This is the first in a (hopefully) collaborative series: WHSBP (title and series idea courtesy of Lambert) to counterbalance the Other Series (WWTSBQ). This series outlines issues on which Hillary Clinton was ahead of the curve, starting with microcredit. I have posted consistently on microcredit (here, here and here) but it is one obvious issue where HRC got it before everyone else.

This is actually one of the things that surprised me when I read Muhammad Yunus's book, Banker to the Poor.

"It was not until the mid-1980s that people in the United States began showing real interest in applying Grameen principles to their own poverty problems. I supposed it all began in 1985, when Bill Clinton, then governor of Arkansas, was looking for ways to create new economic opportunities for the low-income people in his state. Hillary Rodham Clinton's college roommate, Jan Percy, had just returned from working in Bangladesh with an American organization and was at the South Shore Bank in Chicago. She introduced the Clintons to Ron Grzywinski and Mary Houghton, Chicago-area bankers who had done much to convince the Ford Foundation to support Grameen." (176)

So, the four of them Bill and Hillary Clinton, Ron Grzywinski and Mary Houghton started meeting, according to Yunus, to design the plans for a bank that would provide microloans to the poor in Arkansas. The Clintons also invited Yunus and as he writes

"As I spoke, both the governor and his wife were drawn into my story. After half an hour, Mrs Clinton declared, "We want it. Can we have it in Arkansas?" (...) Hillary Rodham Clinton's support for the Grameen idea has never diminished. She visited us in Bangladesh in April 1995 and she has visited microcredit programs on three different continents. She also co-chaired the Microcredit Summit in 1997." (176)

Yunus then goes on to describe the details of putting together what is now the Southern Good Faith Fund, developed in partnership with South Shore Bank (check out their website if you are interested in socially responsible investments).

However, this is the Clintons we are talking about, so, there was no chance they would be taken seriously by the cool kids. As Yunus describes,

"During a 1992 interview with the editors of Rolling Stone magazine, [Bill] Clinton spoke particularly fondly of Grameen. In a separate article, two of the editors ridiculed him for being too ready to promote micro-credit in the United States. I was disappointed, but an American Friend explained that Rolling Stone's reaction was hardly surprising. He argued that Grameen was a 'Third World technology transfer' and that the American elite might not be ready for it. Given the reluctance of Americans to adopt successful policies from countries as close to them as Canada, Germany or England, it would prove very difficult for Clinton to convince his fellow Americans to follow a Bengali model."

And that is one lesson we have all already learned: the cool kids in the media and the Village elders hated the Clintons already for coming from Arkansas and mess up "their" place and pollute it with foreign ideas like universal health care and economic opportunities for the poor (and please, spare me the failure of health care reform and and "ending welfare as we know it"; in the first case the Clintons had to deal with the same disgusting media campaign HRC has to face now and in the second case, Clinton had to deal with the Gingrich Congress - a Congress that actually flexed its idiotic muscle against the President, what a concept).

Now one with a brain would suggest that micro-credit is THE ultimate solution to solving global poverty, but it is one tool that can be used to do so alongside other policies. Yunus himself never stated that his idea is the panacea. He is much too smart for that. However, this is what I care about when I think of experience in a presidential candidate. I want someone who is intellectual smart and curious (even if the cool kids, the Village elders and now the Big Boyz Bloggerz think it's soooo 90s). I want someone with a clear pulse on our global world and has the wherewithal to get in touch with the right people to get things done in a decisive fashion.

Let's not be distracted by stupid snipers stories. This is not what matters ("but SHE LIED!!!!" Fuck that. I demand neither perfection not sainthood from ANY candidate). Let's look at what really matters: she caught on the idea when it was new, in the mid-1980s and no one was really paying attention. She committed to it and still promotes it. Muhammad Yunus constantly mentions her.

That's why, I think, Hillary should be President. Let's tell the untold stories.

Cross-posted at The Global Sociology Blog