Sen. Hillary Clinton addressed guests via satellite at the Human Rights Campaign annual fund-raiser in Washington, D.C., in place of vice-presidential candidate Sen, Joseph Biden, who canceled all weekend campaign events when his mother-in-law became critically ill (she died Sunday).
Clinton told the room of nearly 3,000 people it was a "privilege" to fill in for Biden because of the work she had proudly done with HRC is previous political battles. "Together with the Human Rights Campaign on the front lines, we took back the Congress in 2006, and together we're going to take back the White House," she said.
Instead of speaking for herself, Clinton said she would share the remarks that Biden intended to deliver. "One of the fundamental questions, Joe was going to say, at stake in this election is whether America is going to continue to be a place of equality and opportunity where people are treated with dignity, entitled to privacy, and protected from violence and discrimination, a place where we all truly are equals and no one is left out, kept down by some misguided sense of hatred or fear," Clinton said.
For the past eight years, Clinton said, some politicians have tried to enshrine discrimination in the Constitution and interfere with private decisions about whom people choose to share their lives with, raise their children with, and be their advocates in their final moments. "These questions speak to whether or not we are truly free, as Americans and as human beings," Clinton said.
Clinton then invited her audience on a trip down memory lane. "Think back with me -- eight years ago a man ran for president who claimed he was different, not a typical Republican; he called himself a reformer." she recalled. "He even spoke about his gay friends in Texas and met with a group he called the Austin 12, and he promised moderation in social policies. That candidate was George W. Bush," Clinton said. "Eight years later, we've got another Republican nominee who's telling us the exact same things ... and just like the Austin 12, this time he has a running mate who says she has gay friends. We've seen this movie before, folks. But as everyone knows, the sequel is always worse than the original."
Clinton said John McCain stands with George W. Bush against equal rights and benefits for same-sex couples, supports enshrining discrimination into state constitutions, and rejects employment discrimination and hate-crimes laws that would protect LGBT Americans.
"John McCain claims to be a different kind of Republican," Clinton said. But when you look at his positions, she added, "you can see John McCain is just more of the same. He's not a maverick, he's a mimic.
"Equality and justice, those values that represent the best of America -- they will be the cornerstone of an Obama-Biden administration, an administration that will speak to our hopes instead of our fears, that will appeal, as Abraham Lincoln famously said, to the better angels of our nature," Clinton said.
In closing, Clinton thanked all those who had supported her during the primary. "I will never ever forget you," she said, "but I need partners too, I need a president and a vice president who will stand with me and with us, and I need Democratic senators ... let's get to 60 votes in the Senate so we can stop all this nonsense and instead move us forward with confidence and optimism." (Though Democrats currently control the Senate with 51 seats, it takes 60 votes to end a filibuster and proceed to vote on a particular bill. Republicans have used the filibuster quite successfully to block votes on legislation they don't agree with.)
Clinton finished by saying it was a pleasure to speak on behalf of Biden: "I look forward to calling him vice president, and with your help, let's make that happen."
Clinton was cheered throughout the speech by the LGBT constituency, a majority of whom supported her over Barack Obama during the primaries, according to several polls taken at the time. It was yet one more occasion where Clinton, who suffered a stinging defeat for the presidential nomination and then was passed over for the vice-presidential slot, has been asked to rise above personal feelings for the good of the party. (Kerry Eleveld, The Advocate)
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