Clintons ‘blessed, grateful’ over birth of grandchild

Hillary and Bill Clinton have had many notable titles: senator and governor, secretary of State and president. Now they have a new one: grandparents.

The former first couple are “over the moon to be grandparents! One of the happiest moments of our life,” Hillary Rodham Clinton tweeted Saturday.

Clinton, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, also tweeted a photo of herself cradling her new granddaughter with Bill Clinton at her side.

“We are blessed, grateful, and so happy to be the grandparents of a beautiful girl, Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky, born on Friday evening, Sept. 26, 2014,” the Clintons said in a statement released Saturday. “We are thrilled to be with our daughter and her husband as they welcome their daughter into the world.”

Bill Clinton had been scheduled to campaign Saturday in Colorado for Democratic Sen. Mark Udall and Gov. John Hickenlooper, but canceled due the birth. (Clinton spoke via conference call.)

The news that Chelsea Clinton and her husband, Marc Mezvinsky, were expecting their first child garnered tremendous attention in the political world — leading some to compare it to the frenzy that surrounded the arrival of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s first child, George.

Chelsea Clinton revealed the news of her pregnancy at the end of a Clinton Foundation event with her mother this year at the Lower Eastside Girls Club in New York City.

Hillary Clinton has stoked much of the discussion surrounding Chelsea this year by repeatedly mentioning her excitement about becoming a grandmother. The openness with which she talked of the coming event contrasted with the privacy the Clintons had sought for their daughter when she was younger.

During a Democratic conference in mid-September, Hillary Clinton said that being on “grandbaby watch” had led her to think more deeply about her hopes for other children in America. “I want every one of our children to feel that they are inheriting the best of America,” she said.

Hillary Clinton left her post as secretary of State in the Obama administration in February 2013. For several months she remained out of the public spotlight, but with the release of her new book, “Hard Choices,” Clinton reemerged this summer with a book tour across the country.

The former first lady has said she will make a decision about her plans for 2016 sometime early next year.

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