Hillary Clinton Pokes Fun at President Obama: My Hair Won’t Turn White in the White House
Columbia, SOUTH CAROLINA -- Self-dubbed hair icon and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton assured voters today that if she gets elected president, her hair -- unlike that of her would-be predecessors -- will not turn gray over the course of her term.
“All of our presidents come into office looking so vigorous,” Clinton said during a campaign event at the Marriott hotel in downtown Columbia, South Carolina today, her first visit to the state as a presidential candidate.
“Think about what they look like on inauguration day. And then we watch them. They grow grayer and grayer, and by the time they leave, they’re as white as the building they live in.”
“Now, let me tell you,” Clinton, 67, added with a smile, “I’m aware I may not be the youngest candidate in this race, but I have one big advantage. I’ve been coloring my hair for years. So you’re not going to see me turn white in the White House.”
The crowd erupted with laughter and applause.
“And,” Clinton added, as the clapping simmered. “You're also not going to see me shrink from a fight. I think by now, people know I don’t quit.”
Clinton, who will be 69 on Election Day, made the dig during a keynote address to the South Carolina House Democratic Women’s Caucus and the South Carolina Democratic Women’s Council at their Third Annual Day in Blue event.
Clinton’s visit to South Carolina -- a state that harbors bad memories for Clinton from 2008 -- marks the first time she’s returned to the state since her bruising loss in the presidential primary against then-Senator Barack Obama.
During her events today -- which included a roundtable with female minority business owners at a chicken and waffles joint, followed by the keynote -- Clinton tried to move beyond the past and look to the future. In her remarks, she laid out the initial part of her women’s agenda -- specifically doubling down on affordable child care and equal pay for women and calling out Republicans for being on the wrong side of the issue.
“One Republican candidate for president dismissed equal pay as a ‘bogus issue," Clinton said. "Another said that congress was ‘wasting time worrying about it,’ and one even said that efforts to guarantee fair pay reminded him of the Soviet Union."
“And to that, I say what century are they living in?” Clinton quipped, with a subtle southern twang that slipped in and out periodically throughout the speech.
Earlier in the day, Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina showed up outside Clinton’s event and set up her own competing media availability outside of the same Marriott where Clinton delivered the keynote.
When asked about Clinton's focus on equal pay herself, Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO and only other female candidate in the 2016 race, threw the issue back on Clinton.
“We know as well that the federal government is a seniority system which means they don’t pay for performance they pay for time and grades," Fiorina said. "Why hasn’t Mrs. Clinton or President Obama been willing or able to answer questions about pay in their own offices?”
Fiorina added that she does not agree with the statistic Clinton often cites that women make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns.
When asked why she decided to hold an event outside the same hotel where Clinton would momentarily be speaking, Fiorina said it was merely a coincidence.
“I planned this trip many many weeks ago, so perhaps she is following me. I have never been following Mrs. Clinton," she said.
