Clinton to visit NZ
Failed US presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is to visit New Zealand in May.
The former secretary of state will be travelling to Auckland on May 7, then on to and Australia, to give ‘‘a series of three exclusive and intimate events’’.
Ticket prices ranged from $195 for an upper-level seat to $495 for a floor seat.
Clinton’s visit was organised by Australian business event provider The Growth Faculty, and is part of the organisations ‘‘Women World Changers’’ speaker series. The talk would ‘‘provide her personal insights into the 2016 US presidential election, its aftermath and what the future holds’’, the faculty said. Clinton would also recount parts of her New York Times best-selling book, What Happened.
Despite polls showing the former secretary of state was expected to triumph in the election in November 2016, Clinton won only 227 electoral college votes to Trump’s 304. She won the popular vote by about 2.9 million votes.
In her book, Clinton wrote that Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders caused ‘‘lasting damage’’ to her presidential campaign, and pushed back against then-US vice president Joe Biden’s claim that she didn’t campaign forcefully enough for middle-class voters.
‘‘I go back over my own shortcomings and the mistakes we made. I take responsibility for all of them. You can blame the data, blame the message, blame anything you want – but I was the candidate. It was my campaign. Those were my decisions.’’
In the book, Clinton says she miscalculated ‘‘how quickly the ground was shifting under all our feet’’ and tried to run a traditional campaign ‘‘while Trump was running a reality TV show that relentlessly stoked Americans’ anger and resentment’’.
As the campaign moved along, she says then-FBI director James Comey’s probe into her private email server disrupted the image of her as a strong leader.