Last year’s presidential election has been one of the most interesting election cycles in recent history. Trump pulled ahead of his rivals and won the general election on November 8, 2016 by gaining a majority of electoral college votes.
At the beginning of the season, the Democrats offered two major candidates. One of the candidates, Hillary Clinton, was a longtime Democrat politician. As a former Senator from New York, Secretary of State under President Barack Obama, and a former First Lady, Clinton was seen by many as the ideal nominee for the position.
My presentation is about Hillary Clinton and it will have four main parts:
1. The Early Days
Hillary Diane Rodham was born on October 26, 1947, at Edgewater Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. Her father, Hugh Ellsworth Rodham was of Welsh and English descent; he managed a successful small business in the textile industry. Her mother, Dorothy Emma Howell was a homemaker of English, Scottish, French Canadian, Welsh and Dutch descent. Hillary has two younger brothers, Hugh and Tony.
As a child, Hillary was a favorite of her teachers at the public schools that she attended in Park Ridge, a city in Illinois. She participated in sports such as swimming and baseball and earned numerous badges as a Brownie and a Girl Scout.
Interestingly, it would seem that Clinton originally began her political career as a young woman as Republican. As Biography.com has indicated: "Hillary was active in young Republican groups and campaigned for Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater in 1964. She was inspired to work in some form of public service after hearing a speech in Chicago by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., and became a Democrat in 1968. Over the subsequent years, Clinton attended Yale Law School, worked on various legislative committees and presidential campaigns, and engaged in various advocacy projects within the State of Arkansas. Her skills as a lawyer increasingly gained public notice and acclaim over this period of time. She also met Bill Clinton at Yale who was also a law student and they began dating in the late spring of 1971.
In 1992, Clinton became the First Lady of the United States when her husband, Bill, won the presidency.
At that time Clinton was a leading advocate for expanding health insurance coverage, ensuring children are properly immunized, and raising public awareness of health issues. Some people did not like it when the planning meetings were kept secret away from the public. In the end, too many people did not want the changes that she wanted.
This role was clearly in congruence with her previous work over the course of her political career; and she continued to win a great deal of acclaim and prestige for her commitment to social issues, and especially those involving children. This was the primary role fulfilled by Clinton over the course of the eight years that she was married to the President of the United States.
2. Clinton's Later Career
In late 2000, Clinton was elected as a Senator by the State of New York. She was the first female senator from New York, and the first first lady to win elective office.
In 2008, though, after losing the Democratic presidential nomination to Obama but then also being selected by Obama as his nominee for Secretary of State, she resigned from the Senate in order to accept the nomination. Thus began the next phase of her political career.
One of the main events that emerged during this phase of Clinton's political career pertained to the American embassy in Benghazi, Libya. This embassy was attacked on the 11th of September, 2012 by terrorists and resulted in the deaths of both the ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens, himself and another official within the embassy. This event has cast a dark cloud over Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State as a result of questions over the potential role she could have played (and evidently did not play) in becoming aware of the danger sooner and preventing the attack from occurring.
In any case, Clinton resigned from the post of Secretary of State in 2013. It would not seem that this had anything to do with the Benghazi affair, insofar as Clinton had consistently made it clear that she was only interested in serving one term as Secretary of State. Moreover, despite the Benghazi affair, it cannot be said that Clinton's tenure was fundamentally unsuccessful.
On the balance, then, it can be stated that Clinton's political career was in a good place by the time she resigned in 2013, and that she was well-positioned to contend for the Democratic presidential nomination for the 2016 election.
Which brings me to the third part,
3. The Presidential Elections
Last year Clinton became the first woman in the History of the United States to be a major party presidential candidate. Clinton initially did not want to run for president, but after much of a majority support from the Democratic party, on April 12, 2015, speculation ended as Clinton formally announced her candidacy via email and the release of a video saying, "Everyday Americans need a champion. And I want to be that champion." In the polls, Clinton maintained her lead for the nomination although she faced several challenges from Senator Bernie Sanders. Clinton lost the general election to Donald Trump winning 227 of the electoral college votes to Trump's 304. His win certainly came as a shock: he claimed many battleground states that various polls simply did not predict.
Last year’s elections raises one big question though: Why did Clinton lose?
Trump is a literally unprecedented candidate in American history: He is the first American president to be elected with no military or political experience of any kind. During his campaign, he multiple times insulted about every ethnic group in the country aside from white people. Twelve women came out to accuse him of sexual assault. On paper, Trump would seem to be the easiest opponent to beat imaginable, and yet, he won.
Democrats have already started arguing bitterly about who is to blame for the loss. As unpleasant as it is, there's no getting around this.
At this early stage, I see four major factors that may have led to Clinton's loss. First is her extraordinary weakness as a candidate. It simply can't be a coincidence that, during the primaries, she barely managed to put away Bernie Sanders, despite having the greatest head start of any candidate in primary history in terms of endorsements and elite support.
Second, there are the hackers, apparently affiliated with the Russian government, who got into the emails of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chair John Podesta and dribbled the contents out in a fashion calculated to do maximum harm to Clinton's campaign. It was one of the greatest acts of political sabotage in American history, and it did a significant amount of damage.
Third is Trump's appeal to bigotry. His signature plan is a campaign of ethnic cleansing, coupled with a wall to keep out brown people. He wants to ban Muslims from entering the country. Many of his supporters are white nationalists.
But finally, take a look at the political map. Trump's victory was in the Rust Belt states, which is an area located in east-central North America. The Rust Belt states used to be the greatest industrial center in the world, but have since been cored out by deindustrialization.
4. Future Prospects
She has already bee
n a highly successful lawyer, the First Lady of the United States, a Senator from the State of New York, and the Secretary of State under the Obama administration. This is a highly impressive resume, to be sure; and in truth, there would be nowhere else for her to go from here except to the presidency itself.
As we already know, she lost the presidential elections. It looks to have destroyed Hillary Clinton’s political ambitions.
So is her political career dead in the water?
More than likely yes. Commentators say last year’s Presidential election was ‘gift wrapped’ for the democrat.
Insiders say she’s now simply too old, and too controversial, to mount another Presidential campaign and it is extremely unlikely that there would be much, if any, enthusiasm for Clinton who would, by 2020, be approaching 72 years of age.
Ofcourse, she’d still be an “elder statesman” in the Democratic Party, meaning that her thoughts will continue to be valued by the media, and her – and Bill’s – backing will still be prized by the next generation of Democratic leadership.
Plus, there is also the Clinton Foundation, which ensures that the Clintons as a whole will remain active in the public sphere.
Conclusion
In summary, this presentation has consisted of a discussion of Clinton's political career. It began with a discussion of her early days, proceeded to her later career, reflected on the recent presidential elections, and finally considered her future prospects.
Ultimately, the conclusion can be reached that she is one of the most accomplished people ever to run for presidency. Although losing the elections, she still called on her supporters to keep fighting for a “better, stronger fairer” America.
This fits in well with one of her most famous quotes: “Every moment wasted looking back, keeps us from moving forward.”
Thank you for listening.