Chelsea Clinton TV interview adds to speculation about Hillary's plans

Chelsea Clinton spoke to NBC's 'Today' program about whether she might ever run for office – and what her mother's plans for 2016 might be.

|
Christian Gooden/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/AP
Chelsea Clinton speaks at the third day of the Clinton Global Initiative University conference at Gateway STEM High School in St. Louis, Sunday.
|
Marc Bryan-Brown/Women in the World/AP
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks at the Women in the World Conference in New York on Friday. Her reemergence this past week after a two-month break brought out cheering supporters and renewed speculation that she may be a presidential candidate in 2016.

Chelsea Clinton’s comments Monday morning on NBC’s "Today" program about her political future – and her mother's – are sure to add fuel to the speculation about former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton making another run for the White House in 2016.

Chelsea Clinton, a special correspondent for NBC News, recorded the interview in St. Louis, where she appeared over the weekend with her father, former President Bill Clinton, at a Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI-U) event she helped run.

Dressed in a light blue CGI-U tee shirt, Clinton was first asked about her mother’s political future. “I deeply respect and appreciate all of the admiration and respect and gratitude for my mother's service,” the younger Clinton told NBC correspondent John Yang.  “As a daughter, I very much want her to make the right choice for herself, and I know that will be [the] right choice for our country, and I’ll support her in whatever she chooses to do.”

In the past week, there were several developments which Associated Press political writer Ken Thomas referred to as “a soft rollout of sorts” for Hillary Clinton’s political future, should she decide to have one. She gave her first two public speeches since leaving the State Department – last Tuesday at the Kennedy Center in Washington for the Vital Voices in Global Leadership Awards and a second on Friday in New York City at the annual Women in the World Conference.

This public reemergence came on the heels of word that Clinton would write a new book, slated to be published in June 2014.  As Jill Lawrence of the National Journal notes, the publication date results in “conveniently putting her on the road for a book tour right when Democratic congressional and gubernatorial candidates all over the country would welcome her help.”

Meanwhile, last Thursday prominent Democratic political strategist James Carville wrote to supporters of the Ready for Hillary political action committee, urging them to send funds to boost a potential candidacy. In his e-mail to the Hillary PAC, obtained by The Washington Post, Mr. Carville, a longtime Clinton family confidant, said: “It isn’t worth squat to have the fastest car at the racetrack if there ain’t any gas in the tank – and that’s why the work that Ready for Hillary PAC is doing is absolutely critical. We need to convert the hunger that’s out there for Hillary’s candidacy into a real grassroots organization.” Carville ran former President Clinton’s 1992 campaign.

While her mother’s political future absorbs Washington’s chattering class, Chelsea Clinton seems slightly more open to a political future of her own. On the "Today" program, she held out the possibility of running for office herself someday.  

“Right now I'm grateful to live in a city, a state, and a country where I strongly support my mayor, my governor, my president, and my senators and my representative,” the younger Clinton said. “If at some point that weren't true and I thought I could make a meaningful and measurably greater impact, I'd have to ask and answer that question.”

Those comments closely track one she made in an interview with Lynn Sherr of Parade magazine. In that interview, featured on the magazine’s cover, Clinton was asked whether she could describe the circumstances that would make her lean toward running for office. “No, but I’ve never thought too far into the future,” she said, showing a political pro’s skill at keeping her options open. 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Chelsea Clinton TV interview adds to speculation about Hillary's plans
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2013/0408/Chelsea-Clinton-TV-interview-adds-to-speculation-about-Hillary-s-plans
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe