11/15/2014 The New York Times
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Hillary Rodham Clinton’s in-between phase started here on Saturday, at a carefully staged appearance with her daughter and surrounded by old friends.
In her first public event since the midterm elections, and before she announces whether she will run for president in 2016, Mrs. Clinton joined Chelsea Clinton at the William J. Clinton Presidential Center to discuss the advancement of women and girls and to take questions from an audience of friends and local activists.
“The fact that we have a granddaughter means that we are even more focused on these issues and thinking about what the world she will grow up in will be like for young girls,” Mrs. Clinton said in one of many references to Chelsea’s new baby, Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky. Her joint question-and-answer session was part of a weekend-long celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Clinton Center.
After the event, Mrs. Clinton said, “You have to look at the past, you have to see what we’ve done and why we did it and we learned from it in order to think about what you can do for the next ten years.”
The event provided a warm Arkansas embrace for Mrs. Clinton as she waded back into charitable work after weeks of intense campaigning for Democrats, many of whom lost their midterm races.
Before she and Chelsea took the stage, the former first couple strolled through the lobby of the sunlit museum, embracing Arkansas friends and White House aides who had flown in for the weekend’s festivities.
As those around Mrs. Clinton begin to angle for positions on a potential campaign, she has wound down her public schedule to a handful of awards galas and events related to her charitable work at the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
On Friday, Bill Clinton had closed a day’s worth of panel policy discussions about his administration to deliver a passionate defense of his legacy. But on Saturday, it was Mrs. Clinton’s turn, and she focused on her early work with single mothers and children as first lady of Arkansas.
Mrs. Clinton and Ms. Clinton asked some local advocates and business leaders to join them on the stage to talk about their relationship with the Clintons and how their work to help women and girls overlaps.
“I started a lot of these programs and the point was to show that, as Chelsea rightly said, these can work and you can’t get discouraged,” Mrs. Clinton said after the event.
A version of this article appears in print on November 16, 2014, on page A20 of the New York edition with the headline: The Clintons Look to Past, for Now.
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