Hillary Clinton Attempts To Connect With Voter Base: ‘My Mother Was A House Maid’

Hillary Clinton has jumped on the American Dream bandwagon.

While speaking Saturday to a crowd in New York at her first major rally for her bid for the 2016 Democratic candidacy, Clinton spoke to the crowd about her mother’s struggle to make do.

“Her own parents abandoned her, and by 14 she was out on her own working as a house maid.”

Clinton went on to talk about values that her mother instilled throughout Hillary Clinton’s childhood. Clinton said that her mother reminded her that everyone needs two things.

“My mother taught me that everyone needs a chance and a champion. She knew what it was like not to have either one.”

Clinton continued, saying that her mother was able to overcome struggles in life because other people believed in her. Hillary Clinton mentioned a first grade teacher who shared food at lunch when her mother had nothing to eat, and Clinton talked about the woman whose house her mother cleaned.

“Years later, when I was old enough to understand, I asked her what kept her going. Do you know what her answer was? Something very simple: kindness from someone who believed she mattered. The first grade teacher who saw she had nothing to eat at lunch and, without embarrassing her, brought extra food to share. The woman whose house she cleaned letting her go to high school so long as her work got done — that was a bargain she leaped to accept. And because someone believed in her, she believed in me.”

The strategy to remind voters of the American Dream is something that many Republican candidates have employed thus far, as well.

Marco Rubio frequently talks to voters about the struggle that his Cuban immigrant parents faced in making ends meet, and he often cites the challenges he had in making student loan payments.

Scott Walker has done the same. Before he became the governor of Wisconsin, Walker was making $70,000 a year and living in a two-bedroom home with an unfinished basement. Before that, Walker was making $40,000 as a lawmaker, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and he grew up the son of a Baptist minister.

Like Walker and Rubio before her, Hillary Clinton was quick to remind rally-goers Saturday that, had it not been for the sacrifices her mother was willing to make, Hillary Clinton would not be in a position to become the first female President of the United States today.

What do you think of Hillary Clinton’s tactic to employ imagery of the American Dream?

[Photo by Will McNamee/Getty Images]