In Las Vegas speech, Bill Clinton backs wife’s presidential candidacy
Former President Bill Clinton visited Las Vegas on Thursday with a singular mission: bolster support in Nevada for his wife, Hillary Clinton, who is angling for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Bill Clinton spoke Thursday in support of his wife's candidacy in a crowded gymnasium at Advanced Technologies Academy. Clinton said what ultimately matters is not divisive campaigning but whether the country is better off when a president's term ends.
"You've got to rise above it just like she has," Clinton said in his nearly hourlong speech to about 750 attendees. "Keep in mind in the end, that's all that matters."
Clinton's presence in Nevada underscores the Silver State's crucial role in the early push for the Democratic presidential nomination. Democrats caucus Feb. 20 in Nevada, their third early voting state after New Hampshire and Iowa and the first in the West.
It's a key contest that could make or break a campaign, helping push a candidate over the top on the way to the nomination.
Republicans caucus Feb. 23.
Through Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton rose to the national stage, first as the wife of an Arkansas governor campaigning for president in 1992 and later as first lady.
Bill Clinton's White House role would be reversed if Hillary Clinton wins this year. The former president was introduced by state Sen. Aaron Ford, D-Las Vegas, who praised Hillary Clinton for supporting body cameras for police officers. The crowd roared when Ford called Clinton the "soon-to-be first gentleman of our country."
Clinton said his wife's administration would be inclusive. He reminded the crowd that the wages of low-income Americans and the middle class grew in the 1990s under his presidency.
But Clinton's wide-ranging speech lamented that American Muslims face discrimination, unarmed African-American men have been shot by police and young people are often mired in student loans, unable to buy homes.
"We've got to do it together," he told the audience. "We need inclusive social policies."
With a presidency that ended 15 years ago, Clinton, 69, has become an elder statesman in the Democratic Party. He blasted the Republican presidential field, saying they have "one strategy," which is "always distract people, divide people and demonize them."
"They want you to forget that an election is about you," Clinton told the cheering supporters.
Clinton said his wife is the candidate best equipped to bring more women into the workforce and lead the charge for equal pay and affordable child care.
"This is an exciting time to be alive and it's criminal to leave people behind," Clinton said.
After her husband left office in 2001, Hillary Clinton went on to be a U.S. senator in New York and later became secretary of state under President Barack Obama's administration.
She's now vying for the Democratic nomination with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley.
Hillary Clinton was campaigning Thursday in Iowa. Bill Clinton speaks Friday in Reno.
Contact Ben Botkin at bbotkin@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2904. Follow him on Twitter: @BenBotkin1.
