Hillary Clinton is back in the spotlight with her supporters launching a website, called “Ready for Hillary”, and urging her to make another presidential bid in 2016, even as the former White House aspirant made her first public appearance since stepping down as Secretary of State about two months ago.
“America is ‘Ready for Hillary’ and we need your help to ensure that when she is ready to take up this challenge, we are on the ground ready to help her,” says the group launching itself as a super political action committee and even soliciting contributions in right earnest.
Although Clinton has opted to keep the nation guessing by discounting reports that she will make another bid, yet not ruling it out completely, her band of supporters are going full blast with their mobilization efforts.
“Just two months after filing paperwork with the FEC (Federal Election Commission), Ready for Hillary SuperPAC is off to a ‘super’ start, with an average one thousand grassroots supporters joining our efforts every single day. Even before the impending official launch of the PAC, more than 100,000 grassroots supporters are now part of our network,” it boasted.
“Your contributions will help ensure that we have everything we need to reach voters and mobilize support for the woman we all know is ready to do the job,” it says, adding meaningfully: “There is no federal legal limit on how much you can give.”
All this on a day when Clinton herself turned up at the Kennedy Center in Washington for the Vital Voices Global leadership Awards. Clinton is said to be a regular at this annual event, hosted by a group that is co-founded by Melanee Verveer, her former Chief of Staff during her years as First lady.
Sure enough, the focus was as much, if not more, on Clinton as on the honorees for the evening that included Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by Taliban militants, and three brothers from Delhi who have been working to combat violence against women.
In her speech, Clinton confined herself to the theme of women’s rights worldwide, but an enthusiastic group of her supporters turned up at the venue, waving “Ready for Hillary” signs.
The chief guest for the evening was Vice President Joe Biden, who could be another Democratic probable for 2016. “There’s no woman like Hillary Clinton,” Biden remarked at one point.
It may be a long while till Americans get to know whether Clinton would jump into the fray all over again. But opinion polls have been good to her. A Washington Post-ABC News poll in January found that 67 per cent of Americans held a favorable view of Clinton, said to be her highest rating to date.
