Clinton invokes legacy of Obama and Roosevelt
NEW YORK — Hillary Rodham Clinton cast herself as a fighter for Americans who have yet to share in the nation’s economic recovery, drawing inspiration from a Democratic icon as well as her own roots in public service as she opened a new phase of her second bid for the White House on Saturday.
Speaking in a park dedicated to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Clinton said FDR’s legacy had inspired both President Obama’s and her husband Bill Clinton’s administrations and generations of families.
While the nation is “standing again” after the 2007-09 reces- sion, “we all know we’re not yet running the way America should,” she said, blaming the problems on Republicans’ “trickle-down” approach.
Clinton sought to tap into the country’s economic anxieties and the rising populism within her party, declaring that the “time has come” for middleclass Americans who have wondered when their hard work would pay off.
“Prosperity can’t be just for CEOs and hedge fund managers. Democracy can’t be just for billionaires and corporations,” she said. “You brought our country back. Now it’s time, your time, to secure our gains and move ahead. And you know what? America can’t succeed unless you succeed.”
The Republican “choir,” she had, had some “new voices,” but all of them were “singing the same old song: a song called ‘Yesterday.’ ”
The line served both as an accusation that Republicans would return to the policies that Democrats blame for bringing about the financial crisis of 2008 and as a rejoinder to those in the Republican Party who call her a candidate of the past, seeking to run for a third Obama term.
On issues including climate change, economic fairness, immigration and equal rights for gays and lesbians, Clinton said it was Republicans who were out of step with the public.
“Fundamentally they reject what it takes to build an inclusive economy,” she said. “It takes an inclusive society — what I once called a village — that has a place for everyone.”
She also offered a personal qualification, drawing loud applause when she reminded the crowd that while she might not be the youngest candidate in the race, she would be “the youngest woman president in the history of the United States.”
Clinton used the high-profile speech to highlight other biographical details her campaign advisers believe many Americans continue to be unfamiliar with.
Her vision of America was not one she learned from politics, she said, but from her family, specifically her late mother, Dorothy Rodham. Abandoned as a young child, her mother survived and was an example of the importance of perseverance and hard work in the face of adversity, Clinton said.
Clinton began her candidacy with an online video in April, as she had done when she began her first campaign in 2007. But she never did then what she did Saturday: hold a public campaign rally in which she could offer a more expansive rationale for a second Clinton presidency.