Clinton has made her presidential campaign about the people

By Dina Titus

Sunday, May 3, 2015 | 1:21 p.m.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president of the United States is not about her; it’s about the American people — who we are, what we need and where we see this nation going. That’s why she’s been traveling the country — first to Iowa and New Hampshire, and coming to Nevada this Tuesday — meeting with people in small, intimate groups; talking from the heart with veterans, business owners, students and fellow grandmothers; and listening to folks tell their personal stories of struggle and triumph. As she put it, “No one is disposable. Every life matters.”

Clinton has been to Nevada many times. She has close personal friends and strong political allies here. But she is not taking us for granted. She wants to see for herself how Nevadans are doing as our state continues to recover from the devastating hits we took during the Great Recession. She wants to hear from our immigrant community and those who benefited from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals about the difficulties they face living in the shadows.

Clinton wants to connect, up close and personally, with working families about what they need to have a fair shot at the American dream. In short, she cares, she wants to get our input and earn our support as she fights to take on the “broad inequities in our society.”

I believe Clinton would be a great president. We already know she is a tireless campaigner, an astute policymaker, a brilliant diplomat and a fearless advocate for women and children.

Her breadth of knowledge, depth of compassion and strength of purpose are unparalleled among her contemporaries and potential opponents. She has proven time and again, in the best of situations and in the worst of circumstances, that she is a fighter and a survivor.

Just think of what she has been through — she’s been mocked for tearing up, flayed for not making cookies, criticized for her sartorial choices and caricatured in the cruelest way. Yet, she never wavered in her fight to improve the lives of those who needed her voice and her help, around the world and here at home. She never looked for a way out, but instead sought to find a way in.

All the while, she never lost that special personal touch that has endeared her to those who have felt her kindness. As part of her campaign for the nomination in 2008, I was honored to head the Women of the West for Hillary, an effort to get women officeholders to endorse her candidacy. During that time, my father passed away. Somehow Hillary found out about it and called me just to express her sympathies and say she was thinking of me because it is always especially hard to lose a parent. At that time she was serving as a senator, running for president, traveling the country, preparing for a debate, being a mother herself. Yet, she took the time to call me personally. I will never forget that, and I scoff at those who say she is cold and calculating, not warm and personal.

The country needs Clinton because, despite amazing progress, the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top. It’s time everyday Americans start getting ahead and staying ahead. For that to happen, they need a champion. Hillary Clinton is that champion.

Dina Titus is Nevada’s District 1 congresswoman in the U.S. House of Representatives.