Tuesday Morning Links

- ABC’s THE NOTE: Can She Win? Democrats unite to challenge Hillary on electability

- Politico: Clinton picks up backing of red-state Dem

- Marc Ambinder: Hillary Clinton’s First South Carolina Radio Ad Targets Black Women

- Roger Simon: A Clinton-Bayh ticket for 2008?

- Boston Globe: Clinton says she is wiser now about healthcare

- The Swamp: Dodd camp subtly slaps Clinton

- CQ Politics: Advantage Clinton in Florida Primary Flap

- First Read: BRICK LAYERS ENDORSE CLINTON

- The New York Times: Proudly Wearing the Front-Runner Label

- The Caucus: The Clinton Sunday Show Blitz

Hillary’s Health Care Plan Reacts

National Review Online has a symposium on Hillary’s Health Care Plan that has some good quotes. If you are looking for a quick idea of what is wrong with her approach this is a good place to start. Here are some examples:

Michael F. Cannon:

Clinton still equates reform with less freedom. The freedom to choose whether to purchase health insurance? Gone. The freedom to purchase the insurance you want? Gone. The freedom to run a competitive business? To hold on to your earnings? To make your own health care decisions? Gone, gone, gone.

John C. Goodman:

Think about every bad health-care idea that has been proposed over the last couple of decades: individual health-insurance mandates, employer health-insurance mandates, expansion of Medicaid, expansion of S-CHIP, creating Medicare for non-seniors, allowing outsiders access to the federal employees’ health system, creating new tax subsidies, imposing limits on old tax subsidies, forcing insurers to take all applicants, no matter how sick, etc. Now imagine all of these ideas wrapped into one proposal. That’s Hillary’s latest health care effort in a nutshell.

Sally C. Pipes:

A health-care plan based on individual and employer mandates, new regulation, increased taxes, and wishful thinking may be acceptable if Hillary were running for governor of Massachusetts or a member of the California legislature. It’s not acceptable for a leading presidential candidate.

Like the 1993 fiasco, Hillary’s current scheme would explode government spending, bolster bureaucratic regulation, and push people into government-run insurance. The promises of cost control are hollow. The tax hikes will be real. Individual mandates will only serve to create a political constituency to further regulate insurers, control prices, and ultimately shift costs in less observable ways through general taxation and massive enrollment in Medicare and Medicaid-like government plans.

Link Roundup

Here are some links that you might have missed over the weekend:

- Jonathan Darman has a largely positive Newsweek cover story on the former first lady.

- Ryan Lizza has an interesting article in the New Yorker about Hillary’s, and her rivals, efforts to deal with the legacy of her husband’s administration.

- Covering the Democrat’s Univision Spanish broadcast debate, the AP highlights Hillary’s sparring with Bill Richardson and Richardson’s complaint that he couldn’t speak Spanish directly to the audience.

- In case you haven’t read enough about top Hillary fundraiser Norman Hsu, the LA Times brings news that Hsu’s business history is being investigated by the FBI.

Morning Links

- Jim Geraghty catches a quote on the collateral damage of Hillary Clinton at the top of the ticket.

- TPM’s Election Central notes that Barack Obama is proposing a new bill to require campaigns to track and report the activities of bundlers. Is this a shot at Hillary or damage control?

- Bill Clinton thinks his wife will have a harder time winning the primary than the general election.

- Democrats Courting Disaster in Florida?

- Barack Obama wants to transform politics. But can he defeat Hillary Clinton by casting her as the divider and himself as the uniter?

Morning Links

- CNN’s Political Ticker has a post how Obama is challenging Hillary on her new theme of experience and change.

- Roger Simon at Politico discusses Hillary’s Goldilocks campaign.

- Also at the Politico, Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin offer a catch up for those who haven’t been paying attention. They outline the key questions for the race moving forward. Question number one on the D side is a big one.

- Dan Balz at WaPo offers his own 7 Questions as the Race for the White House Accelerates

- Marc Ambinder adds ten more. He also has a anlysis of the early primary issue noted below.

- Interesting story in the LA Times about how Hillary has the political machine while Obama is going for the grassroots.

- The Caucus notes some interesting changes in Hillary’s stump speech as she moved from New Hampshire to Iowa.

- Jim Geraghty at the NRO Campaign Spot has a couple of posts noting some pretty interesting connections in Hillary’s latest campaign finance scandal.