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[h=4]Hillary Clinton launches campaign with memories of mom, FDR[/h]Hillary Clinton launched her presidential campaign in earnest with a speech and rally in a setting that evokes a revered Democratic past.
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Supporters gather at Roosevelt Island in New York as Hillary Clinton kicks off her campaign. Michael Monday, USA TODAY
Hillary Clinton arrives to make her official launch address on Roosevelt Island in New York on June 13, 2015.(Photo: Andrew Gombert, European Pressphoto Agency)
NEW YORK — Hillary Clinton launched her presidential campaign in earnest Saturday with a speech and rally in a setting that evoked a revered Democratic past as much as — if not more than — the party's desired future.
To explain her vision of prosperity, she cited two voices from the Depression: President Franklin D. Roosevelt and her mother.
Speaking on an island in the East River named for FDR, she echoed some of that president's anti-Wall Street rhetoric, repeatedly criticizing populist targets such as hedge fund managers, tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations that stash profits overseas.
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"You see the top 25 hedge fund managers making more than all of America's kindergarten teachers combined, and often paying a lower tax rate,'' Clinton said. "So, you have to wonder: 'When does my hard work pay off? When does my family get ahead?'"
And echoing the "four freedoms'' Roosevelt declared in a 1941 speech, Clinton identified "four fights'' she'd wage as president: for equitable economic growth, for national security, for better treatment of children and families and for more efficient and less corrupt government.
Against this, she slammed the "new voices" in the Republican field who she said are "singing the same old song, a song called Yesterday."
The Republican National Committee replied that her speech was "chock full of hypocritical attacks, partisan rhetoric and ideas from the past.''
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USA TODAY reporter Rick Hampson discusses Hillary Clinton's campaign kick off speech on Roosevelt Island in New York. Michael Monday, USA TODAY
Clinton joked that there were younger candidates in the race, while also noting the history-making potential of her candidacy.
"I may not be the youngest candidate in this race, but I will be the youngest woman president in the history of the United States," she said.
Clinton also cited the experience of her mother, Dorothy Rodham, who was abandoned by her own parents and suffered a difficult girlhood in the '20s and '30s.
"My mother taught me that everybody needs a chance and a champion,'' Clinton said. "She knew what it was like not to have either one.'' Once, Clinton said, "I asked what kept her going. ... (It was) something very simple: Kindness from someone who believed she mattered.''
Later, Clinton returned to that theme. Referring to a single mother she met recently who was struggling to raise three children and attend community college, she said, "I want to be her champion and your champion.'' The crowd of several thousand supporters roared.
in this and other ways, the speech seemed designed to answer the question of why Clinton wants to president. There were a few specific policy recommendations, but Clinton made it clear that she sees a connection between the people who helped her mother --- a first grade teacher, a benevolent employer -- and herself.
She's always said Americans (especially needy women and children) could count on her to fight for them; on Saturday she tried to explain why she fights.
Otherwise, she begins the campaign with many of the same assets and liabilities as when she ran for president eight years ago. As then, it's hard to say which set is more striking.
Is it the assets — her fundraising ability, her vast network of friends and supporters, her extensive résumé, her peerless name recognition?
Or is it the liabilities — her aversion for the push and pull of retail politics, her entrenched cadre of critics, her reputation for calculation, her peerless name recognition?
Supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton wait for her to arrive on June 13, 2015, on Roosevelt Island in New York.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Frank Franklin II, AP)
Since 2008 she's burnished that résumé with a stint as secretary of State. But now she's also dogged by questions about the attack on American diplomats in Benghazi, her use of private email as secretary, and donations to the charitable foundation created by her husband, Bill, after he left the White House.
As in 2008, she leads all her rivals, Republican and Democratic, in the polls.
As in 2008, she must convince voters that another Clinton in the White House — make that two Clintons — is a good thing.
As in 2008, Iraq — a specter that haunted her campaign (she voted for the invasion but came to oppose the war) — will be an issue, especially with discussion this week of an expanded U.S. military role in the country.
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But there are differences this year, too.
In 2008, Clinton faced a much more daunting lineup of rivals for the Democratic nomination, including Barack Obama, former vice presidential nominee John Edwards and future vice president Joe Biden.
One issue in 2008 — Can Americans trust a woman as commander in chief? — seems less pressing in light of Clinton's experience as secretary of State.That includes, as she pointed out Saturday, being in the White House Situation Room "when we got (Osama) bin Laden.''
Hillary Clinton makes her official launch address on Roosevelt Island in New York on June 13, 2015.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Andrew Gombert, European Pressphoto Agency)
The Roosevelt Island event, which Clinton's campaign billed as her "official launch speech,'' felt like the symbolic and emotional start of what should be a fascinating campaign by a riveting political personality.
The setting cast Clinton, once a GOP "Goldwater Girl'' volunteer in the 1964 presidential election, as heir to the Roosevelts -- Franklin and first lady Eleanor --and thus its logical nominee.
But cladding herself in the mantle of a man who has been dead for 71 years (or a woman dead for 54) might be risky for someone who in 2008 suffered in comparison to a younger candidate promising a future summed up on posters by the words "HOPE'' and "CHANGE.''
Then-senator Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., left, and then-senator Barack Obama, D-Ill., shake hands after a Democratic presidential debate in Cleveland in this Feb. 26, 2008, file photo.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Mark Duncan, AP)
Saturday's event, which was attended by Bill Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea, comes amid signs of declines in Hillary's popularity. This month a CNN poll found 57% of Americans think she is not honest and trustworthy, up from 49% three months ago. And a Washington Post/ ABC News poll put Clinton's favorability at 45% — her lowest since April 2008.
Meanwhile, a Democratic candidate on her left, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, has been drawing large, enthusiastic crowds in Iowa, site of the first key vote early next year.
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In Iowa, and possibly all the way to November 2016, political suspense will be based on the same question as eight years ago: Can Hillary Clinton, for all her accomplishments, supporters and celebrity, win a close, tough, protracted electoral contest?
It's an issue raised by her fall-from-ahead loss to Obama in 2008, and not really answered by wins in two mismatch races for U.S. Senate from New York. Hillary Clinton sometimes seems as unnatural a campaigner as her husband was a natural.
When she announced eight years ago, her campaign posted on its website a memo by pollster Mark Penn that began with the frank admission that "People are always asking, 'Can Hillary Clinton win the presidency?' …''
Eight years later, they still are.
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