Hillary Clinton says 2016 presidential campaign is her ‘last rodeo’
The 2016 presidential campaign is just starting to heat up, but Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has already declared that her latest campaign is her ‘last rodeo’ in politics.
Clinton made the comment on Tuesday while addressing voters in Iowa City. At the campaign stop, she said that she hopes her campaign will inspire other Americans to go into public service and to help improve the country’s future.
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"When people diss the government – we're really dissing ourselves and dissing our democracy," Clinton said, as quoted by The Hill newspaper. "This is my last rodeo, and I believe that we can leave not just the country in good shape for the future, but we can get a deep bench of young people to decide that they want to go into politics."
"I want people's lives to be better when I finish as your president than when I started," she added.
Of course, if Clinton manages to win the presidency in 2016, chances are high that she’ll have one more campaign to run regardless, considering that she would likely seek reelection after four years.
The former Secretary of State, not to mention overwhelming favorite to secure the Democratic nomination, also addressed a number of issues and fielded questions from reporters – the latter being a rare sight since she formally entered the race earlier this year.
She cautioned that electing a Republican in 2016 would mean “the end of the Affordable Care Act,” which has reduced the uninsured rate in the US. Nearly every GOP candidate has pledged to repeal the healthcare law.
On immigration, Clinton said she fully supported comprehensive reform and criticized Republicans for opposing a pathway to citizenship.
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"I don't care how many people running for president on the Republican side try to demean immigrants, insult immigrants, cast aspersions on immigrants," she said, according to the National Journal. "We are not going to deport 11 or 12 million people."
Clinton even briefly entered the political minefield of the gun control debate, telling voters “not to be afraid of the gun lobby,” since it doesn’t accurately represent the views of most gun owners. She said universal background checks should be instated for firearms purchases.
Meanwhile, Clinton hedged on the negotiations currently taking place over Iran’s controversial nuclear program, saying, “I don’t think it’s useful for me to publicly comment right now on what the negotiations are attempting to resolve.”
“There needs to be full transparency, disclosure and verifiable inspections going forward, and certainly any part of the Iranian nuclear or military establishment that has anything to do with the program past, present and future needs to be subject to that.,” she said, according to Politico.
