Hillary Clinton announced Saturday she was running for president for all Americans, unveiling a progressive platform promising to promote equal opportunity and fight for a beleaguered middle class.

"America can't succeed unless you succeed, that is why I am running for president of the United States," she said to huge cheers in New York at the first major rally of her campaign and to chants of "Hillary, Hillary."

"Prosperity just can't be for CEOs and hedge fund managers. Democracy can't be just for billionaires... Prosperity and democracy are part of your basic bargain, too."

She launched a stinging attack on the Republican party, painting her conservative foes as out of touch with a diverse electorate, and chastised their tax breaks in favor of the super wealthy at the expense of the middle class.

"I am running to make the economy work for you and for every American," she said, referencing nurses on night shifts, plumbers, farmers, veterans and small business owners.

She drew on the disadvantaged background of her mother, who was forced to work as a maid aged 14 after being abandoned, and told voters that she understood first hand their problems.

"I didn't learn this from politics. I learned it from my own family. My mother taught me that everybody needs chance and a champion. She knew what it was like not to have either one," she said.
It was a speech peppered with jokes in an effort to present a more human touch, that referenced her four decades in public service.

In a nod to her location on Roosevelt Island, she rooted her campaign in the legacy of America's great World War II and New Deal president Franklin D. Roosevelt.

She presented herself as his heir, who would continue his work and that of her husband, Bill Clinton, and current president Barack Obama.

"Prosperity must be shared by all," she said, calling for equality of opportunity, jobs, security, civil liberties, a rising standard of living and marriage rights for gays.