This article is from the source 'independent' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hillary-clinton-calls-for-a-new-era-of-shared-prosperity-in-america-10318263.html

The article has changed 4 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 1 Version 2
Hillary Clinton calls for a new era of shared prosperity in America Hillary Clinton vows to represent and champion all the American people
(35 minutes later)
Hillary Clinton has called for a new era of shared prosperity in America and told thousands of supporters at a presidential campaign rally that workers can trust her to fight for them. Almost a quarter of a century after she bumped across America in a bus beside her husband on his first run for president, and eight years after she made her own first unsuccessful bid for the same job, Hillary Clinton was back on the trail exhorting voters to consider a Clinton one more time.
In the first major speech of her second campaign for president, Clinton portrayed herself as a fierce advocate for those left behind after the recession. Under bright blue skies on Roosevelt Island, a sliver of land between Queens and Manhattan in New York City, Mrs Clinton, 67, used her first major rally of a campaign technically launched in April to promise to represent and champion all the American people – “the successful and the struggling”.
"It's America's basic bargain," Clinton said. "If you do your part, you ought to be able to get ahead, and when everybody does their part, America gets ahead too. “Prosperity can’t be just for CEOs and hedge funds. Democracy can’t just be for billionaires and corporations… It’s your time to secure the gains and move ahead. You know what, America can’t succeed unless you succeed,” she said. “That is why I am running for president of the United States.”
"That bargain inspired generations of American families, including my own," the former secretary of state and first lady said. The swipe at Wall Street was directed that those who have accused of her being too cosy with big business and financial fat cats and too willing to take their dollars for speeches. Before a cheering crowd in the Four Freedoms memorial to President Franklin Roosevelt, Mrs Clinton, in a vivid blue trouser suit, said: “I am not running for some Americans but for all Americans”.
Clinton launched her campaign in April and has been conducting intimate listening sessions with voters in Iowa and other states with early nominating contests. This was the first large rally of her campaign.
Hillary Clinton faces competition for the Democratic nomination from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (Getty)Hillary Clinton faces competition for the Democratic nomination from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (Getty)
Long one of the most divisive figures in American politics, Clinton was seeking to use the speech to present herself on her own terms and turn her politicized history into a strength. She lost her 2008 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination to then-Sen. Barack Obama. She assailed Republicans saying they “shame and blame women” by seeking to curb access to abortion, want to put immigrants at risk of deportation and “turn their backs on gay people who love each other”. The rally, where she spent nearly an hour ticking through top policy priorities, from campaign funding reform to tackling the racial inequities in the judicial system, ended with a family ensemble as Bill, their daughter Chelsea and her husband, Marc Mezvinsky, climbing on the stage with her.
Although the heavy favorite to win the Democratic nomination, she faces a challenge from the left from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has been attracting enthusiastic crowds in early voting states Iowa and New Hampshire with an anti-Wall Street message highlighting growing income inequality. Former Govs. Martin O'Malley of Maryland and Lincoln Chafee of Maryland are also in the race. “You won’t see my hair turn white in the White House. I have been colouring it for years,” she joked, after acknowledging that she won’t be the youngest candidate in the field. “But I will be the youngest ever woman present,” she quipped to loud cheers and chants of “Hillary, Hillary!”.
She cited Obama, and former Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Bill Clinton, her husband, and said they embraced the idea that "real and lasting prosperity must be built by all and shared by all." Seeking to personalise her promise to represent every class of Americans, Mrs Clinton said she had been inspired by her late mother, Dorothy Rodham, whose own early life was one of hardship and family abandonment. “My mother taught me that everyone needs a chance and a champion. She knew what it was like not to have either one.”
Her campaign said her "tenacious fighter" message will form the foundation of her 2016 White House race, even as she takes pains to stay silent on politically divisive issues, including two billed by Republicans as key to economic growth: a proposed trade deal with Pacific Rim nations and the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Yet while the event had been touted heavily by her campaign and was choreographed even down to replicating the red and blue arrow symbol of her campaign logo on the surface of her stage, Mrs Clinton delivered a speech that was oddly lacking in passion or electricity. She has the gesturing her husband used to do – the pointing at friends at the crowd – but still she can’t muster his dynamite delivery.
She gave a nod at the start of her address to the prospect she would be the first woman elected to the White House. The symbolism of the setting was lost on no one. The Clintons both have drawn their progressive philosophies from the legacy of FDR. The four freedoms refer to the tenets for America he outlined in a 1941 speech – freedom of speech and worship, and freedom from want and fear.
Clinton told the thousands at the outdoor rally on Roosevelt Island in New York's East River that she was glad to be with them "in a place with absolutely no ceilings." But the reverence held by Mrs Clinton for Eleanor Roosevelt, as the first American First Lady to create her own political space to advocate for the disadvantaged and for human and women’s rights, is also widely documented. She has herself admitted to drawing on Eleanor’s spirit during her most difficult times in the White House, notably when the effort she led in 1993 to create universal healthcare faltered.
Eager and excited Democrats began assembling hours before they heard from the candidate. No patch of America will be friendlier to Mrs Clinton if she becomes the nominee than Manhattan, and there it was to her left as she spoke, its skyline soaring in all its splendour. But at this event, which featured a short set by the rock pop band Echosmith, not everyone at the event was a fan.
Marc Markley of New York said he showed up at 2:30 a.m. and waited in the dark for the gates to open, with only a police officer for company. Bob Kunst, a registered Democrat, had travelled from Miami to protest against the former First Lady. He said: “This woman is an absolute fraud. Look at her positions on Israel and Iran and she’s here talking about her mother?” He said he was disappointed not have any better choices this time around. “People don’t want the Bush dynasty and they don’t want the Clinton dynasty. They are tired of both families.”
"I was about to fall asleep earlier, but now it's totally worth it," he said. "I can't wait to get inside." On Monday, in fact, it will be the turn of Jeb Bush who will formally announce his candidacy in Florida, the state that he once ran as governor and arguably the most important of any in a presidential race. So far on the Democrat side, Mrs Clinton is facing completion only from Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-described socialist democrat, as well as two former governors, Martin O’Malley and Lincoln Chafee.
Those arriving were greeted by campaign manager Robby Mook, who took an all-hands-on-deck approach to the event by hawking merchandise — a role typically assigned to a low-level staffer or volunteer. For now, all three are far adrift from her in polls. But this rally was also an early start on reintroducing Ms Clinton to the country as a whole. A CNN poll earlier this month showed that 57 per cent of Americans thought she was not honest and trustworthy, up from 49 per cent in March, and that 47 per cent of voters thought that she “cares about people like you”, down from 53 per cent last July.
On Friday, the Clinton campaign released a video on Friday detailing her four decades in public service, starting with her work as a young lawyer at the Children's Defense Fund. That trust may be a problem has been highlighted in the weeks since she declared in April. Questions about donations by foreign governments to the Clinton Foundation have multiplied as have concerns about her use of a private email server while Secretary of State in the first term of President Obama.
After the speech, Clinton planned to visit early-voting states, with events focused on her relationship with her mother and her father's background as a veteran and small businessman. In an interview with CNN to be broadcast on Sunday, Bill Clinton will suggest that it has been helpful that these controversies have broken at this early stage. He will always say that as a couple they have become hardened by tough criticism. It was a sentiment echoed by a line from a Kelly Clarkson track that played twice here as the crowd waited for Mrs Clinton: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
"You have to get up off the floor and you keep fighting," Clinton says in the video, discussing her failed 1993 attempt to overhaul the nation's health care system during her husband's administration. "Everyday Americans need a champion." Mr Clinton also speaks of the love in a marriage that has survived some very public crises, notably when he was impeached while president after an affair with an intern, Monica Lewinsky. “I trust her with my life, and have on more than one occasion,” he tells the network.
Clinton has spoken out strongly on immigration and other issues important to parts of the Democratic base.
But she has been reticent on other policy questions that have divided the party, among them a trade deal with Pacific Rim nations. Obama backs it. Organized labor, liberals and others say it would cost U.S. jobs.
On Friday, dozens of union-backed House Democrats voted down a critical part of Obama's trade agenda, negotiating authority that would let him propose trade agreements that Congress could accept or reject, but not amend.
Clinton aides said she plans to give a major policy address almost every week in the summer and fall offering specific proposals on issues that include college affordability, jobs and the economy.
Clinton was joined by her husband and daughter Chelsea at the rally. It was the first time the family had been seen together in public since Clinton began her campaign in April, and the crowd chanted "Bill! Bill! Bill!" when she introduced him.
"Oh, that will make him so happy," Clinton said.
Associated Press