Politico
By Annie Karni
July 19, 2015
Hillary
Clinton sharply rebuked Donald Trump on Saturday for his “shameful”
comments that Sen. John McCain was not a war hero because he was
captured in Vietnam.
Clinton
also moved quickly to erase any daylight between Trump and the rest of
the GOP field, where the real-estate mogul and reality television
personality has moved
from sideshow to the current leader in the polls.
“Donald
Trump, finally a candidate whose hair gets more attention than mine,”
Clinton quipped at a Democratic dinner here. “But there’s nothing funny
about the hate he
is spewing at immigrants and families — and now the insults he has
directed at a genuine war hero, Sen. John McCain.
“It’s
shameful, and so is the fact that it took so long for his fellow
Republican candidates to start standing up to him,” she said. “The sad
truth is if you look at many
of their policies, it can be hard to tell the difference.”
Clinton
made her comments at the annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Little
Rock, in front of a crowd of about 1,500 Democrats. It was a brief,
half-day homecoming for
Clinton, her first visit to her de facto home state since she announced
her candidacy in April.
In
her keynote address, she gave an impassioned version of her stump
speech, talking about paid leave, childcare, equal pay for equal work,
universal preschool, and refinancing
student debt. She reiterated her promise to hold individuals on Wall
Street accountable for actions that lead to economic crises.
And
she criticized the Republican field as a generic whole. “They may have
some fresh faces, but they are the party of the past,” she said.
“Trickle-down economics has
to be one of the worst ideas of the 1980s. It is right up there with
New Coke, shoulder pads and big hair. I lived through that. There are
photographs. And believe me we’re not going back.”
After
arriving in town late Saturday afternoon, Clinton visited the house she
and Bill Clinton lived in when they first moved to Little Rock from
Fayetteville, after Bill
Clinton was elected state attorney general in 1977. She also made a
brief stop at the Clinton Presidential Center, and drove by their old
1992 campaign headquarters, before arriving at the Verizon Center to
keynote the dinner. She was scheduled to fly out
Saturday night after her speech, an aide said.
Arkansas
has changed dramatically since the Clintons were the stars of the
state’s Democratic Party more than three decades ago. Democrats have
been trounced here in recent
elections, where the GOP now holds a majority at all levels of
government in a state that used to be a Democratic stronghold. In his
2012 reelection campaign, President Barack Obama lost Arkansas by 24
points. Former Democratic governor and close Clinton ally
Mike Beebe, the one stalwart Democratic survivor, left office in
January after he was term-limited out.
The
changing politics of Arkansas were on display Friday night, where Trump
was warmly received by a crowd of over 1,000 Republicans at a GOP
dinner in Hot Springs, Bill
Clinton’s boyhood home.
But
inside the overly air-conditioned Verizon Center, state Democrats were
trying to keep both the pounding heat and the bleak political map out.
“I’m here to tell you the Democratic party is alive and well in Arkansas!” said state Democratic Party chairman Vince Insalaco.
For
her part, Clinton acknowledged that last year was “a hard one for
Democrats” in Arkansas. But she put a positive spin on it. “Don’t
forget, voters did come out and
pass an increase in the minimum wage,” she said. “Arkansas voters know
paychecks need to grow. We just have to offer a plan for more growth and
more fairness they can believe in and vote for.”
The
arena was filled with longtime Clinton allies like Beebe; Mack McLarty,
who served as White House chief of staff; former Sen. Blanche Lincoln;
former Sen. David Pryor;
Gen. Wesley Clark; and Lynda Dixon, Bill Clinton’s former personal
secretary during his years as Arkansas governor, among others. The crowd
was thrilled to welcome Clinton home — a large portrait of the former
Secretary of State was sold at a pre-dinner auction
for $19,000.
Speaking
to reporters before Clinton took the stage, Beebe said Democrats are
suffering because Arkansans are “mad at the White House. They’re mad at
the president, in
Arkansas.”
But
he said Clinton can distance herself from Obama without being disloyal
to a president she served under. “She can row her own boat,” he said.
“She will be loyal, as
she should be. She has her own plans, her own policies.”
He
also acknowledged that Trump’s entry into the race is good for Clinton.
“Good, I hope he wins,” he said when asked about Trump’s large and
supportive crowd here Friday
night.
As
for whether Clinton could win here, he acknowledged in today’s
environment, “it will be difficult, but yes. If anyone on that side of
the aisle right now [has a chance,]
she does. but it will be an uphill battle because the state has gone
significantly red.”
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