A millennial's Quick Startup Guide to Hillary [View all]

[Rose Siding]

This is a great piece. As I read it, one thing occurred to me repeatedly. Hillary Clinton is consistent. Her methods for success were learned and established early and they have served her well.

At the end of Brendan Steidle's blog post is an extensive list of Hillary's accomplishments, some of which I was unfamiliar with. In case anyone asks.

I haven't read Bernstein's book and I really enjoyed the excerpts Brendan included.

..........Hillary was elected Student Body President at Wellesley College in 1968—after a three week campaign that saw her knocking door-to-door in every single dorm on campus. As president, she focused on making change happen, rather than making enemies: “Part of her skill was finding a careful middle ground that brought progress without engendering unnecessary enmity,” her biographer Carl Bernstein wrote. "Fellow students, even those uncomfortable with her politics, were drawn to Hillary’s natural warmth, humor, and obvious ability to get the job done. There was something both generous and gracious about her character that made people like being around her. She possessed a seemingly unselfish ability to praise others, recognize their personal concerns, remember meaningful details about their lives.”

What did she get done?

At Hillary’s insistence, a summer Upward Bound program for inner-city children was initiated on campus, antiwar activities were conducted in college facilities, the skirt rule had been rescinded, grades were given on a pass-fail basis, parietal rules were a thing of the past, interdisciplinary majors were permitted for the first time. —Carl Bernstein, 'A Woman in Charge'
Just a pause here—to explain parietal rules. Wellesley was a woman's college—one of the seven sister colleges that were made to mirror the all-male Ivy League schools of the day. As a woman’s college of its time, men were not allowed in dorm rooms. Hillary helped put an end to that.

She has always been the opposite of Bernie Sanders.

The biggest difference between her and so many others in politics today? One that was there from the beginning: a “willingness to participate in the drudgery of government rather than simply direct policy from Olympian heights," Bernstein explained. "She attended committee meetings, became involved in the minutiae (of finding a better system for the return of library books, for instance), and studied every aspect of the Wellesley curriculum in developing a successful plan to reduce the number of required courses.”

As a fellow student said of her at the time: “she was more interested in the process of achieving victory than in taking a philosophical position that could not lead anywhere.” Is there any better way of contrasting her with Bernie Sanders?

The death of Martin Luther King, Jr. was a test of leadership for Hillary.

One of her most significant moments as student body president at Wellesley came in April 1968—when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated:

Hearing the news, she stormed into a dorm room, shaking and shouting. She threw her book bag against the wall. One witness said she screamed, “I can’t stand it anymore! I can’t take it!”…King was perhaps the man she admired most in the country, if not the world. She had met him in 1962, shaken his hand, sat spellbound as he preached, twice. —Carl Bernstein, 'A Woman in Charge'
It was just two months after her election as president—and the town exploded. Students threatened to go on hunger strikes if Wellesley didn’t hire more black faculty and admit more black students. Other students planned on shutting down the school.

Instead, Hillary put herself forward as a mediator between students and the administration—in search of a solution. With her leadership, a solution was struck: the college promised to recruit more minority students and faculty. Wellesley even committed to pushing other employers in the region to create better living conditions and job opportunities for minorities.

Hillary has been studying how to make government more effective for the poor since she was an undergraduate.

What did she study as an undergrad? Her thesis was on the effectiveness of public programs. She went to the same kind of impoverished neighborhoods of Chicago that Obama would one day organize in—speaking to community leaders to see if Lyndon Johnson’s anti-poverty programs were on the right track. Her conclusion? They weren’t. The programs put too much on the shoulders of community members without providing enough federal resources to get the job done. As part of the project, she interviewed Saul Alinsky, the famed organizer—gaining his trust and even a job offer.

................so much more..................

http://www.armisticedesigns.com/blog/2016/4/21/the-quick-startup-guide-to-hillary