DAILY BEAST COLUMN: When Hillary Clinton launched her campaign for president this week, I thought, “Yep, there’s the Obama coalition.” Latinos (including a pair of brothers speaking Spanish), African Americans, Baby Boomers from the hippie segment, interracial couples, and a gay couple planning their wedding. My, how things have changed since 2008!
What Clinton learned in defeat in her first presidential run was how much personality mattered to the people she wanted to vote for her. That included the young Millennials—the oldest were not yet 30—who are part of the most racially diverse generation in American history, are profoundly liberal on social issues, and whom Barack Obama helped make solidly Democratic.
And yet, as hungry as they are for a woman president, and as ready as they are to vote Democratic, for these voters, there’s often something that remains off-putting about Clinton—more of the same. She stumbled in her 2008 campaignwhen she failed to convince these voters to come out for her in a big way, and could easily be challenged by a younger, more liberal, more human-seeming candidate… (more)
