Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign

by Jonathan Allen

In spirit this was the campaign she wanted to run, even though she didn’t love the catchphrase. In her mind, her whole life had been about public service, from helping poor families through the Children’s Defense Fund to high-level government jobs. It was ridiculous, she thought, that anyone could portray her as purely motivated by self-interest. What the hell had Bernie Sanders ever accomplished to improve the quality of anyone else’s life? He could talk until he was blue in the face about economic justice, but she’d fought for decades to even playing fields at the micro and macro levels. What did Bernie think Hillarycare was about? And the Children’s Health Insurance Program? And how could anyone pretend that racial injustice wasn’t a key barrier to the economic advancement of people of color? She had fought for the most forgotten people in American society, the poor women and children—often black and Hispanic—throughout her adult life. More than that, she had scars from those brawls, from being demonized for elevating the invisible people in American society, even at the expense of the haves. She cared about opportunity and outcome, about incentives and assistance. The Harlem speech just felt right to her. For the first time in weeks, maybe months, she was at home on the campaign trail.