Hillary Clinton isn’t a quitter. If one thing came out of this week’s convention, it’s that she never, ever throws in the towel—a quality highlighted by a succession of speakers, including President Obama and the first lady.
“What I admire most about Hillary,” Mrs. Obama told the audience, “is that she never buckles under pressure. She never takes the easy way out. And Hillary Clinton has never quit on anything in her life.”
That was the story echoed time and again from the stage at the Democratic National Convention, both on a personal and a policy level. Whether it was the 9/11 survivor who said she just remembered Clinton “holding my hand a lot” or the Nebraskan with a crippling disease who recalled Clinton as his constant health champion of 20 years, the message was the same: Hillary cared.
“Every time I have a big operation coming up,” Ryan Moore recounted, “I always receive a note from Hillary full of encouragement and kindness.”
These were not the halfhearted testimonies of sycophants looking for appointments, they were regular folks who have been touched by a person who easily could have decided she had other things to do.
Hillary’s biography proved no less dogged on the policy front. We heard repeatedly of how she picked herself up after losing the bruising health reform battle of the ‘90s so that she could help pass legislation to provide health coverage for low-income children (now known as the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP).
How exactly did she rebound from that devastating defeat, which Chelsea Clinton recalled being “pretty tough to watch” at the impressionable age of 14.
“Here's how,” Chelsea answered, “It's because she never, ever forgets who she's fighting for.”
Numerous New Yorkers told the same exact story about Clinton’s work in the Senate on behalf of 9/11 victims and first responders—not only to secure an initial $20 billion in federal assistance to rebuild infrastructure, but to make sure real people got the health assistance they needed.
“She brought families and first responders to Washington,” recalled New York Rep. Joseph Crowley. “She took them door to door, never letting her colleagues forget the consequences of that terrible day. For almost a decade, Hillary never gave up, and she was there with us when the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act was finally passed.”
The depth of people’s admiration for Clinton radiated from the stage, but the sheer number of people who gave witness to her work was also striking. At the RNC last week, if you take away Donald Trump’s family members, it’s nearly impossible to think of any character witnesses, let alone ones who resonated and endured after they left the stage.
After being smothered with incessant attacks on Hillary Clinton’s character and trustworthiness, it was almost like whiplash. It took me back to NYT veteran Jill Abramson’s assertion that even after launching numerous investigations as a reporter and editor into Clinton, she’s concluded: “Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest and trustworthy.” President Bill Clinton’s characterization of the “cartoon” opponents have created of his wife fit perfectly. Don’t worry, he told the delegates Tuesday, “You nominated the real one.”
That’s the one that Chelsea Clinton recalled was “always, always there for me” and the one that Rep. Crowley said had “always, always been with us.”
And that’s the one that President Obama assured everyone was the most qualified person in history to apply for the job of commander in chief.
“No matter how daunting the odds, no matter how much people try to knock her down, she never, ever quits,” the president said. “That’s the Hillary I know.”
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