Franklin Delano Roosevelt had the Four Freedoms. Hillary Rodham Clinton has the Four Fights.
In the days leading up to her campaign relaunch Saturday at New York City’s Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, Clinton’s staff put out word that she would stress the theme of herself as a fighter. “Her campaign chairman, John D. Podesta, often refers to Mrs. Clinton as a ‘tenacious fighter,’ a theme that will echo throughout the speech and her campaign,” the New York Times reported.
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Indeed, in her speech, the former secretary of state suggested that she is so much a fighter that she will fight not one, not two, not three, but four fights on behalf of the American people. “If you’ll give me the chance, I’ll wage and win Four Fights for you,” Clinton told the crowd. Those fights are: 1) the fight “to make the economy work for everyday Americans”; 2) the fight “to strengthen America’s families”; 3) the fight “to harness all of America’s power, smarts, and values to maintain our leadership for peace, security, and prosperity”; and 4) the fight for “reforming our government and revitalizing our democracy.”
Apparently Clinton thought the Four Fights motif would work with the Four Freedoms the park was built to commemorate, even though the Four Fights and the Four Freedoms are quite different things. (In the 1941 Four Freedoms speech, given with the nation on the brink of war with totalitarian forces, Roosevelt said that “we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms … freedom of speech and expression … freedom of every person to worship God in his own way … freedom from want … [and] freedom from fear.”)
Whatever the differences between 1941 and 2015, Clinton decided that the Four Fights, which would be waged mostly with Republicans, would be the centerpiece of her speech and campaign. “She wrote this speech herself,” Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon told CNN after the event. “This was very personal.”
It’s not clear whether Clinton’s characterization of herself as a fighter will resonate with voters. The last time she ran for president, in the most intense days of her Democratic primary battle with Barack Obama, Clinton did the same “fighter” thing, and it didn’t work.
“I am a fighter,” Clinton said in a February 26, 2008 Democratic debate.
“I am a fighter,” Clinton said in a March 7 campaign appearance in Wyoming.
“I am a fighter,” Clinton said in an April 5 stop in Oregon.
“I am a fighter,” Clinton said in an April 26 stop in Indiana.
And so on.
Clinton also used Saturday’s speech to emphasize her determination not to quit even when facing adversity. “I think you know by now that I’ve been called many things by many people — ‘quitter’ is not one of them,” she said.
But Clinton also used the “I’m not a quitter” routine in the 2008 campaign. She said it mostly toward the end of the race, when she had pretty much lost and a number of her fellow Democrats wanted her to quit so they could get on with supporting Obama for president.
Whatever the case, Clinton decided to put fighting and not quitting at the heart of her relaunch speech Saturday. No, they didn’t lead to success in 2008, but maybe this time will be different.
