Hillary Clinton takes the stage at a campaign rally at Market Square in Alexandria, Va., on Oct. 23. The rally comes one day after Clinton testified for 11 hours before the House Select Committee on Benghazi on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. (Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA)
Hillary Rodham Clinton made a sun-splashed appearance in Northern Virginia on Friday before a crowd of supporters convinced that her presidential campaign was suddenly on the upswing after a long and dreary summer.
One day after the former first lady, senator and secretary of state emerged unscathed from a marathon congressional hearing on Benghazi, she rallied thousands of fans outside Alexandria City Hall.
[Clinton, back in the Benghazi hot seat, withstands Republicans’ grilling]
“Your fights are my fights and I won’t quit until all Americans have a chance to get ahead and stay ahead,” she said to cheers.
Clinton opened by remarking how nice it was to be “out in the sunshine,” a change from the day before, spent being grilled by Republicans.
“A lot of things have been said about me, but quitter is not one of them,” she said later.
The event in Alexandria was billed as a “grass-roots organizing meeting” with Clinton and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), a longtime personal friend and fundraiser who led her failed 2008 presidential bid.
The mood was upbeat among thousands of supporters who filled Market Square around noontime, clapping along to Pharrell Williams’s “Happy” and Kelly Clarkson’s “What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger” as they blared through loudspeakers. Some said they were relieved to see Clinton seemingly pull out of her summer slide.
“I think it’s gotten better,” said Earlene Edwards, 68, a retired account manager from Vienna. “She’s always had to struggle.”
Clinton was coming off Thursday’s daylong hearing on the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012, during her time at the State Department. Her strong performance at the hearing followed what was widely seen as a winning performance in the first Democratic debate Oct. 13. In the past week, two of her Democratic rivals have dropped out.
[What you’re too embarrassed to ask about Clinton testifying to the Benghazi committee]
She still faces an unexpectedly powerful challenge from Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Democratic socialist from Vermont.
