Hillary and Jeb: Far From ‘Moderates’

Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush recently delivered the kickoff speeches for their 2016 presidential campaign runs. If the speeches did anything, it was uphold the myth, which has been propagated by several media sources, that Clinton and Bush are “moderates” who distance themselves from the left wing of the Democrats and the right wing of the Republicans, respectively.

On June 13 in New York, the former first lady of the United States presented a laundry list of promises, hoping to attract the various interest groups within her party. Two days later in Orlando, the former governor of Florida reminded his supporters about the extremely conservative policies that defined his years in power in the Sunshine State. The candidates are not turning toward their party bases. Instead, what we are seeing is the natural continuity of two politicians firmly entrenched within the two sides of the ideological spectrum in the United States.

In the Left Corner, Hillary Clinton

Other than the idea that she would be practically unbeatable in an election, the biggest illusion about the aspiring first female president is that she is a centrist Democrat like her husband. The evidence for this notion is usually her voting in favor of the Iraq invasion and her support of strong-armed foreign policy. But even a cursory glance at her record leads one to a very different conclusion.

During Bill Clinton’s presidency, Hillary was considered such a strong counterbalance to the government’s economic team that they privately referred to the first lady and her entourage as the White House’s “Bolshevik” wing. As a senator, Hillary Clinton systematically occupied the left flank. Whether it was 2001’s income tax reductions, the partial-birth abortion ban, or the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts to the Supreme Court, these issues were all ones where a substantial number of Democratic senators voted with nearly all the Republicans — but Clinton did not waver.

And these are not isolated cases. The DW-Nominate statistical index, created by political scientists Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal to compare members of Congress’ ideological positions, is just as telling. Of the 100 senators, only 10 were to the left of Clinton while she was in office.

In the Right Corner, Jeb Bush

Before he even became governor, Jeb Bush openly portrayed himself as being equally as — if not more — conservative than his brother George W. Once elected governor of Florida, he implemented major changes, as political scientist Matthew Corrigan wrote in his book Conservative Hurricane: widespread privatization of the public education system, nearly $20 billion in tax cuts, and even a 10 percent net reduction of state employees.

As Bush himself says, he opposed so many new spending initiatives from state legislators that they nicknamed him “Veto Corleone.” During his second inauguration speech in 2003, Jeb Bush even stated that he could not wait until the day when government buildings would be empty.

Two years later, he personally intervened to stop the husband of Terri Schiavo, who had been in a coma for 15 years, from unplugging the machine keeping her alive artificially. Though later ruled unconstitutional, Bush’s decision was clearly made to promote a socially conservative agenda.

Despite this, Jeb Bush is called a moderate ad nauseam — first and foremost because of his more liberal position compared to his Republican colleagues on the illegal immigration issue (his wife is originally from Mexico and he speaks Spanish fluently).

These few exceptions do not make him a moderate, and Hillary Clinton’s support of the Iraq War does not make her a centrist. Even though he was in favor of gay marriage years before Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, former Vice President Dick Cheney could not possibly be considered a moderate or progressive!

Labeling Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush moderates really goes to show how polarized politics in the United States really are. The time when people like Nelson Rockefeller and Bill Clinton could hope to win their party’s nominations while still opposing the party base on issues ranging from government spending to capital punishment seems further and further away. The American political system is becoming more and more ideologically coherent, with one party on the left and the other on the right. Rather than fight against the system’s current, for the most part, Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush have taken to it like ducks in water.