Clinton, Kaine Release New Book, “Stronger Together”

On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine released a new book titled Stronger Together. Hillary for America released the following description of the book. Buy the book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Walmart, or your favorite book retailer.

Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine today released their official campaign book, “Stronger Together” today, a 256-page blueprint for America’s future. The book synthesizes more than fifty detailed policy ideas that Clinton and Kaine have advanced throughout the campaign, including specific and practical solutions to address some of the biggest challenges facing American families and our country.

“We have an old-fashioned idea about politics: People who are running to lead the United States of America should tell you what they’re going to do, why they’re going to do it, and how they’re going to get it done,” Clinton and Kaine write in the book’s preface. “That’s what this book is all about. Over the course of this campaign, we have laid out a comprehensive vision for our country: building an economy that works for everyone, not just those that the top; working with our allies and each other to keep our people safe and our country strong; and forging a strong sense of American unity to tackle the problems and seize the opportunities before us. To that end, we have released more than fifty detailed policy ideas, on everything from apprenticeships to the Zika virus.”

The detailed, specific policy solutions covered in the book stand in stark contrast to the Trump campaign’s soundbites and slogans. According to a recent Associated Press story, “Trump’s campaign has posted just seven policy proposals on his website, totaling just over 9,000 words. There are 38 on Clinton’s ‘issues’ page, ranging from efforts to cure Alzheimer’s disease to Wall Street and criminal justice reform, and her campaign boasts that it has now released 65 policy fact sheets, totaling 112,735 words.”

The book, which includes new introductions from each candidate, is broken into four sections focused on:

• The economy: How we can build an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top, by: making the boldest investment in good-paying jobs since World War II; making college debt-free for all Americans; rewriting the rules so companies share profits with employees instead of shipping jobs and profits overseas; ensuring that Wall Street, corporations and the super-wealthy pay their fair share; and putting families first with policies that match how people work and live.
• Foreign policy: How we can secure American leadership and keep America safe by: defeating ISIS and global terrorism; continuing to strengthen our alliances and partnerships — and stick with them; being firm but wise with our rivals; keeping our military strong and supporting our veterans and military families; shaping the global rules that will keep us safe and make us more prosperous; and staying true to the values that have always made America great.
• Domestic policy: How we can stand together and build bridges, not walls by providing every child the opportunity to live up to his or her potential; fixing our broken immigration system and keeping families together; reforming our criminal justice system; ending the epidemic of gun violence; breaking down the barriers that stand in the way of equal rights; and protecting our environment and natural resources.
• Getting results: How we can break through the gridlock to get results by reforming our campaign finance system, protecting voter rights and expanding access to the ballot box.

In her introduction, titled Love and Kindness—And Action, Clinton tells the story of her upbringing, the lessons she learned from her mother’s difficult childhood, and her work as an advocate for children. She writes, “To drive real progress, you have to change both hearts and laws. You need both understanding and action. It’s unusual to hear a candidate for President say we need more love and kindness in our country — but that’s exactly what we need. Each of us stumbles at one time or another. I know I’ve made my share of mistakes and missteps. But life is about how we stand back up — and how we lift each other up, too.”

In his introduction, titled Fighting for Right, Kaine describes his service in Honduras and the inspiration he drew from his father-in law, former Virginia Governor Linwood Holton, who integrated the state’s public schools. He writes, “Lin’s example helped inspire me to work as a civil rights lawyer representing people who had been turned away from housing either because of the color of their skin or because they were an American with a disability … All these years later, I am still striving to do what I did then — to fight for right.”

The book was published by Simon & Schuster and is available in paperback, digital and audio formats.

For all the latest, follow our Scheduled Events page and follow Clinton on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Also, be sure to subscribe to the campaign’s official Podcast, With Her.

Hard Choices Excerpt Released

Today, Simon & Schuster released another excerpt from Hillary Rodham Clinton’s upcoming memoir Hard Choices. The excerpt comes from the Author’s Note and includes audio of Clinton reading the passage. The excerpt serves as an introduction to the book and is a good outline of what to expect from the 656 page memoir. To access the excerpt, you must sign up to receive updates via email, which you may do by CLICKING HERE.

In addition, Simon & Schuster has posted a video in which Clinton discusses Hard Choices. I have included the video below:

New Section for the Release of Hard Choices

Since Hard Choices will be released on June 10, we wanted to debut the new section of Hillary Speeches dedicated to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s upcoming memoir. We have added a new tab in the menu for the book. Hover your mouse over the tab, and four pages will appear: About, Tour, Reviews, and Buy. On these pages you will find information about Hard Choices and links to sites where you can pre-order a copy.

Clinton’s book is one of the most anticipated releases of the summer. We will post all the information you need to know about the release of Hard Choices and Clinton’s book tour.

Excerpt from Clinton’s Upcoming Memoir

Vogue Magazine published an exclusive excerpt from Hillary Rodham Clinton’s upcoming memoir Hard Choices. Released for Mother’s Day, Clinton talks about her mother. In addition to the excerpt, Vogue also posted the audio version of the excerpt, read by Clinton. To listen to the audio, click the link above, and the full excerpt is below.

Hard Choices will be published on June 10 by Simon & Schuster.

From the moment I first held Chelsea in my arms in the hospital in Little Rock, I knew my mission in life was to give her every opportunity to thrive. As she’s grown up and stepped out into the world in her own right, my responsibilities have changed. Now that she’s expecting a child of her own, I’m preparing for a new role that I’ve looked forward to for years: grandmother. And I’ve found myself thinking a lot about my relationship with my own mom, as an adult as well as in childhood, and what lessons I learned from her.

When I became Secretary of State, Mom was just about to turn 90. She had been living with us in Washington for the past few years, ever since being alone in her apartment overlooking the zoo on Connecticut Avenue became too much. Like so many Americans of my generation, I felt both blessed to have these extra years with an aging parent and very responsible for making sure she was comfortable and well cared for. Mom gave me so much unconditional love and support when I was growing up in Park Ridge, Illinois; now it was my turn to support her. Of course I never would have let her hear me describe it that way. Dorothy Howell Rodham was a fiercely independent woman. She couldn’t bear the thought of being a burden to anyone.

Having her so close became a source of great comfort to me, especially in the difficult period after the end of the 2008 campaign. I’d come home from a long day at the Senate or the State Department, slide in next to her at the small table in our breakfast nook, and let everything just pour out. 

Mom loved mystery novels, Mexican food, Dancing with the Stars (we actually managed to get her to a taping of the show once), and most of all her grandchildren. My nephew Zach Rodham’s school was just five minutes away, and he came over many afternoons to visit her. Spending time with Fiona and Simon Rodham, her youngest grandchildren, was a precious delight for her. For Chelsea, her grandmother was one of the most important figures in her life. Mom helped Chelsea navigate the unique challenges of growing up in the public eye and, when she was ready, encouraged her to pursue her passion for service and philanthropy. Even in her 90s, Mom never lost her commitment to social justice, which did so much to mold and inspire me when I was growing up. I loved that she was able to do the same for Chelsea. And I’m not sure if I ever saw Mom happier than at Chelsea’s wedding. She proudly walked down the aisle on Zach’s arm and exulted over her joyful, radiant granddaughter.

Mom’s own childhood was marked by trauma and abandonment. In Chicago her parents fought frequently and divorced when she and her sister were young. Neither parent was willing to care for the kids, so they were put on a train to California to live with their paternal grandparents in Alhambra, a town near the San Gabriel Mountains east of Los Angeles. The elderly couple was severe and unloving. One Halloween, after Mom was caught trick-or-treating with school friends, a forbidden activity, she was confined to her room for an entire year, except for the hours she was in school. She wasn’t allowed to eat at the kitchen table or play in the yard. By the time Mom turned fourteen, she could no longer bear life in her grandmother’s house. She moved out and found work as a housekeeper and nanny for a kindhearted woman in San Gabriel who offered room and board plus $3 a week and urged her to attend high school. For the first time she saw how loving parents care for their children—it was a revelation.

After graduating from high school Mom moved back to Chicago in the hopes of reconnecting with her own mother. Sadly she was spurned yet again. Heartbroken, she spent the next five years working as a secretary before she met and married my father, Hugh Rodham. She built a new life as a homemaker, spending her days lavishing love on me and my two younger brothers.

When I got old enough to understand all this, I asked my mother how she survived abuse and abandonment without becoming embittered and emotionally stunted. How did she emerge from this lonely early life as such a loving and levelheaded woman? I’ll never forget how she replied. “At critical points in my life somebody showed me kindness,” she said. Sometimes it would seem so small, but it would mean so much—the teacher in elementary school who noticed that she never had money to buy milk, so every day would buy two cartons of milk and then say, “Dorothy, I can’t drink this other carton of milk. Would you like it?” Or the woman who hired her as a nanny and insisted that she go to high school. One day she noticed that Mom had only one blouse that she washed every day. “Dorothy, I can’t fit into this blouse anymore and I’d hate to throw it away. Would you like it?” she said.

Mom was amazingly energetic and positive even into her 90s. But her health started to fail her; she had trouble with her heart. By the fall of 2011 I was growing worried about leaving her alone. On the evening of October 31, another Halloween, I was preparing to leave for London and Turkey. My team was already on board the airplane at Andrews waiting for me to arrive so we could take off. That’s when I got the call that Mom had been rushed to George Washington University Hospital. I quickly canceled the trip and sped there. Bill, Chelsea, and Marc rushed down from New York, and my brothers and their wives, Hugh and Maria and Tony and Megan, arrived as quickly as they could. Mom was a fighter her entire life, but it was finally time to let go. I sat by her bedside and held her hand one last time. No one had a bigger influence on my life or did more to shape the person I became.

When I lost my father in 1993, it felt too soon, and I was consumed with sadness for all the things he would not live to see and do. This was different. Mom lived a long and full life. This time I wept not for what she would miss but for how much I would miss her. I spent the next few days going through her things at home, paging through a book, staring at an old photograph, caressing a piece of beloved jewelry. I found myself sitting next to her empty chair in the breakfast nook and wishing more than anything that I could have one more conversation, one more hug.

We held a small memorial service at the house with close family and friends. We asked Reverend Bill Shillady, who married Chelsea and Marc, to officiate. Chelsea spoke movingly, as did many of Mom’s friends and our family. I read a few lines from the poet Mary Oliver, whose work Mom and I both adored.

Standing there with Bill and Chelsea by my side, I tried to say a final goodbye. I remembered a piece of wisdom that an older friend of mine shared in her later years that perfectly captured how my mother lived her life and how I hoped to live mine: “I have loved and been loved; all the rest is background music.”

I looked at Chelsea and thought about how proud Mom was of her. Mom measured her own life by how much she was able to help us and serve others. I knew if she was still with us, she would be urging us to do the same. Never rest on your laurels. Never quit. Never stop working to make the world a better place. That’s our unfinished business.

Copyright © 2014 by Hillary Rodham Clinton

Clinton Memoir Title Revealed

Today, Simon & Schuster announced the title of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s upcoming memoir. The book will be titled Hard Choices and will focus on her time as the 67th Secretary of State. Hard Choices will be available June 10 and can be pre-ordered from a number of websites and book stores. For information can be found at the microsite for Hard Choices by clicking here.

The full blurb for Hard Choices is below:

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON’S INSIDE ACCOUNT OF THE CRISES, CHOICES, AND CHALLENGES SHE FACED DURING HER FOUR YEARS AS AMERICA’S 67TH SECRETARY OF STATE, AND HOW THOSE EXPERIENCES DRIVE HER VIEW OF THE FUTURE.

“All of us face hard choices in our lives,” Hillary Rodham Clinton writes at the start of this personal chronicle of years at the center of world events. “Life is about making such choices. Our choices and how we handle them shape the people we become.”

In the aftermath of her 2008 presidential run, she expected to return to representing New York in the United States Senate. To her surprise, her former rival for the Democratic Party nomination, newly elected President Barack Obama, asked her to serve in his administration as Secretary of State. This memoir is the story of the four extraordinary and historic years that followed, and the hard choices that she and her colleagues confronted.

Secretary Clinton and President Obama had to decide how to repair fractured alliances, wind down two wars, and address a global financial crisis. They faced a rising competitor in China, growing threats from Iran and North Korea, and revolutions across the Middle East. Along the way, they grappled with some of the toughest dilemmas of US foreign policy, especially the decision to send Americans into harm’s way, from Afghanistan to Libya to the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

By the end of her tenure, Secretary Clinton had visited 112 countries, traveled nearly one million miles, and gained a truly global perspective on many of the major trends reshaping the landscape of the twenty-first century, from economic inequality to climate change to revolutions in energy, communications, and health. Drawing on conversations with numerous leaders and experts, Secretary Clinton offers her views on what it will take for the United States to compete and thrive in an interdependent world. She makes a passionate case for human rights and the full participation in society of women , youth, and LGBT people. An astute eyewitness to decades of social change, she distinguishes the trendlines from the headlines and describes the progress occurring throughout the world, day after day.

Secretary Clinton’s descriptions of diplomatic conversations at the highest levels offer readers a master class in international relations, as does her analysis of how we can best use “smart power” to deliver security and prosperity in a rapidly changing world—one in which America remains the indispensable nation.

Clinton Memoir to be Released June 10

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s upcoming memoir will be published on June 10.  Publisher Simon & Schuster announced the book’s release date today and unveiled a website dedicated to the book. Although little is known about the book, including its title, Clinton’s book is expected to be about her time as Secretary of State. However, Amazon does list that the book will be 688 pages. The new website allows you to sign up for updates and provides links to a number of retail outlets through which you may pre-order the book. You may access Simon & Schuster’s site by CLICKING HERE.