Aug 6, 2016 6 min read

Eight years ago, Barack Obama was the right candidate at the right time to lead the country. This year, Hillary Clinton is that candidate.

It is difficult for a president to be transformational from both cultural and policy perspectives. Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and perhaps Ronald Reagan were major policy transformers. John F. Kennedy, as the first Catholic president, and Obama, as the first African-American commander in chief, will be primarily remembered for how they upended expectations of who could become president. In recent memory, only British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was revolutionary in her impact on both culture and policy.

So, what is the basis for my belief that Obama has demonstrated “the right stuff” and Clinton will follow in his footsteps? I will begin with the president himself.

I believe that history will come to view him as the “black Kennedy.” Like Kennedy, his strongest attributes are charisma, his oratorical skills, a noble presence on the world stage and a beautiful family with fairy-tale charm. Like Kennedy, Obama has never been an ideologue. He is practical, careful and more moderate than people give him credit for being. The fact that the firebrand activist Cornel West has labeled Obama “a Rockefeller Republican in blackface” helps prove my point. Many progressives have faulted him for not being sufficiently left-wing, which was never in the president’s political DNA.

Had Kennedy lived to serve a second term, he could have only hoped for the scandal-free four years Obama has enjoyed, along with an improving economy and a rising approval rating. More likely, the Vietnam conflict and Kennedy’s political and private misadventures would have brought Camelot crashing down around him. Few have stopped to consider how rare it is to serve eight years in the White House, where the media make every molehill into a mountain, and emerge as unscathed and popular as Obama is.

But the Obama presidency has been about more than simply surviving. By being the nation’s first African-American president, the black community came into its own with dignity. The pride and encouragement Obama engenders among African-Americans is beyond expectation. Consider that black students who are now in middle school have only known a black president.

Moreover, Obama did exactly the right thing with the economy he inherited. It was in shambles when his first term began. He spearheaded a stimulus package and then let the economy take the time needed to heal. He knew the wealthy would spring back faster than the average American; they always do. Now that the healing is complete, rational social engineering to address the growing inequality can take place.

In foreign policy, Obama has been careful not to commit to new initiatives best left for his successor. Over the last eight years, the world has become more complex than “Game of Thrones” and, even without dragons, twice as dangerous. We have discovered that the bipolar Cold War was easier to manage than a multipolar landscape stoked by rampant tribalism in the Third World and populism in the West. Obama has moved forward in this new environment with caution. His replacement will contend with numerous hot spots but no out-of-control fires.

Turning to Hillary Clinton, she has the right stuff to replace Obama and serve as president for a number of reasons. First, Clinton is the most accomplished woman candidate in our nation’s history and it is past time that we elect a woman to our nation’s highest office. When you look at the facts, she is by far the most-qualified of any of the candidates who has sought the presidency in this cycle.

Second, I believe history will come to view her as the “female Bill Clinton.” I am not inferring that her husband will have undue influence over. To the contrary, she has always been fully committed to her husband’s sound beliefs, which brought moderate politics, liberal social views and constrained fiscal policy to the White House. If elected, Hillary Clinton will no more move the country sharply to the left than her husband or Obama did. The concessions to Sen. Bernie Sanders, her vanquished primary opponent, on party platform issues will not affect her moderate instincts once she is in the Oval Office. She will work around the edges to encourage increased equality, mostly by providing more opportunities to earn it. Handouts and free programs will not be part of her legislative agenda. It is not the Clinton way.

Third, Clinton’s many years of public service have provided her with the knowledge and background to serve. While her long career has provided her detractors with plenty of ammunition for attacks, voters who weigh the evidence will discover she has a stellar record. She was the hardest-working and most traveled secretary of state in our history. The highly politicized Benghazi episode does not dampen the positive results of her steady hand in advancing Obama’s foreign policy.

The often reviled Clinton Foundation is hardly a villain in this presidential election. It is an apolitical and well-respected nonprofit that has raised and distributed almost $2 billion in humanitarian resources around the world.

Clinton has admitted making a mistake in following her predecessors in the State Department by opening and supporting a private email account. In truth, she no doubt considered email delivery a non-issue when becoming secretary of state. However, Republicans have demanded their pound of flesh. Investigations have taken place and the results have revealed neither criminality nor any harm to national security.

Clinton will continue to build on the Obama legacy of inclusive, fair and open government as president. She will forge her own identity that women worldwide will come to admire. Under her leadership, more Americans will begin to participate in the new economy. Calls for protectionism from the left and the right will fade. There will be no misplaced effort to return workers to the old Rust Belt industries that are no longer viable.

Voters will quickly learn they elected the candidate with the right stuff.

Gary Stout is a Washington attorney.