'I'm running for president,' Clinton says

She kicks off ’16 campaign with video, plans Iowa trip

FILE - In this March 23, 2015 file photo, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks in Washington. Clinton has signed a lease in a Brooklyn, New York, building for what is expected to house her presidential campaign headquarters. A person familiar with the plans says Clinton has signed the lease for two floors in an office in New York's Brooklyn Heights neighborhood. The person spoke on condition of anonymity and was not authorized to speak publicly about internal planning.  (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)
FILE - In this March 23, 2015 file photo, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks in Washington. Clinton has signed a lease in a Brooklyn, New York, building for what is expected to house her presidential campaign headquarters. A person familiar with the plans says Clinton has signed the lease for two floors in an office in New York's Brooklyn Heights neighborhood. The person spoke on condition of anonymity and was not authorized to speak publicly about internal planning. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

WASHINGTON -- Hillary Rodham Clinton jumped back into presidential politics Sunday, making a much-awaited announcement she will again seek the White House with a promise to serve as the "champion" of everyday Americans.

Clinton opened her bid for the 2016 Democratic nomination by positioning herself as the heir to the diverse coalition of voters who elected her immediate predecessor and former campaign rival, President Barack Obama, as well as an appeal to those in her party still leery of her commitment to fighting income inequality.

And unlike eight years ago, when she ran as a candidate with a deep resume in Washington, Clinton and her personal history weren't the focus of the first message of her campaign. In the online video that kicked off her campaign, she made no mention of her time in the Senate and four years as secretary of state, or the prospect she could make history as the nation's first female president.

She does not appear until after 90 seconds of images featuring personal stories of others, each describing how they are getting ready to start something new.

The ad features a mother who says she is going back to work, a young Asian woman looking for a job, two Hispanic brothers starting their own business and a gay couple planning their wedding, signaling that she may seek to make same-sex marriage an important campaign issue.

Near the end of the video, Clinton finally appears outside a suburban home. "I'm getting ready to do something, too. I'm running for president," she says.

"Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times, but the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top. Everyday Americans need a champion, and I want to be that champion. So you can do more than just get by. You can get ahead and stay ahead."

It's a message that also made an immediate play to win over the support of liberals in her party for whom economic inequality has become a defining issue. They remain skeptical of Clinton's close ties to Wall Street and the centrist economic policies of the administration of her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

Unlike some of the Republicans who have entered the race, Clinton's video and new website are scant on policy specifics. Kentucky's Sen. Rand Paul, for example, kicked off his campaign with a website and online videos that described his positions on an array of domestic and foreign policy issues.

Clinton also began her campaign for president in 2007 with a video, followed by a splashy rally in Des Moines where she said, "I'm running for president, and I'm in it to win it."

Clinton will travel this week to Iowa, a critical state where she finished third in the 2008 caucuses, to begin holding a series of smaller, less-scripted events at coffee shops and in living rooms. She will visit New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, the other states that open voting for a Democratic nominee, later in coming weeks.

She will use the events to reintroduce herself to voters and begin to lay out the central theme of her candidacy: improving the economic fortunes of the middle class, with an emphasis on increasing wages and reducing income inequality.

In recent months, she has recruited staff members in the early nominating states who had been working as volunteers, and she opened a campaign headquarters in Brooklyn, N.Y.

"When families are strong, America is strong. So I'm hitting the road to earn your vote. Because it's your time. And I hope you'll join me on this journey," she said in the video.

This voter-centric approach was picked with a purpose, her advisers said, to show that Clinton is not taking the nomination for granted. Her campaign said Sunday that she would spend the next six to eight weeks in a "ramp-up" period, and she would not hold her first rally and deliver a campaign kickoff speech until May.

Clinton is the first high-profile Democrat to get into the race, and she quickly won the endorsement of several leading Democrats, including her home state governor, New York's Andrew Cuomo, and Virginia's Sen. Tim Kaine.

Still, there are some lesser-known Democrats who are considering challenging her, including former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders.

"During this campaign, it is imperative that Secretary Clinton, like every other candidate, address the great challenges of our time: the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality that is crushing our middle class," Sanders said.

Many had hoped Clinton would face a challenge from Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has said she will not run.

On Saturday, in response to a question at a news conference in Panama, Obama said Clinton would make an "excellent president."

But some in her party continue to push for a more liberal candidate.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who once was Clinton's campaign manager, said on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday he would wait to endorse Clinton until he sees a "clear, bold vision for progressive economic change."

Clinton also faces a Republican Party determined to defeat her.

Two Republicans -- Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Paul -- have announced candidacies in recent weeks. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida is expected to announce his today in Miami.

The GOP did not wait for her announcement to begin their campaign against her. The party's chairman, Reince Priebus, has outlined plans for a broad effort to try to undermine her record as secretary of state while arguing that her election would be like giving Obama a "third term."

Republicans have jumped on Clinton's use of a personal email account and server while she was secretary of state, as well as her handling of the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, in his own online video, said Sunday: "We must do better than the Obama-Clinton foreign policy that has damaged relationships with our allies and emboldened our enemies."

Should she win the Democratic nomination, Clinton will need to overcome history to win the White House. In the last half-century, the same party has held the White House for three consecutive terms only once, during the administrations of Republicans Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

But in a campaign that will inevitably be about the future, Clinton, 67, enters as a quintessential baby boomer, associated with the 1990s and with the drama of the Bill Clinton years.

This campaign will begin on a small scale and build up to an effort likely to cost more than any presidential bid waged before, with Clinton's supporters and outside super PACs looking to raise as much as $2.5 billion in a blitz of donations from Democrats who overwhelmingly support her candidacy.

Much of that enthusiasm is tied to the chance to make history by electing a woman president. But some, too, owes to the lack of compelling alternatives in a party trying to hold on to the White House when Republicans control the House and the Senate.

As part of her launch, Clinton also will leave the board of her family's foundation.

This weekend, Clinton campaign fundraisers escalated their outreach to Democratic donors, who largely back her bid, with a flurry of phone calls urging them to donate as soon as possible. Her team Sunday encouraged donors to become "Hillstarters" by raising $27,000 for the campaign in the next 30 days.

Her return to the campaign trail this week offers her a fortuitous circumstance: Tuesday is National Equal Pay Day, the point in the year at which, on average, a woman's pay for working in 2014 and 2015 would equal a man's pay just for 2014. Pay equity is an issue that Clinton's candidacy will take up in earnest, along with others important to many women, like paid family and medical leave, a higher minimum wage and affordable access to child care.

Unlike in her 2008 campaign, when she played down gender and sought to show she was tough enough to be president, Clinton plans to highlight that she is a grandmother and trumpet her chance to make history.

In her 2008 concession speech, Clinton sought to energize the women who had supported her candidacy.

"Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it," she said. "And the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time."

Information for this article was contributed by Ken Thomas, Lisa Lerer and Julie Pace of The Associated Press; by Amy Chozick and Alan Rappeport of The New York Times; and by Anita Kumar and Sean Cockerham of Tribune News Service.

A Section on 04/13/2015

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