God and Hillary Clinton (29 page)

Stem Cells

In 2006, the life debate took on new fronts as the embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) discussion made its way to the halls of Congress. ESCR advocates the creation of human embryos for the purpose of
scientific research. Embryos used for such purposes cannot, of course, reach their full potential to become human life; they are dissected, with the unneeded components discarded.

Proponents argue that ESCR holds great potential for the cure of certain diseases, from Alzheimer's to Parkinson's—or, as Mrs. Clinton put it, “countless” diseases. High-profile advocates include former first lady Nancy Reagan and the late actor Christopher Reeve. Opponents counter that this potential is greatly exaggerated. “Embryonic stem cells are not going to be the source of a cure for Alzheimer's,” says Dr. James Dobson, a vocal foe of Mrs. Clinton on this issue.
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Moreover, opponents fear that ESCR is the first step on the road to a Brave New World of “harvesting” or “farming” fetuses strictly for the purposes of taking their “spare parts.” They maintain that these human embryos are human life at its earliest stage of development, raised and then snuffed out for the benefit of the living.

Thus, ESCR is an obvious pro-life issue for pro-lifers, but it seemed like less of a pro-choice issue to pro-choicers, since it does not involve abortion. Nonetheless, pro-choice advocates like Mrs. Clinton, for various reasons stemming from the politics of the abortion debate and general “life vs. choice” philosophies, support ESCR.

Although she ended up once again in opposition to the right-to-life movement on this subject, too, Senator Clinton tried to massage her rhetoric while not changing her position. An excellent example was her cosponsorship of S. 471, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, which would have allowed for federal funding for research on new stem cell lines extracted from human embryos.

The July 18, 2006, statement from Senator Clinton's office, which included the full text of her remarks on the Senate floor calling for passage of the legislation, was remarkable in that it never once used the words “embryo” or “embryonic” among its thirteen hundred words. Mrs. Clinton spoke of how “stem cell research” holds the promise of “new cures and treatments for countless diseases and millions of Americans with chronic and curable conditions.” For example, she
said, “The wide range of applications for stem cells may lead to unparalleled achievements on behalf of research concerning Alzheimer's disease,” as well as spinal cord injuries, diabetes, Parkinson's, Lou Gehrig's disease, and a host of others she listed. She four times mentioned her “dear friend” Christopher Reeve, who was confined to a wheelchair and who eventually died from a spinal cord injury, as well as referencing Reeve's wife and son, plus more than once mentioning “children” and even “grandchildren,” and words like “suffering.”

Only a well-informed observer already familiar with the legislation would know from reading the senator's statement that it concerned
embryonic
stem cells. It is not unfair to describe the statement as deliberately deceptive for merely mentioning “stem cells,” because no one opposes research on
adult
stem cells, or stem cells acquired through umbilical cord blood or bone marrow—the debate is over stem cells acquired through the killing of an embryo. Senator Clinton's statement did not make that crucial distinction.

The senator's statement also revealed a change in tone: Mrs. Clinton ended her plea on the Senate floor by affirming her “respect” for those who disagree with her on the issue. She even called for erecting a clear “ethical fence around this research,” with “very strong prohibitions and penalties for people who don't pursue the research in the way that we set forth.” Of course, opponents of ESCR believe that the research itself is unethical, and that the ethical breach comes from creating and discarding the embryos simply for the sake of their material in the first place. Nonetheless, despite the respectful rhetoric, Senator Clinton again found herself deeply at odds with many Christians, and yet again with the Catholic Church.

The Republican-controlled Senate passed the bill, with nearly every Democrat voting in support and enough liberal Republicans crossing over. The next day, on July 19, 2006, President George W. Bush exercised the first veto of his presidency. Holding a press conference surrounded by eighteen families with children who had once been frozen embryos, Bush said that if the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act
had become law, “for the first time in our history we would have been forced to fund the deliberate destruction of human embryos, and I'm not going to allow it…. [W]e all began our lives as a small collection of cells.” Bush said that Americans “must never abandon our fundamental moral principles in our zeal for new treatments and cures.”

Despite the veto, the fact that the bill had passed in the Senate showed that some of the tides were turning. Hillary's words had played a role in shaping the Democratic victories of the year, and it seemed that she was on the cusp of something bigger. Mrs. Clinton's remarks during 2006 had been quite bold. Were these statements of election year politics, or were they Hillary's true colors? Largely gone was the conciliatory moral and religious tone from the previous year; in its place were heated, confrontational words that proved to the Democratic faithful that she was a voice that could be trusted. If the goal was to distance herself from the religious right and excite her liberal base for the purpose of winning over New Yorkers again in November 2006, she was achieving it in spades.

Since the 2006 midterm elections, Hillary has focused her attention on a different goal, one that while not new, appears to be attainable. The next step in the life of the girl from Park Ridge is a giant one: She has a serious shot at becoming the first woman president of the United States. To win the presidency in 2008, Hillary must not merely prove herself a centrist, religious Democrat, but needs to overcome past negative perceptions on the religiousness of her and husband. A 2000 poll by the
Wall Street Journal
/NBC News found that only 12 percent of the public described Hillary as “extremely/ very religious” and 25 percent found her “not that religious”; of all the figures polled, only her husband scored lower.
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The poll found that the American public did not perceive the Clintons as religious people, almost certainly an extension of the fact that they did not see Bill's private behavior as reflective of a man possessing and motivated by Christian ethics and values.

Hillary not only wants to reverse this perception but also wants to avoid the character charges that plagued her husband through his
final days in office. Indeed, it was telling that as George W. Bush was being inaugurated in January 2001, an authority as respected as
Time
's dean of presidential correspondents, the reserved Hugh Sidey, raised eyebrows on CNN by calling Mrs. Clinton's husband a “disgrace” who lacked dignity, while over at MSNBC, a veteran Democrat like Pat Caddell judged Bill Clinton “white trash” who had “no class” and had “slimed, slimed, slimed” the presidency.
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For Bill, the character issue was so bad that it overcame any ability by him to ever successfully position himself as a religious man, and as a result, Hillary suffered from guilt by association. Mrs. Clinton got slimed herself during that presidency. Conservative columnists like George Will lumped her into his Clinton “vulgarian” category, and William Safire deemed her a “congenital liar.” From the left, Maureen Dowd served up a litany of irreverent descriptions of the former first lady.
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Yet Hillary now suddenly seems beyond that, almost as if the 1990s had never happened. To go back and read through clippings from the previous decade is to revisit a world that no longer exists—and very much to Hillary's benefit.

This was evident in a May 2005
USA Today
/CNN/Gallup poll that found a majority of Americans “likely” to vote for her for president, and with her pulling higher “moderate” ratings than ever, as 54 percent judged her a liberal but 30 percent a moderate. Said Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center, “This may…reflect that she has been recasting her image as a more moderate person.” She commanded nearly as much support as Governor George W. Bush did in 1998, two years before the 2000 election. On the other hand, the poll noted a continuing problem for Mrs. Clinton: an abnormally high percentage of voters that strongly dislike her, especially men.
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Nonetheless, as Kohut noted, “over time, Clinton fatigue has dissipated.” People are not looking back at the Clinton years with many of the same attitudes. Thinking has shifted so much that Ed Klein,
author of a book highly critical of the former first lady, now says, “Hillary acts as though she has been chosen by God”—she has “this aura about her as if she has been chosen by God to lead us.”
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Klein himself reflects the polarization over Hillary, as he says, presumably metaphorically, that both of the Clintons “have sold their souls to the devil in order to achieve power.”
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Whether Hillary feels that she has been chosen by God is something she has not shared openly; she certainly has never made such a bold declaration publicly. Regardless of whether God has chosen her, the immediate task will be for her to convince millions of Americans to choose her in November 2008. This will be a difficult task, as her strategy to position herself in 2008 as a religious moderate is constantly fluctuating between her liberal constituents on the left and the Christian center of the country that she tries to appease.

In her attempt to win over the American public, Hillary will no doubt bring her religious coattails to the forefront of the discussion. However, one of the sizable questions about her faith in this election cycle will be how she frames her opinions in the primary election so that some of her more religious ideas appear palatable to Democratic voters. Despite her efforts in the Senate to convince voters of her faith and moderation, few Democratic primary voters are likely to use these issues as their bellwether for their presidential candidate.

As such, Hillary will certainly rely on her more impassioned liberal credentials to convince primary voters that she agrees with them on the issues that matter to Democratic voters, such as abortion, gay marriage, the war in Iraq, health care, the environment. Of less importance will be the role that her faith plays in her policies, and how faith shapes her worldview. While any candidate in a modern campaign must watch his or her verbiage closely, Hillary in particular must be aware of the accusations that follow her, especially those that charge her with hypocrisy on spiritual issues. As someone who seems to tailor her spiritual opinions to the crowd she is addressing,
she must exercise great caution to avoid having some of her more moderate (or more liberal) views thrown back at her during her quest for the nomination.

If she succeeds in making it out of the primary, she will find herself facing a much different set of obstacles. Suddenly she will need to reinforce her religious and moral pedigree, emphasizing her religion in a way that will force all Americans to identify with her as a God-fearing woman. She must, for example, remind Americans of the bill she cosponsored with Rick Santorum to promote the acceptance of faith in the public arena, a bill that can be a big winner for Hillary with cultural conservatives.

Similarly, Hillary might be expected to roll out a comprehensive plan of faith-based initiatives, so that religious Americans can see that her words about the social justice implications of Jesus are more than just words; they are ideas that she is willing to back up with action. Coming out in clear support of faith-based programs with new goals of her own could provide the boost that she is looking for with many faith-oriented Americans.

Though she is on the record as consistently opposing gay marriage for historical, cultural, and biblical reasons, this seems like another topic of increasing ambivalence by Senator Clinton that would need to be addressed in any campaign. It has caused problems for her politically, and has caused flip-flops in how she deals with competing New York constituencies. The subject, for her, comes up not only each time it is raised in Congress, but annually in each St. Patrick's Day parade in New York City. As of the writing of this book, the latest example, in March 2006, witnessed Senator Clinton's decision to march in the parade.
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She marched in the parade when she was running for the Senate seat in 2000, did not in 2001—saying she had a schedule conflict—sat out again in 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005, and then marched again in 2006, another election year. Thus, of her six years in the Senate, she marched in the two years in which she was campaigning for election
and sat out in the years she was not running. Predicts Bill Donohue of the New York-based Catholic League: “No doubt she'll march again for the next couple of years because she wants to be elected president in 2008.” Adds Donahue: “Hillary Clinton's chameleonic response to the St. Patrick's Day Parade is grounded in politics and deceit. She will pander to gays one year, to Irish Catholics the next. She's fooling no one save her loyalists.”
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Actually, the loyalists are not fooled, and are peeved—but will vote for her.

Regardless of the externals, she seems committed to her apparently core position that gay marriage is not acceptable. Yet she appears to buckle in her willingness to be frank and bold on this issue, depending upon whom she is talking to, and opening herself to the moniker of “Slippery Hillary,” the heir to her husband's “Slick Willie.”

Nevertheless, if she is going to win religious voters, she will need to come clean on this stance and tell America that though she supports gay rights, she does not support same-sex marriage. One of the few areas where Hillary has been publicly consistent is on this subject: She has never said that she supports gay marriage. Assuming that she stays a decisive clear voice on the issue, this is a useful stance that could offer a significant boost to her attempt to appear moderate as she runs for president.

Programs and legislation in areas like this could go a long way to revealing the forcefulness of her faith, and she will certainly do her best to supplement them with a lot of campaign trail talk that demonstrates her level of comfort with God and the Bible. The goal in these entreaties is not solely to win people over with her perspective, but to convince voters that her personal theology is rooted in more than mere politics and make them believe that she would be a president who turns to God to help her lead the country.

But even if she succeeds in crafting a set of policies that caters to the religious center, Hillary is likely to still find herself facing an uphill battle with other so-called values voters. Because of both the lingering stigma of her husband's presidency and her refusal to
cede ground on controversial religious-moral issues such as abortion, Hillary will struggle to win the hearts and minds of the country's religious middle.

As Christian voters—both Catholic and Protestant—look to Hillary's past, present, and future, they will see a candidate whose religious life is evident, but whose religious politics are in turmoil. One such issue has to do with the entertainment culture. Hillary Clinton is often described as a “prude” by advisers close to her and her husband, and as such, it has long been rumored that she is uncomfortable with the licentious, violent culture depicted by the Hollywood mavens that supported her husband's presidential bids. Hugh's daughter would be the first to say that Hollywood should not be proud of the sewer pipe of filth it has channeled into the hearts and minds of young people.

Despite her personal preferences, a difficulty is that while the values of Hollywood might clash with her own, much of Hollywood has contributed to the Clinton war chest. In addition to these donations, there may be a belief in the pornography industry that having the Clintons back in the White House could be smooth sailing for porn. Indeed, a scarcely acknowledged fact concerning Bill Clinton's presidency was the boom in the porn industry. “[W]hen Clinton comes in,” said Mark Cromer, producer of the X-rated Hustler Video, “it's definitely blue skies and green lights and fat bank accounts.”
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The green light is traceable directly to the policies of the Clinton administration. In the 1980s, the porn industry had been on the ropes, targeted by the Reagan administration, notably the vigilant efforts of Attorney General Ed Meese. Then, in the early 1990s, the arrival of the Clinton administration forced federal prosecutors to halt many investigations since there were “different priorities” under the Clinton–Janet Reno Justice Department. “Under Attorney General Reno,” noted a special investigative report by PBS's
Frontline
, “federal prosecutions slowed dramatically, and the obscenity task force effectively went out of business.”
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Hustler
magazine, for instance, was so ecstatic with the Clinton era and all the happenings, legally and symbolically, that founder and porn king Larry Flynt went to bat on behalf of Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal, investigating the sexual lives of the president's opponents. So busy was Flynt that Michael Kelly in the
Washington Post
christened him “the president's pornographer.”
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Thus when combined with the advent of Internet pornography, the porn industry was resurrected during the 1990s, a development that surely did not please Hillary, since the industry is degrading to women. Now, under the Bush administration, the halcyon days of the 1990s are gone. After his confirmation, Bush's Attorney General John Ashcroft immediately met with anti-porn prosecutors and advocates in an attempt to avoid a continuation of Clinton administration policies.
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While these policies were her husband's and not her own, the close Clinton ties to the entertainment industry leave her vulnerable to criticism as she pursues a family values platform. It will be hard to find a solid bloc of Christian voters willing to choose Hillary if she is unable to appear convincing about the values our culture espouses through entertainment.

Yet another point that she must face during her appeal to religious Christians is the role that stem cell research—embryonic and non-embryonic—should play in the future designs of medical technology. This issue and the disagreement over its medical potential is shaping up to be one of the great public and scientific debates of our time.

Although Hillary lately has been gracious in acknowledging the opinions of the other side in this debate, she has not altered her stance in a way that will mollify detractors. In the bills that have come in front of the Senate, Hillary has voted in favor of embryonic research, voting “yea” on, among others: S. 1557, the Respect for Life Pluripotent Stem Cell Act; S. 876, the Brownback-Landrieu Human Cloning Prohibition Act; and S. 1520, which also looked to promote cloning of human embryos.

As the Missouri Senate race in 2006 demonstrated, embryonic stem cell research is quietly shaping up to be an issue that people in this country—values voters and secular voters alike—are willing to make a centerpiece of their voting ideology. With Hillary in the White House, the American public will know that bills favoring embryonic research will start to pass, and for many Christian moderates, this will be an important consideration when casting their ballot in November 2008.