Honing in on Hillary’s past and future
Trey Stewart, Staff Writer
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
Hillary, HRC, Madam Secretary: call her whatever you want, but there’s no denying that Hillary Clinton is one of the most prominent voices in American politics for the past few decades.
No matter what side of the political spectrum you lean towards, there’s a very good chance you hear the name Hillary Clinton come up in plenty of discussions, whether you’d like to or not.
After being ousted from the Democratic primaries in 2008 by then Senator Barack Obama, many thought Clinton’s political career was reaching it’s anticlimactic end. However, when Senator Obama went on to gain the presidency later that year by defeating Republican candidate John McCain, he made a decision that many considered to be shocking and placed HRC in a very prestigious position of power as Secretary of State.
Her tenure in that role, as littered in controversy as it was, propelled her to the position she needed to be in for the opportunity to make another run at the Oval Office in 2016. She breezed through the democratic primaries this time around, however, she fell short in the general election as she was defeated by Republican nominee Donald J. Trump by a electoral vote count of 304-227.
It had to be over. There was no way Clinton was going to bounce back from this. Some pundits suggested that she stay out of the public eye for good after the embarrassing defeat to Trump, in an election that nearly every poll and expert showed was Clinton’s to win.
And for a while, that is more or less what Clinton did. She spoke up on political issues very rarely in the months following her second-straight failed presidential campaign. Many assumed that the book of Clinton, which included eight years as first lady, an extended tenure as a senator for the state of New York, four years as America’s top diplomat under President Obama and two attempts at becoming the most powerful person in the world, was finally turning its last page.
However, as the smoke from the intense 2016 election died down and Trump was inaugurated as President, Clinton began to make her way back into the news. She released her own detailed perspective into the events of the election in her book, what happened and slowly began reappearing at marches, rallies and other events around the United States.
So what is Clinton’s plan for this upcoming year? Support.
Clinton plans to throw her support behind Democratic nominees in crucial Senate and House elections all across the U.S., as not only are 33 of the 100 senate seats up for grabs this year, but every single seat in the House of Representatives is up for grabs as well.
With President Trump having minimal resistance in the enactment of many Republican policies since his election, Clinton plans on showing her force by throwing support behind Democrats in the most important elections around the country, in hopes to help regain control of the Senate and House of Representatives for the Democratic Party.
Of course, Hillary Clinton will not be around forever. Sooner or later her time will come and she will fade away into a political legacy of some sort. But one of her qualities is unlikely to be challenged by many member of any party. She shows determination and fight. She gets knocked down, but continues to get back up again and again, even if not for her own gain, but the gain of other members of her party.
Hillary Rodham Clinton will leave behind an immense legacy, not of failure, but of refusal to let failure define her.
