Bill Clinton pushed back against often-repeated claims that his wife, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, lacks a track record of significant accomplishments during his first solo campaign appearance for Hillary on Monday.
Speaking to Hillary supporters in Nashua, N.H., the former president said he’s proud of his wife’s tenure as secretary of state and of the legal aid clinic she ran in Arkansas in the 1970s. Such achievements, he argued, demonstrate her potential for success as commander-in-chief.
“When we met – which will soon be 45 years ago – we fell in love. I thought she was the most amazing person because, unlike now, where half of law students are women, then they were a distinct minority,” Bill Clinton said.
He continued, “It’s hard to remember 40 years ago, what things were like. [Hillary] hadn’t been elected to anything, but everything she touched she made better.”
According to Clinton, his wife “understands what it takes to keep our country as safe as possible” and has the best plan to ensure U.S. prosperity in the 21st century.
“I won’t go through all the details of her plan, but I have reviewed it and I think it is the plan to have the best chance to offer the most rapid movement to broadly share prosperity,” Clinton said Monday.
“When she was secretary of state she negotiate those sanctions on Iran and got Russia and China to sign off on them; Even I didn’t think she could do that,” he told the crowd.
Clinton went on to tout his wife’s status as the first New Yorker to serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee, her ability to work with some of his greatest adversaries during her time in Congress and her commitment to ensuring President Obama’s policies on healthcare and the environment remain in place should she be elected president.
“Almost everybody goes until the White House with the best of intentions. Whether they succeed or not depends on whether their instincts, their experience, their knowledge and their psychological makeup fits the time,” he explained.
He added, saying of his wife: “I do not believe in my lifetime anybody ran for this job who is better qualified by experience, knowledge and temperance.”
