Adlai Stevenson to John Kerry. Even Obama is starting to realize this. His recent war cry against Pakistan and Mussharif was an attempt to show he's got conservative cojones.

Clinton is playing the long game by seeking support from the right. This is a clever 'political' and strategic move.

After Clinton delivered a foreign-policy cold-cock to Barack Obama's head during a Democratic presidential debate on Tuesday:

• Fred Barnes of The Weekly Standard, a neo-conservative weekly, wrote that she responded "firmly and coolly " to the now-famous "would-you-meet-with-despots" question.

• Rich Lowry of National Review, a conservative weekly, gushed like a schoolboy with a crush: "She excels ... Clinton has run a nearly flawless campaign and has done more than any other Democrat to show she's ready to be president."

• David Brooks, the conservative columnist at The New York Times, wrote that Clinton "seems to offer the perfect combination of experience and change" and said she's changing perceptions in a way that may persuade voters to give her a second look.

• Charles Krauthammer, the conservative columnist of The Washington Post, summed up the Clinton-Obama smackdown: "The grizzled veteran showed up the clueless rookie."

All this from members of a crowd that has spent the better part of two decades demonizing Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

Is the conservative chattering class just hedging its bets, wary that Clinton might win and banish them all?

Could the plaudits of the right hurt Clinton with the leftish voters who dominate the Democratic primaries? That's clearly what Obama thinks, as he mocks Clinton's position as "Bush-Cheney lite."

Those leftish Democrats dislike Clinton because she still won't admit that her vote in Congress over the Iraq war was a mistake. She's far too canny to walk into that trap.

If she were to admit she was wrong the right would pounce on her with accusations that she was soft on the "war on terror", etc.

That's why American politics will always by riight wing. Bush is the diehard right. Hillary is Republican lite. It's the best you can hope for in what is, essentially, a one-party State.

Compiled by Ed Strong with extracts from here and here