After "soul searching," Hillary Clinton reemerging on national stage
Hillary Clinton is scheduled to mark International Women’s Day with a speech tonight at the Kennedy Center in Washington. It will be at a ceremony for Vital Voices, a women’s leadership group she founded.
She’s also slated to deliver this year’s commencement address at her alma mater Wellesley College. Her public schedule is sending a signal, perhaps, that she plans to remain involved in the issues she holds dear, reports CBS News correspondent Jan Crawford.
The former senator and secretary of state accepted an award Tuesday for her work advocating for women.
“I’ve had my ups and my downs. In the last months, I’ve done my share of sleeping. A little soul searching and reflecting,” Clinton said.
Longtime friend Mack McLarty said Clinton is working on a new book while pondering her next move.
“No one ever said that Hillary Clinton doesn’t have resilience, grit,” McLarty said.
McLarty served as chief of staff for Clinton’s husband. He said one of Clinton’s top moments was also her toughest – her concession speech.
“This is not the outcome we wanted or we worked so hard for, and I’m sorry that we did not win this election,” Clinton had said.
“I think all of us, most Americans, and most people around the world, admire and recognize when someone is dealing with adversity with strength and courage and faith,” McLarty said.
Clinton has remained largely out of sight, though social media posts have captured her hiking in the woods, going shopping, dining out and catching some Broadway shows.
Recent runners-up have handled their presidential defeats in different ways. John Kerry in 2004 and John McCain in 2008 continued their work as U.S. senators. After the 2012 race, Mitt Romney went back into business, re-emerging four years later as a contender for Mr. Trump’s secretary of state.
Al Gore reinvented himself after the 2000 campaign. His documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” won an Oscar, and his environmental efforts earned him the Nobel Peace Prize.
“I think that that does speak to the fact that there are other chapters, there are other opportunities out there,” Washington Post national political correspondent Karen Tumulty said.
But she said the opportunity has likely passed for the Clintons to remain a dominant force in their party.
“In some ways, people see them as a roadblock,” Tumulty said. “A lot of Democrats would like to see the Clintons move aside and give some oxygen for some new voices to emerge.”
That said, Chelsea Clinton has recently spoken out. Since the election, she’s sent a number of feisty political tweets. This week she described the president’s immigration policy as “disturbing” and suggested the Republican health care plan is “not moral.”