Hillary Clinton makes it official, finally: She’s running for President in 2016

End­ing years of spec­u­la­tion, gos­sip, and when is she going to announce talk, for­mer First Lady, Unit­ed States Sen­a­tor, and Unit­ed States Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Rod­man Clin­ton declared in a video mes­sage that she will seek the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion for Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca in 2016.

Clin­ton’s video opens with a mon­tage of ordi­nary Amer­i­cans talk­ing about their hopes and plans for 2015 and beyond. She does not appear in her own video until a minute and a half in, where she can be heard say­ing, “I’m get­ting ready to do some­thing too.” The video then piv­ots to a scene of her stand­ing in front of a house, declar­ing, “I’m run­ning for President.” 

“Amer­i­cans have fought their way back from tough eco­nom­ic times, but the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top,’ she continues.

“Every­day Amer­i­cans need a cham­pi­on. And I want to be that cham­pi­on. So you can do more than just get by — you can get ahead, and stay ahead. Because when fam­i­lies are strong, Amer­i­ca is strong.”

“So I’m hit­ting the road to earn your vote — because it’s your time. And I hope you’ll join me on this jour­ney,” she concludes.

Clin­ton’s 2016 cam­paign, bor­row­ing a page from the 2008 Oba­ma cam­paign and 2004 Dean cam­paign, will be called Hillary for Amer­i­ca. The cam­paign web­site is now live, and Clin­ton has also post­ed her video to Face­book, where it has thou­sands of likes already, and is rapid­ly gain­ing more.

Clin­ton’s remark that “the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top” is already being called inspired by Eliz­a­beth War­ren in com­ments by talk­ing heads on cable tele­vi­sion. We cer­tain­ly hope that Clin­ton seeks out Eliz­a­beth War­ren’s coun­sel often and incor­po­rates her advice into her campaign.

There’s a lot to like about this launch. It’s low-key and does­n’t car­ry the same aura of inevitabil­i­ty Clin­ton’s peo­ple tried to cre­ate when they launched her 2008 bid. Clin­ton is due to begin cam­paign­ing in Iowa on Tues­day, which will con­sti­tute the next stage of her inten­tion­al­ly designed slow cam­paign rollout.

Though Clin­ton has not offered any pol­i­cy pre­scrip­tions yet, her video mes­sage hints that her plat­form may be more pro­gres­sive than in 2008. But we’ll reserve judg­ment until we hear specifics. Plat­i­tudes sim­ply will not do. There are a lot of peo­ple wait­ing to hear her artic­u­late what pol­i­cy direc­tions she intends to advo­cate for. We hope those pol­i­cy direc­tions are built on pro­gres­sive val­ues and principles.

Clin­ton has pre­vi­ous­ly expressed sup­port for keep­ing and enhanc­ing the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act, and dis­may at Repub­li­cans’ attempts to destroy Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s cred­i­bil­i­ty with lead­ers of oth­er nations. She is a strong sup­port­er of equal pay for equal work, LGBT rights (a gay cou­ple was fea­tured in her video), and Eliz­a­beth War­ren’s Con­sumer Finan­cial Pro­tec­tion Bureau (CFPB).

We will be par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in hear­ing what she has to say on curb­ing the mass sur­veil­lance exposed by Edward Snow­den, keep­ing Amtrak fund­ed and build­ing more high speed rail, replac­ing No Child Left Behind, defend­ing Net Neu­tral­i­ty, pro­tect­ing our work­ers and small busi­ness­es from harm­ful trade agree­ments like the Trans-Pacif­ic Part­ner­ship, and speak­ing to oth­er issues that big media often gloss­es over or ignores.

Reac­tion to Hillary’s announce­ment is start­ing to pour in, and we’ll post it as we get it. The Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty was among the first orga­ni­za­tions in our region to issue a statement.

“Wash­ing­ton State Democ­rats wel­come Hillary Clin­ton to the Pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. She’s had a remark­able career fight­ing for our val­ues as a par­ty,” said Jax­on Ravens, Chair of the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party.

“This com­ing cam­paign will be huge­ly impor­tant for our coun­try,” Ravens added. “The Repub­li­cans run­ning for Pres­i­dent uni­form­ly have dan­ger­ous views that would be deeply harm­ful to the mid­dle class and those seek­ing to enter it. We need a Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nee who will put the mid­dle class first, and we are pleased Hillary Clin­ton is seek­ing the nomination.”

U.S. Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray offered an enthu­si­as­tic endorse­ment.

“This is an excit­ing moment for those of us in Wash­ing­ton State and across the coun­try who want our next Pres­i­dent to keep fight­ing for mid­dle class pri­or­i­ties and a gov­ern­ment that works for all fam­i­lies, not just the wealth­i­est few. I am proud to stand with so many oth­ers to sup­port Hillary in her effort to shat­ter that high­est and hard­est glass ceil­ing that has been cracked, but not yet bro­ken,” she wrote.

So did U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Rick Larsen.

“I endorse Hillary Clin­ton for Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca because she shares my belief that our coun­try needs an econ­o­my that includes every­one and works for every­one. She has my full sup­port,” he wrote.