ABC: Hillary Clinton kept mum while Wal-Mart fought unions

posted at 1:30 pm on January 31, 2008 by Bryan
Share on Facebook | printer-friendly

Hillary Clinton spent 6 years on the Wal-Mart board of directors yet did nothing during those years to advance the union cause. Wal-Mart continued to buy from overseas sweat shops and Hillary didn’t do anything to stop that either. She did try to advance the cause of women in the workplace, the one consistent theme of her entire political life. That’s the story ABC has. Obama may get a day or two of swings out of it from the left, but if Hillary makes the general election it won’t be an issue there. The unions back her now and will then, and she has spent the past few years distancing herself from her lucrative work at Wal-Mart. She has taken the money and run.

I doubt the main text of this story will hurt Hillary Clinton much except among the nutroots, who largely already hate her. That’s where the core of irrational Wal-Mart hate is, on the hard left. They spend more time demonizing Wal-Mart than al Qaeda, which tells you where they think the real threats to their way of life are. If Hillary’s the nominee, they’ll line up behind her whether she fought unions while she was on the Wal-Mart board or not.

There is a subtext, though, that ABC overlooks. Billary was governor of Arkansas at the time. Arkansas was a conservative, southern Democrat stronghold, so Billary had to retain certain vestiges of conservatism in order to remain in power. One of those concerned labor: Arkansas was a right-to-work state. It still is. Billary didn’t change that and they didn’t change Wal-Mart. Unions oppose the right-to-work ethic, as it threatens their power over the American work force. Wal-Mart was the most successful corporation to emerge from Arkansas. Billary had to remain relatively quiet on labor issues, or they would have drawn the full wrath of the state’s wealthiest man, Sam Walton. Bill Clinton was also publicly pro-life up until 1988 or 1989, for the same reason. Arkansas politics demanded it.

Hillary Clinton is a pragmatic political radical. She’s very capable of camouflaging her positions when the circumstances demand it, and ruling in Arkansas’ political and business elite demanded it. So she did it.

Blowback

You must be logged in to post a comment.