Is Hillary For Spitzer's Driver's License Plan? Still Unclear
October 31, 2007 -- 6:49 PM EST // //
"A Day Later, Clinton Embraces Spitzer’s License Effort."
That's the headline on a New York Times piece which just went up at the paper's Caucus blog. It seems to suggest that Hillary has firmed up her answer on the question of whether she supports Eliot Spitzer's plan to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. But what exactly does she support? It's still unclear.
As you've no doubt already heard, Hillary has been taking heat for answering a question at yesterday's debate by saying she generally supports Spitzer's efforts to solve the problem without saying whether she explicitly supports his proposed policies -- an answer that rivals denounced as woefully lacking in clarity.
So here's the statement that Camp Hillary gave to The Times today in response to questions about where she stands on the issue:
"Senator Clinton supports governors like Governor Spitzer who believe they need such a measure to deal with the crisis caused by this administration’s failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform," her campaign said.It's almost too obvious to point out, but this just isn't an expression of support for Spitzer's proposed policies in any way. It even falls short of overt support for Spitzer in general -- it says she supports governors "like" Spitzer who are faced with policy conundrums of this sort. This is basically a clearer way of saying what she said yesterday -- Spitzer is trying to solve a problem that needs to be solved, and she supports the idea of trying to do something about it with policies similar to these.
The Times piece quotes unnamed Hillary aides saying that the above statement was "intended to offer her support" for a newer version of Spitzer's plan. But it's impossible to gauge what this actually means about her actual position.
I'm generally less sympathetic than other people to the constant complaints that Hillary won't say where she stands on key questions. But this one's puzzling to say the least. As Josh noted earlier today, Hillary had lots of stuff to say about the policy problem Spitzer's facing. It would be nice to know whether she supports his proposed solutions. And we still don't.
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