...and it's terrific. Or as the Daily Beast describes it:
"Meet the new Barack Obama: Her name is Hillary Clinton."
I thought Hillary's speeches in the last few months of her last campaign were pretty darn good, actually. They may not have reached the soaring preacher-esque heights of her Democratic rival's, but in their own wonky and populist way...not bad at all.
But this speech is better, and also makes clear that equality will be at the forefront of this historic progressive campaign.
Speaking to a friendly crowd at the Women in the World Summit in Manhattan, Clinton thundered about the rights and opportunities, political or otherwise, of women and girls around the world.
“It is hard to believe that in 2015 so many women still pay a price for being mothers. It is also hard to believe that so many women are also paid less than many for the same work, with even wider gaps for women of color,” Clinton said to sustained applause. “And if you don’t believe what I say, look to the World Economic Forum, hardly a hotbed of feminist thought. Their rankings show that the United States is 65th out of 142 nations and other territories on equal pay.
“We should be No. 1.”
Clinton placed women’s struggle for equality within the struggle for a more equal economic playing field, pointing out that the lack of parity on wages meant that families had less to spend on education, health care, and retirement.
“When women are held back, our country is held back. When women get ahead, everyone gets ahead,” Clinton said.
“Our mothers and sisters and daughters are on the front lines of all of these battles,” Clinton added later. “But these are not just women’s fights. These have to be America’s fights and the world’s fights. We have to take them on, we have to win them together.”
Don't think for a second that her potential Republican rivals came out of this speech unscathed.
“We have to have leaders who recognize that the time has come. There are those who offer themselves as leaders who take a very different view,” Clinton said. “There are those who offer themselves as leaders who see nothing wrong with denying women equal pay. There are those who offer themselves as leaders who would defund the country’s leading provider of family planning and want to let health insurance companies once again charge women just because of our gender. There are those who offer themselves as leaders who deport mothers working to give their children a better life rather than face the ire of talk radio. There are those who offer themselves as leaders who would even play politics with the nomination of our nation’s chief law enforcement officer.”
It's really no wonder that the Republicans and complicit news media are desperate for more Clinton "scandals". Watching this speech, one wonders how such an amazingly strong candidate could possibly be stopped.
Originally posted at Hillary HQ