DES MOINES — Hillary Clinton did not win the Democratic
presidential nomination in 2008, but her campaign
succeeded in ending any concerns about whether a
woman could be commander in chief, she told The Des
Moines Register on Sunday.
"Part of what I tried to do in that campaign was to begin
to answer that question," she said. "Now I feel like the
question's been answered."
In 2008, Clinton's campaign downplayed the fact that
she'd be the first woman in the White House. But in 2016
she's making it a major selling point — that she's running
as a female candidate.
"There is an eagerness that I sense coming at me from
people in my audiences, in my conversations, to engage
with me about that more than I felt in '08," Clinton told
the Register Sunday, one of two sit-down news interviews
that were the first in this presidential bid.
Clinton flew to Iowa Saturday after her 2016 campaign's
official kickoff rally in New York. On Sunday, she held her
first public rally in Iowa, drawing more than 700.
In the wide-ranging 15-minute interview at the Iowa State
Fairgrounds, Clinton defended the presidencies of Bill
Clinton and Barack Obama, said she'll propose
improvements to the Affordable Care Act, and expanded
on her views about the proposed Trans-Pacific
Partnership trade pact.
Clinton told the Register that in her last White House run,
she "carried the very big question which research and
polling and just common sense said was out there: Could
a woman be president and could a woman be
commander-in-chief? And so I felt like I did have an extra
burden."
Clinton noted that there have been a raft of TV programs
that have featured women in power, such as "Veep," the
HBO series starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus as vice president,
then president, and "Madam Secretary," the CBS show in
which Téa Leoni stars as U.S. secretary of state. Other
shows, such as "Gilmore Girls," which ran from 2000 to
2007, featured characters who repeatedly voiced the wish
that Clinton would become president.
"A lot of different cultural references, which I find both
fascinating and kind of reinforcing, because it does take a
leap of faith of imagination for people to envision a
woman in the Oval Office, and oftentimes culture,
entertainment is ahead of the political system in lots of
ways," she said.
Kelsey Kremer/The Register
Hillary Clinton takes part in a one-on-one interview
Sunday with Des Moines more
Clinton said her gender is not the only reason to vote for
her, but it is a factor. "I expect to be judged on my
merits," she said, "and the historic nature of my
candidacy is one of the merits that I hope people take
into account."
She rejected the notions that her presidency would
represent a third term of either her husband or of Obama.
"I'm running for my first term. I will have my own
proposals," she said.
But it would be a mistake to not look at what worked
during the four terms Obama and Bill Clinton served, she
said. Both inherited problems of GOP predecessors, she
said.
Even as she defended the two prior Democratic
presidents, Clinton said she'll have her own ideas for how
to make college more affordable, how to make child care
and preschool available for every child, how the country
can become a clean energy super power, how to fund
infrastructure and "so much more."
Clinton said she will strongly defend the law, often
referred to as Obamacare. But over the course of her
campaign, she'll propose some fixes, such as "how to
deal with the high cost of deductibles that put such a
burden on so many working families, and how to deal with
the exploding cost of drugs, particularly the so-called
specialty drugs."
On trade she seemed to land on the side of House
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi over Obama in wanting to
ensure stronger protections for American workers – but it
was not clear how she would suggest Democrats handle
a stalled trade vote on Capitol Hill.
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