{"id":16527,"date":"2015-10-08T08:02:11","date_gmt":"2015-10-08T15:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/for-clinton-complications-with-her-old-boss-arise\/"},"modified":"2015-10-08T08:02:11","modified_gmt":"2015-10-08T15:02:11","slug":"for-clinton-complications-with-her-old-boss-arise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/for-clinton-complications-with-her-old-boss-arise\/","title":{"rendered":"For Clinton, complications with her old boss arise"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON<\/strong> \u2014 President Barack Obama seemed to call Hillary Rodham Clinton\u2019s idea of a no-fly zone in Syria \u201chalf-baked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clinton described the president\u2019s immigration strategy as \u201charsh and aggressive.\u201d<\/p>\n

And as Obama tries to rally Democrats around the chief economic proposal of his second term, the party\u2019s presidential front-runner has stayed conspicuously silent.<\/p>\n

With Clinton looking for ways to distinguish her ideas from those of her former boss, their relationship has grown increasingly complicated.<\/p>\n

No issue presents more potential for friction than trade.<\/p>\n

For months, Clinton has resisted weighing in on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which has divided the Democratic base. Now that negotiations have concluded, Clinton soon will be forced to choose between supporting the president on a legacy-enhancing issue or siding with labor unions, environmentalists and other liberal constituencies that oppose the deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to be talking to people. They\u2019re getting me all the information they can gather so I can make a timely decision,\u201d Clinton said Tuesday in Iowa.<\/p>\n

The awkward dynamic isn\u2019t a surprise. Clinton\u2019s campaign and the Obama administration have always said the time would come when she would outline her own policies and deliver criticisms, implied and direct, of Obama.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not running for my husband\u2019s third term or President Obama\u2019s third term,\u201d Clinton told voters in Davenport, Iowa, repeating a frequent line from her campaign speeches. \u201cI\u2019m running for my first term.\u201d<\/p>\n

While she frequently commends the president, Clinton has been offering critiques of his policies more and more.<\/p>\n

Last month, she came out against the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry oil from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast; the administration remains undecided.<\/p>\n

In August, she said Obama\u2019s decision to approve offshore drilling in the Arctic wasn\u2019t \u201cworth the risk\u201d to the environment. She subtly resurrected her 2008 primary attack of Obama\u2019s approach to world affairs, taking a more hawkish stance toward Russia, Syria and Iran.<\/p>\n

On both immigration and gun control, she has pledged to use her executive power to do more than Obama.<\/p>\n

Citing Obama\u2019s deportation policy, Clinton said this week, \u201cI\u2019m not going to be breaking up families. And I think that is one of the differences.\u201d She added, \u201cBut I totally understand why the Obama administration felt as though they did what they did under the circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Campaign veterans in the White House say the impact of Clinton\u2019s one-upping is minor and they dismiss some of her proposals as routine campaign fodder. Candidates use policy plans to declare their priorities. Worries over practical implementation come later.<\/p>\n

Trade falls into a different category. If Clinton opposes Obama\u2019s deal, she could undermine his arguments just as the White House is in the final stretch of a deal years in the making.<\/p>\n

Clinton\u2019s main challenger, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, says the accord is \u201cdisastrous,\u201d so Obama may be in the uncomfortable position of watching a Democratic debate next week in which none of the major candidates is willing to defend the deal.<\/p>\n

Clinton aides know she must tread lightly when it comes to criticizing Obama, given that much of her strategy relies on the still-loyal coalition of African-Americans, Latinos, women and younger voters that twice elected Obama. But at the same time, they say she must find ways to distinguish herself \u2014 and undercut Republican attacks that Clinton would simply be a third Obama term.<\/p>\n

Many of Clinton\u2019s top aides joined her campaign from the White House and the two staffs remain in frequent communication.<\/p>\n

Before Clinton announced her opposition to the Keystone pipeline and gun proposals, campaign staff alerted the White Houses. After Obama last week appeared to deride her proposal for a no-fly zone over Syria, aides called to make sure Clinton understood the criticism wasn\u2019t aimed at her, according to a senior White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.<\/p>\n

The White House doesn\u2019t deny that Clinton\u2019s new distance has sometimes created awkwardness for the president.<\/p>\n

On immigration, Clinton\u2019s promise to go further than Obama in using executive authority to ease the threat of deportation for immigrants living in the U.S. contradicts Obama\u2019s assertion that he\u2019s done all he can under the law.<\/p>\n

Similarly on gun control, just days after Obama said \u201cthis is not something I can do by myself,\u201d Clinton seemed to think otherwise. On Monday, she promised to close the \u201cgun-show loophole\u201d through executive action.<\/p>\n

White House spokesman Josh Earnest was quickly asked by reporters whether Obama would beat her to it. Earnest said the White House was looking into its options.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 President Barack Obama seemed to call Hillary Rodham Clinton\u2019s idea of a no-fly zone in Syria \u201chalf-baked.\u201d Clinton described the president\u2019s immigration strategy as \u201charsh and aggressive.\u201d And as Obama tries to rally Democrats around the chief economic proposal of his second term, the party\u2019s presidential front-runner has stayed conspicuously silent. With Clinton […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-16527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16527\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16527"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=16527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}