Story highlights
Hillary Clinton is shaping her campaign speech, including some recyclable lines
Clinton's stumping for Democrats has focused on women and the middle class
Clinton often says that the candidate she backs is the "right leader at the right time with the right plan"
Also familiar: "It's as though the other side wants to cast an air of amnesia"
By Election Day in November, Hillary Clinton will have stumped for candidates in over 15 states, with sometimes multiple events at each destination.
What does this mean: Lots of speeches.
As most politicians have some formula of commonly used phrases and lines of attack, the former secretary of state has started to shape a stump speech with similar wording for praise of those she endorses and jabs for her Republican opponents.
The lines are more than just cliches, however. They shed light on the type of campaign Clinton would have if she decided to run for president in 2016, and highlight what she will focus on and how she has learned from many of the mistakes that caused her to lose to Barack Obama in 2008.
Here are Hillary Clinton’s seven most used lines on the 2014 stump:
1.) [Insert candidate’s name] is the “right leader at the right time with the right plan”
This is Clinton’s go-to endorsement line and she’s used it regularly this fall.
“There is no doubt the governor is the right leader at the right time with the right plan,” Clinton said during an event with Gov. Andrew Cuomo in New York last week.
Clinton used the same line – almost exactly – for Democratic candidate Tom Wolf in Pennsylvania and Sen. Mark Udall in Colorado this month.
“You are convinced as I am convinced that Tom Wolf is the right leader and the right time for Pennsylvania hard working people,” Clinton said of Wolf.
2.) “It’s as though the other side wants to cast an air of amnesia”
Clinton, who spent four years separated from politics as America’s top diplomat, has stepped up her Republican attack lines on the stump, and she seems extremely fond of linking the “other side” with “amnesia.”
“It appears to me that the campaigns being run against them are depending on the voters of Colorado having a mass case of amnesia,” Clinton said in her endorsement of Udall and Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper. They want voters to “somehow just forget the accomplishments.”
Clinton made a similar argument for Martha Coakley, Massachusetts’ Democratic governor nominee, earlier this month.
Republicans are counting on “amnesia in this midterm election,” Clinton said, adding they were hoping “people will forget what they have done and what they could do. We have been down the road. That is what is happening.”
At a fundraiser in California earlier this year, she said this: “It’s as though the other side wants to cast an air of amnesia.”
The line appears to be borrowed from her husband, former President Bill Clinton, who while stumping for candidates in 2010 accused Republicans of “amnesia.”
“The Republicans are trying to make this a referendum on people’s anger … with a good dose of amnesia,” Clinton said while endorsing Sen. Richard Blumenthal in 2010, according to reports.
3.) “You can’t take anything for granted.”
Clinton usually employs this line when she is stumping for Democrats who are way up in the polls.
“If you don’t show up, you don’t know what is going to happen,” Clinton said in Minnesota earlier this month where she endorsed Gov. Mark Dayton and Sen. Al Franken, two Democrats who look likely to win. “You can’t take anything for granted.”
The line is more than just a call for voters to activate, however. In 2008, Clinton found herself with a sizable lead over then-Sen. Barack Obama. Clinton went on to lose the nomination fight and some critics of the campaign said it was because Clinton’s top advisers saw her win as a forgone conclusion.
But as much at it is a call to voters, the line is a nod to what Clinton has learned about campaigning.
“I want you to promise yourselves before you leave here tonight that you won’t just come to this beautiful Constitution Center and listen to the speeches and the music then go home feeling good,” Clinton said in Pennsylvania where she endorsed frontrunner Wolf for governor. “You need to resolve to do everything you can to make sure you don’t take this election for granted.”
4.) “Everyone deserves a second chance, a third chance…”
Clinton has focused a great deal on economic populism on the stump, an issue other Democrats thinking about seeking the presidency in 2016 have started to tweak Clinton on.
“Everyone deserves a second chance, a third chance to keep going and to make something of themselves,” Clinton said in Iowa earlier this year. “That was one of the most important lessons of my life.”
Clinton usually uses the line to encourage compassion from a crowd, and to show that she has compassion, too.
“The only direction that matters in life is forward,” Clinton said in Minnesota. “Never quit. Never lose faith. When you get knocked down get right back up, recognize there is worth and dignity in every human being and that everyone — everyone — deserves not just a chance but a second chance and even a third chance and a better life for themselves and their families.”
5.) “Women hold a majority of minimum wage jobs in our country.”
This is a double whammy for Clinton: In one line, she nods to women and the economic struggles that many women – and men – are experiencing.
Clinton’s many appearances have focused a great deal on women and this line has become a staple.
“Women hold a majority of minimum wage jobs in our country,” Clinton said in San Francisco earlier this month. “When women succeed, America succeeds.”
Clinton used a similar line in North Carolina while stumping for Sen. Kay Hagan, at an event for the Democratic National Committee earlier this year at an event with other female politicians in Washington, D.C in September.
“If we had been able to close the gap between men and women participating in the work force, our Gross Domestic Product would be 10 percent higher,” Clinton said at the event. “Why are we leaving 10% on the table because we don’t do enough to give women the support that they need to be empowered, to take care of themselves and their families?”
6.) “Grandmother glow”
Hillary Clinton recently became a grandmother, and those who attend her stump speeches get reminded of that pretty quickly.
Clinton has made her new granddaughter – Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky – a staple of her stump speech and usually uses the one month old to pivot to her vision for the future and the world she and other Democrats want to leave for their children and grandchildren.
Clinton unveiled the line during an October paid speech in Miami, Florida.
“You look beautiful,” said the moderator of a question and answer with Clinton.
“I think it is a grandmother glow,” she responded.
Since then, the line has been regularly repeated.
She took the line a step further in Charlotte, North Carolina on Saturday, giving a nod to the city’s name within the first two minutes of her speech.
“It is pretty excited being here in Charlotte,” Clinton said. “I mean, it is true that I am a new grandmother, a month tomorrow. I still have that grandmother glow.”
She added, “But I just can’t tell you how much we love the name.”
7.) “Fear is the last resort of those who have run out of hope”
This is another way Clinton hits Republicans. She accuses the party of peddling fear because, as she says, that is what people do when they have “run out of gas.”
The line is regularly used when she is endorsing candidates who are facing stiff opposition and a sizable amount of outside spending and ads.
“Elections come down often to who’s got more money, who’s peddling more fear and who turns out,” Clinton told the audience in North Carolina. “We want leaders like Kay Hagan, who appeal to our hopes, not our fears,” she later added.
So far, $80 million has been spent in Hagan’s race against Tillis and local voters have complained about the number of negative ads.
“There is a reason that the senators and the governor’s opponents are running campaigns based on fear,” Clinton said in Colorado. “Fear is the last resort of those who have run out of hope… run out of gas.”
