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Is Hillary a 'Free Trader'?

So did Hillary Clinton try to talk her husband out of supporting NAFTA when they were in the White House, a slice of history that would help bolster her bona fides these days as a free trade critic? Sam Stein quotes some folks in his Huffington Post entry who would argue the case in support of Hillary.

One of those is Mickey Kantor, Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Commerce, who recalls:

“President Clinton had to make a decision as governor, whether or not he would support [George H.W. Bush’s] NAFTA, and of course he did… Hillary Clinton was one of the great skeptics in the discussion as to whether he should do. So she was always skeptical beginning in 1992 and onward.”

What Hillary Clinton said and when she said it takes on added importance as the Democratic candidates head to the March 4 Ohio primary, where the state’s blue-collar voters are decidedly a little bitter over what NAFTA has done to their jobs.

The Columbus Dispatch’s Jonathan Riskind blogs about it in “Obama, Clinton Battle for the Blue-Collar Buckeye Vote.

For more background on NAFTA, visit the Public Citizen site, as well as the blog maintained by Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch program, Eyes on Trade.