on March 16, 2016, 9:24 am, in reply to "The Rise of our American Matriarch - 45th President of the United States"
“First,” she said, “can you make positive differences in people’s lives?” She mentioned a series of policies she would like to pursue — lowering student debt, providing affordable child care, investing in infrastructure. One could object to one proposal or the other — cutting student loan interest rates for everyone, for example, instead of just for those who need it. But she brought the speech back to her larger point about political responsibility. “Every candidate makes promises like this. But every candidate owes it to you to be clear and direct about what our plans will cost and how we’re going to make them work,” she said, establishing a standard that she has satisfied more than any other presidential candidate this year. “That’s the difference between running for president and being president,” she declared, eliciting some of the loudest cheers of the night.
The next test, Clinton explained, is “can you keep us safe? Our commander in chief has to be able to defend our country, not embarrass it,” she said. “When we hear a candidate for president call for rounding up 12 million immigrants, banning all Muslims from entering the United States, when he embraces torture, that doesn’t make him strong, it makes him wrong.” Clinton nailed Trump for being reckless. But she is already running a risk not putting national security first on the list of presidential priorities. She needs to expand this section to explain what she would do rather than merely what she would avoid doing. Foreign affairs should be one of Clinton’s core strengths.
Clinton’s third and final test is the most pointedly anti-Trump: “Can you bring our country together again?” She condemned Trump’s “bluster and bigotry,” saying that “to be great, we can’t be small,” she said. “We can’t lose what made America great in the first place.” Once again, she contrasted Trump’s rhetoric with her experience. “Running for president is hard, but being president is harder,” she said. “No one person can succeed in the job without seeking and finding common ground.”
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