Hillary Rodham Clinton starred in two presidential campaign launches this week. Neither was her own.
The leading Democratic candidate was featured prominently by two Republican contenders: former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former technology executive Carly Fiorina, both underdogs whose road to relevancy in 2016 might be inextricably tied to the former first lady. As other Republicans begin to jab each other, both Fiorina's and Huckabee's nascent campaigns are based on the notion that they are uniquely positioned to defeat Clinton.
Both may be overstating their cases.
Huckabee didn't explicitly mention Clinton on Tuesday even as he began a second presidential bid in Hope, Arkansas, the hometown he shares with her husband, Bill Clinton, the 42nd president. Yet the strategy was clear, as Huckabee and his senior aides cast him as a conservative populist outsider and the only Republican to have successfully taken on the Clinton political machine.
The opening frames of Huckabee's campaign video featured a black-and-white photo of the Clintons. In his speech, Huckabee recalled "challenging the deeply entrenched political machine that ran this state."
Later, he took a swipe at Hillary Clinton, noting that he doesn't "have a global foundation" to help start his campaign, a reference to the Clinton Foundation. Some critics allege that foreign entities traded donations to the family charity for favours at the State Department while Clinton was secretary of state. The State Department said Monday it found no evidence supporting the claims.
Fiorina, the only high-profile woman seeking the Republican presidential nomination, stepped into the presidential race a day before Huckabee. Before appearing in her own announcement video, Fiorina began with a few moments of Clinton declaring her candidacy.
"I would be running for president regardless of who the nominee on the Democratic side was, but really the point in highlighting her is that she is the personification of the professional political class," said Fiorina, a former Hewlett-Packard CEO who has never held elected office. "She and her husband have been in politics their entire lives."
Fiorina, who ran for a Senate seat in California and lost to incumbent Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, emerged as one of the Republican Party's most aggressive Clinton critics in the weeks leading up to this week's announcement of her candidacy. She remains relatively unknown among the broader electorate, yet her aides suggest Fiorina has the ability to talk about issues and go after Clinton in ways her male colleagues cannot.
"It is clear that, in sharp contrast to Hillary, people see Carly as genuine, authentic and trustworthy," Sarah Isgur Flores, Fiorina's deputy campaign manager, said in a campaign memo.
Huckabee's Clinton focus is more personal. His introductory campaign video is titled "Nailed Shut," a reference to an office door being sealed off to him the day before he was sworn in as lieutenant governor in 1993 — a story he tells to illustrate what he was up against with the Democratic power structure in Little Rock.
Bill Clinton was governor until the end of 1992, before moving to the White House. His Democratic successor was caught in an ethics scandal and Huckabee ascended to the governor's office.
Huckabee is of several Republican governors in the South who still had to deal with Democratic legislative majorities as the region evolved from a Democratic stronghold to near complete Republican control now, eight years after Huckabee left office.
Jonathan Barnett, a former Arkansas legislator who first met Huckabee in high school, noted that Huckabee's rise is linked directly to Clinton, whose departure for Washington opened the way for Huckabee to become governor soon after.
"Bill Clinton becoming president opened up a lot of doors for Mike Huckabee," said Barnett, a Republican. "How about that?"
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Peoples reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Andrew DeMillo contributed to this report.
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