PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — In a state with a history of electing women to its highest offices, and on the 20th anniversary of her famous speech in Beijing, where as first lady she declared “women’s rights are human rights and human rights are women’s rights,” Hillary Clinton on Saturday defined the entire economic agenda of her 2016 campaign as a women's issue.

For the Democratic front-runner, the backdrop for her speech had special meaning — this early-voting state is the one where Clinton herself shattered a glass ceiling in 2008 by becoming the first woman to win a presidential primary. But she has been struggling here this time, trailing Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in recent polls.


“I’m a proud lifelong fighter for women’s issues,” Clinton told a crowd of about 1,000 supporters that gathered outside Portsmouth Junior High School for the Labor Day weekend kickoff of “Women for Hillary.”

She shared the stage with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a former governor and longtime supporter who officially endorsed Clinton’s campaign Saturday. “I firmly believe what’s good for women is good for America,” Clinton said.

Clinton has been embracing her gender since her kickoff rally on Roosevelt Island last June, but the Women for Hillary rally marked the first time she placed her entire domestic and economic agenda in terms of how it affects women’s lives.

“Child care is a women’s issue, but it’s also an economic issue,” she said. “Paid family leave is a women’s issue, but it’s also an economic issue. You should not have to lose your paycheck or your job when you have a baby or someone in your family gets sick.”

Clinton kept up the refrain: “Of course, equal pay is a women’s issue, but it’s also an economic issue. We have to just get over this. Women should be paid the same as men, and when they’re not, their whole families get short-changed.”

“Raising the minimum wage is a women’s issue,” she said. “Holding corporations accountable when they gouge us on drug prices, pollute our environment or exploit workers are women’s issues.”

Corporations profit-sharing with their employees, college affordability and creating a pathway to citizenship for immigrants, she added, are all women’s issues, too.

Longtime Clinton aides could not remember a time during Clinton’s 2008 presidential bid when she embraced running as a woman and women’s issues so openly and unequivocally as she did on Saturday.

On the campaign trail eight years ago, Clinton shied away from explicitly gender-based appeals. “I am not running as a woman,” she often said. “I am running because I believe I am the best-qualified and experienced person.” That strategy failed to fire up female voters — in Iowa, Barack Obama earned more women's votes than Clinton, and Clinton barely exceeded 50 percent of the women’s vote overall in the Democratic primary.

Her rousing speech thanking her supporters for helping to put “18 million cracks” in the “highest, hardest glass ceiling” came late in the primary — in her concession to Obama.

This time around, Clinton has been attacking Republicans on women’s issues and women’s health, hoping that a real contrast on the issues will be what gets her over the finish line in a general election and motivates female voters. Since her 2008 effort, Democrats have sought to advance the theme of a Republican "war on women" and have made explicit appeals to women a key part of their strategy in an attempt to further leverage the traditional gender gap between the two parties.

Clinton singled out several Republican presidential candidates by name Saturday. GOP front-runner Donald Trump “said I don’t have a clue about women’s health issues,” Clinton said at the rally. “He said he would do a much better job for women than I would. That’s a general election debate that’s going to be a lot of fun.”

“He says he loves women; to quote him, he cherishes us,” Clinton added, “Well, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather you stop cherishing women and start respecting women.”

She even took a swipe at Dr. Ben Carson, who has recently been surging in the polls, for his opposition to abortion rights.

New Hampshire voters provided a fitting audience for the full-court woman press.

In 2008, the Granite State was the first in the nation to elect a state legislature with more women than men, Clinton noted in her speech. In 2012, it was the first state to send an all-women congressional delegation to Washington. The chief justice of the Supreme Court in New Hampshire is a woman, and Shaheen made history as the first woman to be elected senator and governor from her state.

“I think the rest of America could learn a few lessons from New Hampshire, don’t you?” Clinton said. “Republicans actually say I’m playing the gender card. Well, if calling for equal pay and paid leave and women’s health is playing the gender card, deal me in.”

