Chelsea Clinton gave a speech introducing her mother, Hillary Clinton, as her party’s nominee at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia Thursday night. After her mother’s presidential bid, she re-entered public life to hit the campaign trail, endearing herself to supporters with stories of Mrs Clinton as a mother and grandmother. Its goal was ostensibly to give viewers a better feel for Clinton as a person – as she said in her subsequent speech, “The truth is, through all these years of public service, the “service” part has always come easier to me than the “public” part”. Russian spies are trying to dupe her left-leaning critics into thinking she’s conspiring against them. Thankfully, he’s healthy and thriving – and well, we’re biased, but we think he’s just about the cutest baby in the world – a view I’m pretty sure my mom shares.
Advertisement
Clinton is no Barack Obama, who is one of the greatest political orators of all time. Trump, the Republican nominee for the 45th President of the United States has said on more than one occasion that he wished the two women were not friends.
Patti Davis, in contrast, bitterly opposed the agenda of her father, whom she attacked in her fiction.
Ivanka Trump revealed that she and Chelsea have enjoyed a longtime friendship. It emphasizes Clinton’s gender – a lot of people still have trouble reconciling the roles of “mother” and “powerful person who does an important and time-consuming job”. When I checked Amazon’s sales stats for the two books just after Clinton mentioned them, Goodnight Moon was at No. 55 on the site’s best-seller lists while A Wrinkle in Time came in at No. 376.
Her mother’s 1994 fight for universal healthcare was recalled to underscore how long Hillary Clinton has been fighting for issues that have wide appeal. Margaret Truman was too busy launching her career as a singer and writer; the Johnson and Nixon daughters appeared at campaign events for their fathers but never took part in policy formulation.
That’s who my mom is – a listener and a doer, a wOman driven by Compassion, by faith, by a fierce sense of justice and a heart full of love. She also worked at Wall Street for Avenue Capital Group, and New York University.
I’m voting for the progressive who will protect our planet from climate change and our communities from gun violence.
There’s something else my mother taught me: public service is about service. “We all hope for a better tomorrow”, the narrator (who is, by coincidence, Morgan Freeman) says.
“People ask me, all the time, how does she do it? It’s how we are made”. “Ladies and gentlemen, my mother, my hero, our next President – Hillary Clinton”. And as proud as I am of my mom, this election to me is fundamentally about my children, about Charlotte and Aidan.
Advertisement
Chelsea Clinton, a 36-year-old mother of two, was the last in a series of speakers at the four-day gathering who sought to cast Hillary Clinton in a familial light ahead of the November 8 election against Republican Donald Trump.
