The quote in the headline is from an unexpected Hillary fan: former speechwriter for President Obama, Jon Favreau.
Back in 2008, Favreau made headlines weeks after the President’s election when he posed with a Hillary Clinton cut-out in an unflattering way. (Photo here: voices.washingtonpost.com/...)
Eight years later, after working with Hillary in the Obama Administration, he’s become a compelling fan of the former Secretary of State, as evidenced by this piece he wrote for The Daily Beast:
Why Electing Hillary in ’16 Is More Important Than Electing Obama in ’08
...During the 2008 campaign, I
wrote plenty of less-than-complimentary words about
Hillary Clinton in my role as
Barack Obama’s speechwriter. Then, a few weeks after the election, I had a well-documented run-in with a piece of cardboard that bore a striking resemblance to the incoming Secretary of State.
It was one of the stupider, more disrespectful mistakes I’ve made, and one that could have cost me a job if Hillary hadn’t accepted my apology, which she did with grace and humor. As a result, I had the chance to serve in the Obama administration with someone who was far different than the caricature I had helped perpetuate.
The most famous woman in the world would walk through the White House with no entourage, casually chatting up junior staffers along the way. She was by far the most prepared, impressive person at every Cabinet meeting. She worked harder and logged more miles than anyone in the administration, including the president. And she’d spend large amounts of time and energy on things that offered no discernible benefit to her political future—saving elephants from ivory poachers, listening to the plight of female coffee farmers in Timor-Leste, defending LGBT rights in places like Uganda.
Most of all—and you hear this all the time from people who’ve worked for her—Hillary Clinton is uncommonly warm and thoughtful. She surprises with birthday cakes. She calls when a grandparent passes away. She once rearranged her entire campaign schedule so a staffer could attend her daughter’s preschool graduation. …
This same story has repeated itself throughout Clinton’s career: those who initially view her as distrustful and divisive from afar find her genuine and cooperative in person.
...Your eyes are rolling. You don’t often see or read about this side of Hillary. You don’t doubt her fierce brilliance when she’s debating policy with Bernie Sanders. You don’t doubt her stamina or tenacity when she’s sitting through hour eleven of the Benghazi Kangaroo Court. But when it comes to nearly everything else, Clinton can seem a little too cautious and forced—like she’s trying too hard or not at all, preferring to retreat behind the safety of boilerplate rhetoric and cheesy soundbites. It’s a tendency that can’t just be blamed on her opponents or the media, though I wonder how many of us would be so brave and open in our public personas after being subjected to 25 years of unrelenting and downright nasty criticism of what we say, what we do, and how we look.
... About a month ago, BuzzFeed’s Ruby Cramer asked Clinton a simple question that, for some strange reason, no reporter or staffer ever thought to press her on: Why are you doing this? What truly motivates you?…
Hillary: “love and kindness.”
She mentioned it for the first time after the shooting in Charleston, and then expanded on the theme a few weeks later: “I want this campaign, and eventually my administration, to be more about inspiring young people, and older ones as well, to find that niche where kindness matters, whether it’s to a friend, a neighbor, a colleague, a fellow student—whether it’s in a classroom, or in a doctor’s office, or in a business—we need to do more to help each other.”
… At stake in this election is control of a Tea Party-run Congress, at least one Supreme Court vacancy that could tip the balance for a generation, and the very real chance that a highly unstable demagogue could become the 45th president of the United States. So while I may not have imagined myself saying this a few years ago, I certainly believe it now: It’s far more important to elect Hillary Clinton in 2016 than it was to elect Barack Obama in 2008.
Entire article here: www.thedailybeast.com/…
I became a Hillary fan in 1992 when she drove Republicans crazy with her “Tea and Cookies” comment. And when she gave her Beijing speech on Women’s Rights, against the advice of people in the Bill Clinton administration — and in a pink suit, no less — she had me, forever.
Through the years, I’ve read countless pieces by those who have worked for her and a consistent theme runs throughout all: the real Hillary Clinton is nothing like the caricature created by the GOP over the past 25 years. Jon Favreau’s article above is yet another voice supporting this truth.