NASHUA, N.H. – Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton invoked the campaign of the nation’s lone Catholic president, John Kennedy, last night as she talked about her challenge in becoming the first female commander-in-chief.
“He was smart, he was dynamic, he was inspiring and he was Catholic. A lot of people back then [1960] said, ‘America will never elect a Catholic as president,’ ” the White House hopeful told the New Hampshire Democrats’ 100 Club fund-raiser here.
“But those who gathered here almost a half century ago knew better,” she said. “They believed America was bigger than that and Americans would give Sen. John F. Kennedy a fair shake, and the rest, as they say, is history.”
Noting women are “the majority” of voters and are in the workforce in “record numbers,” she added, “So when people tell me ‘a woman can never be president,’ I say, we’ll never know unless we try.”
Kennedy’s name is most often invoked by supporters of Clinton’s main Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama, usually comparing their charisma.
Clinton also rapped the White House, accusing President Bush of creating “invisible Americans” across the country.
“We no longer have a president who puts people first,” she said, citing veterans waiting for treatment, first responders, single moms needing child care, the middle class and the working poor. “You are invisible to this administration.”
Earlier, at a stop at the Swan Chocolate shop in Nashua, Clinton defended her support for a senate resolution for a potential March 2008 end date to the Iraq war.
“What we have done now is to set a goal, a goal to try to move the president to understand what needs to be done in order to change the mission in Iraq and begin to bring our troops home,” said Clinton, who’s been criticized for her vote authorizing force in Iraq in 2002.
“I see this as absolutely consistent with what many of us are trying to do which is to reign in the president and prevent the escalation of troops that he is pursuing. We hope it will work.”
Also yesterday, the Democratic White House front-runner had a private meeting with Gov. John Lynch and well-known former state Sen. Mary Louise Hancock in Concord.