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You don’t have to listen all that hard to hear the ridiculously transparent “McCain/Bush” references by Obama, Clinton and their surrogates in a tepid attempt to link the Republican nominee with the record of a currently unpopular president. But while Hill and the gang try to taint McCain by trying to make him responsible for someone else’s record, it makes perfect sense to take a good look at Hillary’s actual record.

Now, we all know that there is enough dirt on the Bill Clinton presidency to fill up the headlines of every election cycle from now until Suri Cruise runs for Supreme Emperor of the Universe in 2052, but Hillary’s only experience has come as the junior senator from our great state of New York. When she first ran for the Senate in 2000, Hillary’s big promise to folks in our region was that she would create 200,000 new Upstate New York jobs. This is, of course, a ridiculous claim, as are all claims by politicians that they will “create jobs.” The only way a politician can “create” a job is to take more of your money through taxes to pay the salary. Politicians can encourage employment by keeping taxes and regulation to a minimum, but that really means that they just need to get out of the way of private enterprise. Hillary failed even at that, because not only did she not “create” 200,000 Upstate New York jobs, the region has actually seen a net loss of jobs during her time in the Senate.

When asked about this by Tim Russert (who clearly doesn’t care much for Hillary) at a recent Democratic debate, Hillary made the laughable excuse that she expected Al Gore to be president when she made that promise. Bush, she insists, is the one to blame for the region’s economic woes. She apparently didn’t have time to elaborate on the ways in which Bush foiled her many Upstate New York job creation initiatives.

Although the upcoming general election will include no incumbents, be prepared to hear a whole lot of “are you better off than you were four years ago?” nonsense from the Democratic nominee. If Clinton ends up being that nominee (or even the nominee’s running mate), I hope voters in this region will take a moment to ask if Upstate New York is better off than it was eight years ago.

Tags: Federal Officials, MisterF, New York State, Presidential Politics //