Brand of the day: Hillary Clinton
Welcome to Brand of the Day, where we pick the brand making headlines and explain what you need to know about why it's in the news.
Democrat Hillary Clinton is our brand of the day.
The presidential candidate’s first TV commercials for her 2016 bid aired last night, and gave an up-close-and-personal glimpse at the politician’s relationship with her Mother, Dorothy Rodham, who has been central to her campaign so far.
The minute-long ads look at Rodham’s turbulent upbringing and her influence over her daughter’s career.
“My Mom’s life and what she went through are big reasons for standing up for kids and families become such a big part of my life,” says Clinton.
Clinton was elected to the US Senate in 2001 and is the only American first lady to hold national office.
A Yale law graduate, she became an advisor to the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives in 1974.
She married Bill Clinton in 1975 and went on to work on Jimmy Carter's successful White House campaign before joining the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock.
Following a failed candidacy bid she became the 67th US secretary of state in 2009 and served until 2013.
Earlier this year, news broke that Clinton had used personal email accounts hosted on a private server to conduct official business.
Her claim that this was motivated by “convenience” and was “allowed by the State Department,” ran contrary to White House press secretary Josh Earnest’s view that “employees in the Obama administration should use their official email accounts when they're conducting official government business.”
The scandal is raising uncomfortable questions for Clinton about her transparency and several watchdogs and record-keeping experts have criticized her reliance on private email.
Critics are now asking why the Justice Department has not yet opened a criminal investigation against the former first lady for mishandling classified information.
'Emailgate' has put a dent in Clinton’s bid for president; the most recent CNN poll states that 57 per cent of voters did not consider her to be “honest”.
With over a year to go until the vote these latest ads could close the polls – especially in light of Jeb Bush's tough stance on Labor laws and Donald Trump's campaign controversies.
Running for five weeks in Iowa and New Hampshire, the films point to her time spent working for the Children’s Defense Fund, and her tenure as New York senator during 9/11.