Today, Carolina Journal Radio’s Mitch Kokai discusses the presidential candidacy of Democrat Hillary Clinton with political analyst Dick Morris, the man who helped Bill Clinton win and keep the presidency back in the 1990s, but who is no fan of Mrs. Clinton. (Go to http://www.carolinajournal.com/cjradio/ to find a station near you or to learn about the weekly CJ Radio podcast.)
Kokai: I have to start by asking you why you think Hillary Clinton would be so bad a president.
Morris: I think that Hillary is a doctrinaire, ideological liberal who deeply, deeply believes as a matter of great sincerity in a strong major expansion of government. I think she wants to take the whole area of health care, the whole area of workers benefits, like leave and sick leave and stuff like that, the whole area of education, including colleges, and put it all under the public sector. And I think that if she were elected president, particularly with a top-heavy Democratic majority in the Senate that she might carry with her, I think she would irretrievably change the basic government fabric of this country. I think this would be an opportunity for left legislation that would be as significant as Reagan was in ’81 and ’82 for conservatives, or Johnson was in ’64, ’65 for liberals. I think it would fundamentally change our landscape. I think she would bring all health care under government control and rationing. I think that she would increase not just the income tax, but the Social Security tax, the capital gains tax, the inheritance tax, such that I think the average person in the United States would — the upper-middle income person — would probably be facing a one-third or more increase in their actual tax bill. I think that she would, on illegal immigration, let anyone who has stayed here for five years become legal. I think she would eviscerate the No Child Left Behind Act by making principals’ ratings, that is graduation rates, a measurement of school quality so teachers could kind of pat themselves on the back and get out from under the need for objective standards. I just think she’d be terrible. I also feel that she would be Nixonian in her attitude toward enemies and toward those who disagree with her, and use all the powers of the government — IRS, FBI, CIA, DEA — to crack down on those people in the same way that she used private police investigators to crack down on the women who were going public against her husband.
Kokai: Some might see the name Clinton and think to themselves, hey, the 1990s weren’t so bad when a Clinton was president; a Hillary Clinton presidency would be a lot like a Bill Clinton presidency. Why should people avoid approaching Hillary Clinton in that way?
Morris: I think Bill and Hillary are totally opposite. I think Bill was a very good president and I think that he would be — I think on domestic policy he was terrific. Bill is a pragmatist who’s a moderate. Hillary is an ideological liberal, and Hillary deeply and devoutly believes in a larger public sector. Bill believes in what works, and ultimately, will never get too far away from that. And for those who think that Bill will influence Hillary as president, I got to tell you, he didn’t influence her much as First Lady. Wouldn’t have much of a shot at [influencing her as] president. Bill will tour the world and love to be a global statesman and bathe in popular adulation, but he’s not going to be there fighting tooth and nail over policy. He just isn’t into that.
Kokai: You said during your speech in Winston-Salem [Oct. 22 JLF Headliner event] that you believe one Republican can defeat Hillary Clinton. Who is that Republican and what’s his advantage?
Morris: The who is Rudy Giuliani. The why is that the only way to defeat Hillary is to make us properly understand the impact of the terrorism issue, to understand the gravity and the nature of the threat from terrorism that we face. We’ve gotten so complacent and taken so for granted that we haven’t been attacked. And the news media has lulled us into a false sense of security by not reporting how close we’ve come to some very major calamities on the order of 9-11, and how narrowly we averted them. And I think that Giuliani personifies that issue. He understands it. Most of the attacks we’ve thwarted have been in New York and have been thwarted by systems and people who he put in place, and I think that he would bring that issue out in a way that no other candidate would. And I think that if we adequately understood the nature of the difficulties we face, we would never choose Hillary as our commander in chief.
Kokai: You start your recent book titled Outrage with a passage that includes the following: “We’re angry. We’re fed up with the way most institutions in our society operate, and we’re appalled at the pervasive power of corruption that is becoming more and more evident in all levels of government, in major corporations and even in humanitarian organizations.” How is this outrage that you describe affecting people’s response to the 2008 elections?
Morris: I think the anger and the outrage is manifesting itself in a tremendous desire for change, and a tremendous desire for somebody who is going to be aggressive and effective in bringing about change. I think that Hillary’s very strength and sometimes ruthlessness is welcome by many voters because she’s really seen as someone who is going to go down there and kick butt and take names.
Kokai: Regardless of who wins the White House, you say in your book that the next president will have to deal with an Imperial Congress — your words — with a fawning court of donors and lobbyists. What needs to happen in that arena?
Morris: Congress has become a thoroughly nepotistic organization where the wives of congressmen are on their campaign payroll, and they are making, many times, their congressional salary of contributions paid to them through their wives. Their children are lobbyists. Denny Hastert’s son was a lobbyist, the former Speaker. Harry Reid, the majority leader for the Democrats, his son is a lobbyist. And then on top of all of this, about one-tenth of the discretionary dollars in our budget are controlled by earmarks, which means that it’s a purpose that the executive agency has decided isn’t worth it, but the congressman is going to jam down our throat anyway. So I think that what’s necessary — and I think the next president, or I hope the next president addresses — is first, legislation that bans any relative of a congressman from being a lobbyist, that they don’t have to serve as a congressman if they don’t want to. Secondly, to make it illegal to put a member of your own family on your payroll if you are in Congress. And thirdly, to give the president the power of line-item veto to stop the individual entitlements, earmarks from taking place, and also to give the president the power not to spend money that Congress appropriates so that they don’t spend money on these boondoggle projects. Hillary the other day was trying to get $1 million of our tax money for a museum to celebrate the Woodstock music festival during the ‘60s. Well, whatever you thought of Woodstock, and whatever you thought of all of it, I can think of a lot better things to do with $1 million, including letting people keep their own money.
Kokai: Many of the people who heard your speech in Winston-Salem probably left the building with a pessimistic outlook about the future of our national government. Do you look forward to 2008 with pessimism or optimism about the outcome?
Morris: Oh, I approach the ’08 election with pessimism. I think that Hillary is likely to be the Democratic nominee, and I think that she’s likely to attract large numbers of new voters who are going to vote Democrat. It is, however, the pessimism of Paul Revere alerting people to the fact of what is coming on and urging them to get up in arms. And I think that if the Republicans really get their act together and take this threat seriously, they still can win. But I think they could use a little bit of pessimism to bring them down to earth and let them know what reality is about.