Subject: MUST READ: Concord Monitor opinion: Ned Helms: “My Turn: Time is right for President Hillary”
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2014 10:13:08 -0400
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

*Concord Monitor opinion: Ned Helms: “My Turn: Time is right for President
Hillary”
<http://www.concordmonitor.com/home/13819242-95/my-turn-time-is-right-for-president-hillary>*

By Ned Helms, who co-chaired President Obama’s New Hampshire campaigns, is
a former state Democratic Party chairman and candidate for governor

October 8, 2014

With our first-in-the-nation presidential primary about 16 months away, it
seems there are plenty of potential candidates already coming to New
Hampshire to test the waters, most on the Republican side.

As a Democrat who cares deeply about the need for continued progressive
leadership in Washington, I have for the first time made the decision to
back a candidate even before that person has decided to run. I have done
that because I believe there is one Democrat who has the forward-looking
progressive ideas that the country and the world need during the
challenging times we will face in the coming years. That is why I am for
Hillary Clinton.

In 2008, I was an early supporter of President Obama, not because I was
opposed to Clinton, but because I thought the time was right for what Obama
had to offer. And today I feel the time is right for what Clinton has to
offer, and can do for our country.

As first lady, a U.S. senator and secretary of state, Clinton has spoken
out in the most forceful of terms for women’s rights as human rights. Her
courageous speech in Beijing as first lady enunciating that powerful ideal
has been backed again and again by her actions. When you have been a
champion for women to speak freely, attain an education, own property, have
equal chances for a full and rewarding life no matter where you are born in
the world, you are speaking for the future of a powerful and progressive
planet.

When you work as hard as Hillary has in promoting health insurance for
children through the CHIP program or for her own groundbreaking work in the
early years of the Clinton administration on universal coverage, you have
spoken volumes about your personal commitment to full health coverage. In
doing that, she, like Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson, helped pave the way
for the breakthrough that occurred with the passage of the Affordable Care
Act of 2010. Millions in this country and tens of thousands in New
Hampshire now have health coverage thanks to that important law and the
decades of tireless work that laid the foundation for this principle of
progressive public policy.

Finally the body of work that Clinton supported to address disparity speaks
to her deep commitment to working and middle-class families. By championing
an increase in the minimum wage, her opposition to the Bush tax cuts of
2001 and 2003 and support of middle-class tax improvements, her opposition
to abusive lending practices, her work on reforming student loan programs
with a Student Borrower Bill of Rights and a host of other policies, she
has not only spoken to but worked on those policies that would move all our
citizens closer to realizing a full life for themselves and their families.

Is there more work to be done? Of course there is. There are many issues
and challenges that the next president will face when Obama’s term is over.
One thing I believe strongly is that if she decides to run, no one will
need to push Hillary Clinton to take actions that will be true to the
progressive traditions of the Democratic Party. She has lived that
tradition, and I have no doubt will continue to do so as president of the
United States.