WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton’s granddaughter, Charlotte, is a symbol of the future. Clinton’s late parents offer lessons about hard work and resiliency. Her own daughter, Chelsea, gives voters a window into her mother’s life long before she was one of the world’s most famous women.
In campaign kickoff events in Iowa and New Hampshire, Clinton shared stories with voters about the lesser-known members of her family: her father’s work running a small textile business in Chicago, her mother’s hardscrabble upbringing and what the future may hold for baby Charlotte’s generation. Taken together, the biographical sketches animate her pitch to middle-class families.
“When I think about my dad, it was a lot easier in those days to have an idea, to get what you needed and to go to work,” Clinton said at a Keene, New Hampshire, furniture factory this week, describing obstacles for small businesses. In Iowa, she remembered her father, Hugh Rodham Sr., as a “waste-not-want-not kind of guy” whose fabric drapery business provided for her family.
The Clintons’ political history will play a big part in her new campaign, but the early emphasis has been elsewhere. The most famous man in her life, former President Bill Clinton, only comes up in passing. In New Hampshire, where her husband remains popular, Hillary Clinton said she called him to offer travel updates while in Iowa, and smiled when a community college instructor recalled the bullish economy during her husband’s two terms.
“I remember!” she said.