{"id":107731,"date":"2015-04-13T06:22:08","date_gmt":"2015-04-13T06:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=107731"},"modified":"2015-04-13T06:22:08","modified_gmt":"2015-04-13T06:22:08","slug":"clinton-sets-off-for-campaign-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=107731","title":{"rendered":"Clinton sets off for campaign tour"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has set out for a tour of key states, at the start of her campaign to become the first woman US president.<\/p>\n

She is taking a road trip to meet small groups of voters in Iowa, after announcing her presidency bid in an online video on Sunday.<\/p>\n

She had been expected to declare her candidacy for months<\/p>\n

Mrs Clinton ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008 but lost to Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

‘Listening tour’<\/strong><\/p>\n

A few hours into her journey from New York, Mrs Clinton tweeted: “Road trip! Loaded the van & set off for IA. Met a great family when we stopped this afternoon. Many more to come. -H.”<\/p>\n

\"An
Mrs Clinton is expected to officially kick off her campaign with a rally in mid-May<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mrs Clinton’s team said she would spend the next few weeks building up grassroots support in the early Democratic primary states.<\/p>\n

Her first rally, to officially kick off her campaign, is not expected until mid-May. But her trip to Iowa is to be a “listening tour” where Mrs Clinton will meet voters at low-key events.<\/p>\n

Later this week, she is expected to meet groups of students, teachers and small business owners.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Mrs Clinton launched her campaign website and declared in a video that she was running for president.<\/p>\n

“Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times,” she said, “but the deck is still stacked in favour of those at the top.<\/p>\n

She added that she wanted to be a champion for “everyday Americans”.<\/p>\n

The video features a number of Americans talking about their hopes and aspirations.<\/p>\n

\"line\"<\/figure>\n
Analysis: Gary O’Donoghue, BBC News, Des Moines, Iowa<\/figure>\n

The launch of Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the presidency was meant to be low-key.<\/p>\n

It was meant to reflect the idea that it was all about ordinary Americans and the everyday concerns of the middle class.<\/p>\n

But whether she likes it or not, Mrs Clinton is a huge name in politics and reinventing herself as the embodiment of change won’t be easy.<\/p>\n

True, she is unlikely to face any stiff competition from her own side for the nomination, but Republicans have been unrelenting in their attacks on her and that will only increase.<\/p>\n

She will also have to find a convincing vision for America that will capture the imagination of the voters.<\/p>\n

Elections are usually about the future and Mrs Clinton has to prove that she’s not all about the past.<\/p>\n

Mrs Clinton has already had the backing of Mr Obama, who said on Saturday that she would make an “excellent president”.<\/p>\n

But the attacks from Republicans have already started.<\/p>\n

Jeb Bush, former Florida Governor and brother of George W Bush who expected to stand as a Republican candidate, tweeted: “We must do better than Hillary.”<\/p>\n

In his own online video on Sunday, he focused on foreign policy, saying: “We must do better than the Obama-Clinton foreign policy that has damaged relationships with our allies and emboldened our enemies.”<\/p>\n

Another Republican presidential contender. Rand Paul, also criticised Mrs Clinton for her handling of a September 2012 attack on a US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, in which the US ambassador was among those killed.<\/p>\n

He also said questions remained about funds received by a charity set up by Mr and Mrs Clinton.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has set out for a tour of key states, at the start of her campaign to become the first woman US president. She is taking a road trip to meet small groups of voters in Iowa, after announcing her presidency bid in an online video on Sunday. She […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":107733,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-107731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=107731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/107733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=107731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=107731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=107731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}