Hillary has dispensed with the formality of an election and has assumed her throne.
Via CSM
“You campaign in poetry; you govern in prose,” former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo (D) famously proclaimed. Hillary Clinton is likely to prove Cuomo wrong; her campaign rollout speech over the weekend on New York’s Roosevelt Island suggests she is determined to campaign in prose as well.
Indeed, it was about as prosaic a speech as one could image; with its litany of policy proposals and homage to constituency groups it felt more like a State of the Union address than a stirring call to campaign arms.
Not surprisingly, reporters in the major newspapers struggled to fashion a lead to their stories that adequately captured a single overarching theme in the speech.
Some emphasized its “populist” message, particularly her focus on reducing economic inequities. Others focused on her four “fights,” alluding to both her own political career as well as FDR’s “four freedoms” but focusing particularly on Clinton’s homage to the lessons she had learned from her mother, who overcame a difficult upbringing.
What almost everyone agreed on was that the speech was big on broad themes – promoting inclusiveness and economic equality – and more concrete policy objectives – universal preschool, expanded family leave – but weak on the specifics regarding how to achieve those goals.
And she largely stayed clear of the more controversial issues – the 12-nation Pacific trade pact, her tenure heading the State Department, or even how to deal with ISIS – that potentially divide the Democratic Party. The sprawling presentation was clearly designed to appeal to a litany of groups – women, labor unions, racial and ethnic minorities, the LGBT community, truckers, veterans, nurses, small business owners – and to tout a broad range of progressive policies presented as common-sense centrist ideas. In short, there was something for everyone, but little to provoke opposition.