In her first public appearance since giving her concession speech, Hillary Clinton told an audience at a Children’s Defense Fund gala that her supporters need to keep fighting for their values despite her shocking loss in the presidential election.
“I know many of you are deeply disappointed about the results of the election,” she said. “I am too, more than I can ever express.”
“I will admit, coming here tonight wasn’t the easiest thing for me,” Clinton added. “There have been a few times this past week when all I wanted to do is just to curl up with a good book or our dogs and never leave the house again.”
But she pushed for her supporters to keep advocating for their beliefs, offering a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
She urged the crowd to keep pushing to create better experiences for children.
“I believe the measure of any society is how we treat our children, and as we move forward into a new and in many ways uncertain future, that must be the test for America and ourselves,” Clinton said. “No child should be afraid to go to school because they’re Latino, or African-American, or Muslim, or because they have a disability.”
“We have work to do, and for the sake of our children and our families and our country, I ask you to stay engaged, stay engaged on every level,” she told the crowd. “We need you. America needs you, your energy, your ambition, your talent. That is how we get through this.”
She told supporters, “Believe in our country, fight for our values and never, ever give up.”
I voted for Clinton and financially supporters her in this election-and gladly, given the alternative. But from my perspective, the Democratic voters sent a loud and clear message to her back in 2008. Unfortunately, when you have a larger-than-life presence like Barack Obama in the White House for 8 years, it’s hard for another Democrat to emerge as an immediate successor. That left the Democratic equivalent of Bob Dole, John McCain, or Mitt Romney: a highly-qualified candidate who had “earned” the right to run (and maybe even be the nominee), but one with minimal energy, charisma, or mass appeal. Still, the country and the world would be far, far better off with Hillary Clinton in the White House.
Or Joe Biden Oh I wish he had run. He would have shredded Donald Trump
The country will very shortly wish it had this woman at the helm, who’s shown 1,000,000x more grace in defeat than Trump and the Bannon crowd have displayed in victory. Congressional Republicans may regret her loss even more so than us liberals.
In principle I don’t accept the legitimacy of “coulda, shoulda” arguments, and with respect to Biden in particular, I don’t believe it. For starters, I think Hillary would have taken him apart.
I could go on with pointless theorizing, but I won’t. Hillary was good enough. She barely lost under circumstances that were the most unusual and unfair in decades.
Painful as it is, I think she may find her true voice as this year’s loser. I hope she continues to speak out.
Let me add my own “coulda, shoulda.” If you want to make guesses, then a much more pointed one is that Sanders damaged Clinton enough to cause her to lose. Is it true? I don’t know and I don’t honestly care. I simply think it’s a pretty reasonable hypothetical, much more than Biden running and winning.
I’m of two minds with this. As the (hilarious) BIden memes have shown, people unfortunately tend to think of Joe as a person not to be taken seriously. On the other hand, he probably would have dampened the intensity of the racist/misogynist vote (by virtue of being white, male, and someone who can speak to the middle and working classes).
But, ultimately, do we really want to just keep nominating white males because the assholes in this country won’t vote for a woman?
(Side note: I was for Biden in the 2008 primaries. I have long thought he’d be an excellent President.)