What do first-time Latino business owners, Black expecting parents, a soon-to-be-wed homosexual couple and Hillary Rodham Clinton have in common?
They’re all in transition on the way to realizing their dreams and goals, and Clinton proposes to help.
“Every day Americans need a champion,” Clinton said in the campaign video released last week. “And I want to be that champion, so you can do more than just get by.”
For Clinton to win the presidency, voters will have to undergo a transition, too. They must separate their image of Hillary Clinton from that of Bill Clinton, a name that may be a campaign hazard for the former New York Senator.
Although Clinton is no stranger to campaigning, it seems she must rise above the other candidates. Often judged by the actions of her husband, Hillary Clinton must distinguish herself.
For example, when she was the first lady of Arkansas, she worked for the Rose Law Firm, which was at the center of the Whitewater scandal during Bill Clinton’s presidency. The scandal concerned a failed Arkansas real estate deal.
Hillary Clinton’s critics and opponents have already tried to use this information to demean her campaign, according to Yahoo News Thursday.
According to the National First Ladies Library, “Hillary Clinton sharply retorted to a journalist’s question at a public appearance that was being covered by broadcast media that the only way a working attorney who happened to also be the governor’s wife could have avoided any controversy would have been if she had ‘stayed home and baked cookies.’”
She will also face a highly polarized country, in which many voters “harbor very old fashioned ideas about gender and women’s roles,” California State University, Long Beach political science professor Mary Caputi said.
Yet Clinton has proven time and time again that she’s not only capable of being a first lady, she’s also worthy of being this nation’s first female president.
“Just based on what she’s done in her record and the fact that she’s been in politics for so long stands her in really good stead,” Caputi said. “…She definitely knows what she’s getting herself into.”
During her stint as senator she pushed for health care reform, like she had done as a first lady, and remained an advocate for children. Clinton is a member of the Armed Services Committee, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, Pensions and the Special Committee on Aging, according to U.S. News and World Report.
The presidential candidate graduated with honors from Yale Law School where she volunteered at New Haven Hospital, taking on cases of child abuse, according to the National First Ladies Library. She also volunteered with the city Legal Services, providing free legal service to the poor.
After Bill Clinton served his two terms in office, Hillary Clinton captured the U.S. Senate seat in New York. In winning, she became the first wife of a president to seek and win national office. She was also the first female senator from New York.
Her Senate campaign featured a “listening tour” in which she traveled around New York and discussed social issues with residents. Her 2016 presidential campaign video announced that she would once-again be talking to individual citizens while on her road trip from New York to Iowa, according to the Huffington Post.
“I’m hitting the road to earn your vote,” Clinton said in her video. The humble tour across America is supposed to reconnect the candidate with the very public she seeks to serve.
Of course the politician is no stranger to controversy. Who could forget the Monica Lewinsky scandal, in which she received mass criticism for her decision to stay with Bill Clinton and the more recent Benghazi and personal email scandals?
Despite the challenges and setbacks, Clinton is one among the most recognizable globetrotting diplomats who has used her position to raise awareness for important issues.
“She has demonstrated an admirable persistence in decades-long fights for women’s rights and guaranteed health care,” according to USA Today Monday.
Voters can either agree or disagree with Clinton’s politics, but one thing’s for sure: she’s definitely on an equal footing with any male candidate.