Hillary Clinton comes out fighting at 2016 kickoff rally

Second-time candidate pitches populist economic message in maiden campaign speech

Hillary Clinton, former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, speaks at her first campaign rally at Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island, New York City, on Saturday, June 13th, 2015. Photograph: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Hillary Clinton used the first major speech of her 2016 presidential campaign to set out a liberal election manifesto that promised to fight for US middle-class families and to restore economic equality.

Ms Clinton, the clear frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, told supporters at a sun-drenched New York park that she was “not running for some Americans but for all Americans”.

Next to a memorial dedicated to President Franklin D Roosevelt’s famous 1941 “four freedoms” speech, the former first lady evoked the 32nd president’s pledge for liberty, economic opportunity and national security to outline her case to be elected the country’s 45th president.

Ms Clinton used Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island between Manhattan and Queens to argue for a suite of new economic policies to raise America’s middle class and restore America’s “basic bargain” - that hard work should lead to economic and social mobility.

Populist message

Playing to the legacy of Roosevelt’s New Deal policies that lifted the US out of the Great Depression, she delivered a strongly populist economic message calling for a “new era of prosperity”.

Roosevelt had brought “a wider and constantly rising standard of living”, a promise that Ms Clinton said “still sounds good to me”.

“Prosperity can’t be just for CEOs and hedge fund managers,” she said. “Democracy can’t just be for billionaires and corporations; prosperity and democracy are part of your basic bargain too.”

Addressing a crowd of about 5,500 people against the backdrop of the Manhattan skyline, Ms Clinton said she wanted to “wage and win” four particular battles for everyday Americans as the next US president. She said she wanted to build a better economy, strengthen families, defend America and reform government.

The loudest cheers came in response to Ms Clinton noting a weakness in her candidacy as possibly the second-oldest president to take office with the possibility of making history as the first female US president.

“I may not be the youngest candidate in this race, but I’ll be the youngest woman president,” she said, to rapturous applause.

The rally is a marked shift in her second presidential campaign, launched in April, moving from the small-scale, carefully orchestrated roundtable discussions she has had in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, states that first pick presidential candidates.

The event attracted 550 requests from journalists seeking credentials to hear the first campaign speech for a candidate who leads her Democrat rivals by almost 50 percentage points in the polls.

Her campaign kickoff speech drew on policy ideas that have tested well during the two-month low-key roll-out of her campaign.

Bin Laden

Pointing to the rebuilt World Trade Center behind her, Mrs Clinton pledged to keep the US safe and reminded the audience that she was “in the [White House] situation room the day we got Bin Laden”.

The speech was, however, light on foreign policy, as Ms Clinton focused on domestic policies, saying that “in order to be strong abroad we have to be strong at home”.

At times combative, she dismissed the Republicans’ “top-down economic policies”, which she said had failed.

“There may be some new voices in the Republican presidential choir, but they are singing the same thing - a song called ‘Yesterday’,” she joked, quoting lines from The Beatles song to mock her opponents.

She argued that these Republicans “trip over themselves promising lower taxes and less regulations for wealthy corporations, without any regard for what that will do to income inequality”.

Describing climate change as “one of the defining threats of our time”, she said Republicans will say “I’m not a scientist” on the issue.

“Well, why don’t they listen to those who are?” she added, to loud applause.

She promised that, if elected, she would rewrite the US tax code in a way that rewards hard work and long-term investment by businesses and not quick market trades or - on a policy that may have significance for Ireland’s corporate landscape - stashing profits overseas.

Secret money

The former New York senator criticised the “endless flow of secret, endless money” into American politics, saying she would support a constitutional amendment overturning a 2010 Supreme Court ruling that opened the floodgates to unlimited campaign financing.

Ms Clinton is pitching her campaign as a natural successor to carry through many progressive policies which President Barack Obama, who beat her to the Democratic nomination in 2008, has pursued.

This includes comprehensive immigration reform for many of the country’s almost 12 million illegal immigrants.

“We should offer hard-working, law-abiding immigrant families a path to citizenship, not second-class status,” she said, referring to a half-measure that some Republicans want for illegal immigrants.

Casting herself as a champion for nurses, food service workers and small business owners, she said she wanted to fight “for everyone who has ever been knocked down but refused to be knocked out”.

Alluding to the personal attacks she has faced in the past, she said she was the best placed to fight for everyday Americans.

‘Quitter’

“I think you know by now that I’ve been called many things by many people - ‘quitter’ is not one of them,” she said.

At the end of her speech she was joined on stage by her husband, former president Bill, and her daughter Chelsea.

Clinton supporters, passing a “Hillary Clinton Shop” selling campaign merchandise, felt she was the best candidate in the field.

“I just think she has the most experience for what this job entails,” said Taylor Moury (23), originally from Seattle but living in New York, wearing a Hillary Clinton T-shirt she made for the rally.

At the gates to the park, one man protesting over Ms Clinton’s position on Israel held a sign that read: “Had Our Fill of Hill & Bill.”

“We don’t want a Bush or a Clinton dynasty,” said Bob Kunst. “If this is all America has, we can’t survive. They created the mess. They are not the answer; they are the problem.”