Hillary Clinton Steals the Show at Philly Campaign Rally

State Department photo(PHILADELPHIA) — New grandmother Hillary Clinton made her first public campaign appearance of the year Thursday for Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Tom Wolf, giving passionate and personal remarks that if not for the “Wolf for Governor” signs prominently behind her could easily have been mistaken for a presidential stump speech.

While Wolf, a businessman from York County, has a strong lead in the polls against incumbent Gov. Tom Corbett, the star of Thursday night’s “Women for Wolf” event at the National Constitution Center downtown was clearly Clinton.

To a crowd of nearly 1,000 people and with the “Ready for Hillary” bus stationed outside, Clinton took the stage to roaring applause (and Katy Perry’s “Roar” blasting overhead), and laid out a case that Wolf was the “fresh start” both Pennsylvania and the country needed, praising his “Made in America” success story and his commitment to working-class families.

“Tom Wolf stands for families, for working people, for fairness, and for justice,” Clinton said to a cheering audience.

Clinton went on to talk fervently about the need for affordable education, raising the minimum wage, equal pay, quality affordable childcare, reproductive rights for women, and even same-sex marriage equality, crying out: “We will never compare the marriage of two loving and committed partners to incest.”

But Clinton’s speech was also uniquely personal, with a number of her own anecdotes and Pennsylvania connections woven throughout.

When she championed for working families, she reminisced about her hard-working father who grew up in Scranton and the summers she spent with him in the Poconos.

When she talked about the importance of family values, she gave a shout-out to Marjorie Margolies, her son-in-law’s mother who was in the audience, joking they both have the same “grandmother glow.”

When she stressed the importance of helping women get work, she told a story about how when she and her husband, Bill Clinton, were waiting at the hospital for Chelsea Clinton to give birth last month, Mrs. Clinton claimed a nurse came up to her and thanked her for all she’s done in the fight for paid leave.

And when she spoke about the future, she spoke about little baby Charlotte: how, most importantly, she wants all children in the country to have the same opportunities she knows her new granddaughter will have. “You should not have to be the granddaughter of a president to get a good education and good health care,” she said.

But while Clinton made her own vision and hopes for the future clear, it was Wolf, she said, who would help bring the country there.

“Tom Wolf is the right leader at the right time for Pennsylvania’s hard working people,” she said. But, she warned, it will only happen if people go out and vote.

“You feel there is a ‘movement’ stirring across the country, you can see it from coast to coast, but nothing will matter if you don’t do everything you can in the next month to bring everyone you know to the polls,” she said.

The program also included remarks by Sen. Bob Casey, Rep. Allyson Schwartz, and former Pennsylvania governor and staunch Hillary Clinton supporter, Ed Rendell, who teased he knew what Clinton’s next job would be.

“I predict that Hillary Clinton’s next job will be…babysitter,” he joked.

Clinton, who has said she will not decide about running in 2016 until after the midterms, is traveling the country campaigning for Democratic candidates. Her fall schedule has roughly 25 events, including ones in Iowa and New Hampshire.

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