Several months ago, I found myself sitting in a conference room in the Longworth House Office Building in Washington, D.C.
In attendance were other IU students interning in the District, Bloomington’s congressman Rep. Todd Young (R) and his chief of staff. For likely the thousandth time while in D.C., each one of us went around the table telling where we were from, what we were studying and, of course, where we were interning.
When it was my turn I said I was an intern at Ready for Hillary, the political action committee encouraging former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to run ?for president.
The congressman’s chief of staff responded by asking if I realized not everyone’s ready for Hillary, to which I sharply replied with the fact that there’s a lot of us that are. And that’s a reality Republicans are waking up to everyday — whether they like it or not.
I’m ready for Hillary because I want somebody who won’t back down from a fight in the face of Republican obstructionism in Washington that has left our ?government broken.
Time and time again the Republican-controlled Congress has shown its preference for acting on its personal animus toward President Obama than actually governing — and we need someone who will take them to task for it.
There are few people in the public sphere that have faced as many fights and are prepared for such a task as Hillary Clinton. It’s no surprise the GOP has tried to prop up so many shamelessly partisan scandals using congressional gavels to attack her character instead of, you know, actually governing.
I’m ready for Hillary because no one on either side of the aisle is as prepared, experienced or competent in the realm of policy — both foreign and domestic — as she is. Our economy is recovering, yet we’re still trying to move past the shadow of the Great Recession.
For a lot of people left behind in the recovery, it feels like the deck has been stacked against them while the rich continue to get richer.
For millennials and so much of the eroding middle class, the American Dream is little else than a buzzword. Democrats can disagree on how to tackle the seemingly insurmountable challenge that is income inequality in our country, but at the end of the day we can agree we all do better when we all ?do better.
That’s the vision Hillary has for America — one that can resonate even in the bastions of the heartland and the South that have all but shut out the party’s message.
In terms of our place in the world, American leadership is needed now more than ever as the world has changed so much this decade. Though we should always be mindful of how we use it, we shouldn’t be afraid to exercise American power overseas when it’s needed.
I’m ready for Hillary because we’ve made too much progress to turn back. If you’re not, that’s fine — because when you are, we’ll ?be here.
edsalas@indiana.edu
