Hillary Clinton On A Female President: "Someday I Hope It Happens"

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and their daughter Chelsea Clinton appear on stage at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting Tuesday in New York. Lucas Jackson / Reuters

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told an audience at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting Tuesday afternoon that electing a woman to the White House would send “a very strong statement.”

“Someday I hope it happens,” she said with a smile, in response to a question from moderator Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a host on CNN.

Gupta asked Clinton, who is mulling a second bid for the presidency in 2016, how important it is to her personally to see a woman hold the position of commander in chief for the first time. The question, phrased in a way that made Clinton let loose a booming laugh, was Gupta’s last of the afternoon at a panel on women’s health.

“That is a question I will answer taking myself totally out of it,” Clinton said, alongside three other panelists. “It is, for me, a part of a larger mission to expand participation and leadership among women around the world.”

Clinton described the landmark goal as “symbolic,” but added that “symbolism is efficacious.”

“We have a lot of challenges,” she said. “Electing one person, a woman, is not going to end those challenges, but it provides the kind of boost to the efforts that so many of us have been making for so long.”

“So I guess the short answer is, I think it would be important,” Clinton said. “It’s not going to solve all our problems, but I think it would be a very strong statement that would be made to half our population, and half the world’s population.”

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it happens

When volunteer firefighters in Seaside Heights broke into a military surplus store during Superstorm Sandy, borough officials said they did so to get supplies critical to ongoing rescue operations.

But items including Elvis and Betty Boop plates, GI Joe statues, Swiss bayonets, handbags, comic books, and golf balls also went missing from Shore Army Navy, the Star-Ledger reports. 

Seaside Heights officials say the firefighters only took rescue supplies, and that looters might have taken other items after the firefighters had left.

The borough recently paid the ransacked Hamilton Avenue store $185,000 in compensation for the missing items. 

"The town made it as right as it could under the circumstances," store owner Ted Domaracki told the newspaper. "We’re thankful the store is back open. We’re thankful business wasn’t as bad as it could have been this summer."

Agents from the FBI and the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security previously visited the borough to inquire about the incident, the newspaper reported last month.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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