Clinton to run for Democrat nomination for 2016

TNS

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addresses the press after attending the annual Women's Empowerment Principles event at UN headquarters in New York on Tuesday, March 10, 2015. The potential 2016 U.S. presidential contender defended her use of a personal email account for official communications, saying it was "for convenience." (Niu Xiaolei/Xinhua/Sipa USA/TNS)

Lisa Nhan, Managing Editor

For the second time in her political career, Hillary Rodham Clinton has announced that she will be running for president. Due to her background and political affiliations, many have seen her as the most prominent Democratic nominee.

“Everyday Americans need a champion. And I want to be that champion. So I’m hitting the road to earn your vote- because it’s your time. And I hope you’ll join me on this journey,” Clinton said in her announcement video.

Her official two-minute announcement video was released on April 12. Before the video, John D. Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, had emailed previous donors and associates to help rally for her candidacy.

Following her announcement, Clinton will start a series of small campaign events in Iowa and New Hampshire. However, these campaigns are still critical, as Clinton will be using them to help reintroduce herself to the population again and build the message of her campaign. As described by The New York Times, her goals are, “improving the economic fortunes of middle class, with an emphasis on increasing wages and reducing income inequality.”

Clinton first came to political prominence when she ran for the Senate in 1999 for the state of New York. Before that she served as First Lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under her husband, Bill Clinton. Her main platform was a listening tour, which she started in upstate New York. She ultimately beat Rick Lazio by 12 percent, becoming the first female senator of the state. She was re-elected again in 2006.

In 2007, Clinton announced that she would be running for the Democratic nomination. Clinton again tried to do a listening tour, which is defined as “a focused effort to build community and identify concerns and priorities in a specific neighborhood/workplace or organization,” by Poverty Alliance, but this was much hard to achieve on a large national scale.

“I want to hear from you, what you think we should be doing. I want to have this as a one on one conversation,” Clinton said in Des Moines on January 2007. “You, me, and about several hundred national press people.”

Clinton lost the presidential bid to Obama. While the race started off with Clinton as the front-runner, Obama was able to beat her with his grass roots campaign. Despite this loss, Clinton has been the most successful female candidate in American history. Obama then selected her to be Secretary of State. Her biggest adversity as Secretary of State came when she took responsibility for the lapses in security in relation to the 2012 Benghazi attack. She defended her actions, but acknowledged the lives of American consulate personal that were taken due to choices. She left the position after the first term to be succeeded by John Kerry.

For this political campaign, Clinton is focusing on a new tactic. Instead of a listening tour, she is building the campaign with “a series of small events and slow build up of staff members,” according to The New York Times.

In her previous campaign, Clinton did not make gender a part of her main appeal. But this time around, she is going to highlight on her chance to make history and campaign for full pay equality.

“Being the first woman to run for president with a real chance of winning, that’s a wild card, but potentially a net positive, particularly for undecided women,” Scott Keeter, director of survey research at the Pew Research Center, said.

One factor Clinton must work to overcome is her appeal to the younger generation. Clinton, at age 67, may lack appeal to the young voters. In other to reverse that, Clinton has been more active on social media than the other potential presidential candidates, according to CNN News.

Clinton’s 35-year-old campaign manager, Robby Mook was hired in order to help Clinton run a modern campaign. There had been field organizers dispatched to Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

As of April 28, Clinton is the only Democrat who has officially announced a running campaign. However, many Republicans have come forward in their intentions to run, such as Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio.