I have to say that I was a little bit surprised by Hillary Clinton’s name coming up for Secretary of State. In particular, she’s never shown a particular interest in diplomacy or foreign policy. Her work in the Senate has mostly focused on health care, “women’s issues”, and homeland security and emergency preparedness, and for the most part her presidential campaign hit those same basic themes. Which is not to say that she wouldn’t do a good job as Secretary of State. She and Obama largely seemed to agree on the details of foreign policy; she reportedly handled the foreign travel and diplomatic aspects of being First Lady very well; she’s extremely smart, capable, and forceful, and has developed a reputation in the Senate of being able to work cordially with people with whom she disagrees. In other words, she’s exactly the kind of person who you want as Secretary of State. But does she want the job?
Well, let’s look at it from her perspective. Assuming that Clinton still maintains political ambitions, she has two potential paths: Senate Majority Leader and President.
If she wants to run for President again, she has one shot left: 2016. At that point, she’ll have just turned 69 years old; the oldest person to ever win election (for a first term) was Reagan in 1980, who was about to turn 70. If she wants to do that, her number one priority right now needs to be getting out of the Senate and into another high-profile public service job. Why? Because no one has ever served more than two terms in the United States Senate and gone on to be president. LBJ holds the record, at exactly two terms. The longest serving Senator to ever be elected directly to the presidency from the Senate was John F. Kennedy, and he served all of eight years–which happens to be how long Clinton has already served. I have plenty of theories why that is, but I won’t get in to them now–just suffice it to say that if Clinton ever wants to be president, she needs to leave the Senate as soon as possible.
On the other hand, Secretary of State could be exactly the post that Clinton needs to fill out her resume. It would give her impeccable foreign policy credentials. It’s a high-profile enough position that she could still get plenty of news headlines. The press tends to be very kind to Secretaries of State; it’s one of the rare positions where successes tend to belong to you and failures tend to belong to your boss. Biden probably won’t run for president again (he’ll be 74), so Clinton can run as the successor to the Obama Administration (if Obama wins reelection). And historically, while it hasn’t happened in quite a while, cabinet members have done well running for president, if they are high-profile enough (and certainly Clinton qualifies on that count). In short, if Clinton still holds out hope to be president one day, then she should take the job.
On the other hand, Clinton may not want to put herself through that again. And right now, she’s on a path to power in the United States Senate. She’s made a lot of friends, has raised a lot of money for fellow Democrats, and has developed a reputation for her collegial relationship with Senators from both sides of the aisle. She has a shot at taking a leadership position the next time one becomes available–and becoming the first female majority leader is certainly not out of the question. And there are benefits to staying in the Senate. She can hold power in the Senate for another twenty or thirty years, and potentially be Majority or Minority Leader for a good chunk of that time. It would give her enormous influence over the policies that she cares most deeply about. Besides, by all accounts she loves her job and she’s good at it; if she wants to stay there, more power to her.
In other words, from her perspective, Secretary of State is the high-risk, high-reward option. It gives her a chance to be president, but she also might be faced with an early retirement if she clashes with Obama, if Obama fails to win reelection, or if she loses her own bid to become president. Moreover, it would force her to give up the job of United States Senator, which by all accounts is a pretty fabulous way to spend your waning years. It’s a tough choice, and I understand why she’s taking a few days to consider her options.
[...] In particular, she’s never shown a particular interest in diplomacy or foreign policy. Read more [...]
Clinton was the first one to call Obama naive for his desire to negotiate with hostile foreign powers. She would make a terrible secretary of state for this administration. Meanwhile, while in the senate she can push through Obama’s health care plan. I can’t for the life of me understand why Obama would even consider her for the post.
There was lots of folks who called Obama naive for that one, including the entire GOP field and most of the Democratic field. Heck, it was only a week after that comment that Joe Biden, of all people, said that Obama wasn’t yet ready to be president. Stuff gets said during the campaign, mountains get made out of molehills, and it seems like Obama is the kind of guy who doesn’t take that stuff too seriously.
Look, ultimately the Secretary of State has three jobs: 1) Advise the president, openly and honestly, about foreign policy; 2) Serve as America’s chief diplomat; 3) Administer the State Department bureaucracy. I have full faith that Clinton could handle all three aspects of the job, and I have faith in Obama not to give the job to her if he doesn’t think he can work with her on a daily basis.
As for the health care legislation, Obama just appointed former Majority Leader Tom Daschel to chair a group whose job it is to get health care legislation passed–and it is widely rumored that Daschel has accepted the Health and Human Services secretary job as well, giving him the official clout as well. Moreover, you have none other than Ted Kennedy basically getting up from his death bed to come to Washington with the purpose of shepherding health care legislation through Congress–and it’ll start in Kennedy’s own committee. Clinton’s additional weight would certainly help get the bill passed, don’t get me wrong, but even without her in the Senate, there are still enough powerful people willing to move Heaven and Earth for this thing that it’s likely to get done anyway.