Did Clinton flip-flop?
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- October
- 31
There’s a lot of debate today over Sen. Hillary Clinton’s remarks last night in a MSNBC presidential debate regarding Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s plan to give drivers’ licenses to illegal immigrants.
Republicans are claiming Clinton is flip-flopping and not giving a direct answer.
She didn’t say definitely whether she supports the governor, and essentially tried to blame the nation’s immigration problem on President Bush.
“This is where everybody plays ‘gotcha,”’ she said during the debate. “It makes a lot of sense. What is the governor supposed to do? He is dealing with a serious problem. We have failed, and George Bush has failed. Do I think this is the best thing for any governor to do? No.”
Her remarks drew strong reaction from Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco, a leading opponent of Spitzer’s plan who today said he’s filing a lawsuit tomorrow to stop the policy from going forward.
“I think that once Senator Clinton gets done debating herself on whether she supports or opposes Governor Spitzer’s plan, hopefully she’ll share her answers with the New Yorkers she represents, ” he said.
In a follow-up statement just now, a Clinton aide said she “supports governors like Gov. Spitzer who believe they need such a measure to deal with the crisis caused by this administration’s failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform.
“As president, her goal will be to pass comprehensive immigration reform that would make this unnecessary.”
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, October 31st, 2007 at 3:50 pm by Joseph Spector.
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Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
