VALPARAISO, Ind. - Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton managed to co-opt Mr. Obama’s message of hope and optimism, beginning a speech in Valparaiso, Ind., by talking about how positive and “fundamentally optimistic” Americans are.
“We don’t get bogged down and looking back – we’re always looking forward,” she said, as heavy applause nearly drowned out her words. “Whatever obstacle we see, we get over it. Whatever challenge we have, we meet it. We’re the problem-solvers, we’re the innovators, we’re the people who make the better future.”
For the third time since Mr. Obama’s remarks were made public Friday night, Mrs. Clinton criticized him at length, saying his comments seemed “kind of elitist and out of touch.”
“I disagree with Senator Obama’s assertion that people in our country cling to guns and have certain attitudes about immigration or trade simply out of frustration,” she said.
She described herself as a pro-gun churchgoer, recalling that her father taught her how to shoot a gun when she was a young girl and said that her faith “is the faith of my parents and my grandparents.”
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Hillary Clinton Appeals For Gun Control Lobbying
Published: May 9, 1999
Stepping up the Clinton Administration's campaign against gun violence, Hillary Rodham Clinton used an emotional White House ceremony today to call on Americans to press Congress to ''buck the gun lobby'' and pass several gun control measures.
Today's event, pegged to Mother's Day, which is Sunday, was held in the formal East Room of the White House and featured three parents of children killed or wounded by gunfire. They included Tom Mauser, whose son Daniel was killed last month in the shooting rampage in Littleton, Colo. His story of waiting for word about his son's fate brought Mrs. Clinton nearly to tears as she took the podium and gravely addressed an audience of other parents who had lost their children in shootings.
The Senate is to begin debate next week on a number of gun control measures, some of which mirror proposals offered recently by President Clinton. ''The senators need to hear from all of us,'' Mrs. Clinton said. She urged voters ''to give them the encouragement to do what they know is right and to remind them that there are many, many millions of American voters and citizens who will stand behind political leaders who are brave enough to buck the gun lobby, wherever that may take us, so that they will vote for the measures that we know will save lives.''
Mrs. Clinton was as careful as her husband has been to say that there are many causes of violence and that parents need to take responsibility for their children's behavior. But Mrs. Clinton, who is considering running for the Senate from New York, where gun control is popular, has also been more forceful than the President in directly taking on the powerful gun lobby in the aftermath of the Littleton killings.
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