It was revealed today that former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be charging $200,000 per speech on her lecture circuit.
The massive fee means that Hillary Clinton will be making more from a two-hour lecture than she did in a year as Secretary of State.
The announcement that Hillary Clinton has hired a top talent agency to represent her as she begins to give paid speeches following her departure from the State Department came earlier this week, but her $200,000 asking price was only reported on Wednesday.
According to Buzzfeed, that puts Hillary Clinton in the same league as her husband former President Bill Clinton who is so in-demand that he can command the six-figure fee.
The volume of the sum is made clear when looked at in comparison to her salary for a year as Secretary of State, which was $186,000.
Hillary Clinton is now represented by the Harry Walker Agency which is known for getting famous politicians and newsmakers plum gigs on the lecture circuit.
The venture is Hillary Clinton’s first formal decision about what she is going to do now that she is no longer working, though she is widely considered to be the Democratic front runner should she decide to run for the presidency in 2016.
Her decision to attach her name to his particular New York-based agency comes as little surprise since her husband former President Bill Clinton has long been represented by the group since he left office in 2000.
The move was clearly a lucrative one, as Bill Clinton made $75.6 million from 2001 to 2010 from speaking engagements, making $10.7 million in just 2010 alone.
Bill Clinton is not the only big name with the agency, as his former Vice President Al Gore has been booking $175,000 gigs through their connections, and former New York City mayor and Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani regularly brings in $100,000 per event.
Former vice president Dick Cheney, former Senators Olympia Snowe and Joe Lieberman, Barack Obama campaign strategist Jim Messina and former Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan are all represented by The Harry Walker Agency as well.
Hillary Clinton’s exact asking price has not been reported, but Politico asserts that she “will likely do some speeches for no fee for causes she champions, and expects to occasionally donate her fees for charitable purposes”.
While keeping mum about any future presidential plans, Hillary Clinton has said that she plans to write another book, this time about her work as Secretary of State.
Publishing house Simon & Schuster reportedly paid the former first lady an $8 million advance on her first book, Living History, which she published in December 2000.
With any and all positions that Hillary Clinton decides to take, she will have to weigh the optics of if it would look appropriate for a presidential candidate.
Another concern is shoring up a steady income, because it doesn’t come cheap to live like the Clintons and six-figure speaking fees will certainly help.
Though there were early reports that they might buy a house in the Hamptons area of Long Island, it appears now that they will hustle between their current residences in Washington, D.C. and Chappaqua, a quiet town in the suburbs of New York City.
Hillary Clinton is also expected to either work with her husband’s Clinton Foundation or start her own, though no decisions about that have been made at this point.
The only thing that Hillary Clinton has publicly confirmed is that she plans to rest after a very taxing four years of traveling to 112 different countries.
As Hillary Clinton remains coy about her political prospects, her potential competitors are being very blatant in their fundraising attempts.
On the Republican side, both New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Florida Senator Marco Rubio have raised significant sums for their campaign war chests in recent weeks.
Chris Christie attended a fundraiser in his honor at Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s California home, and Marco Rubio raised $100,000 by selling water bottles with his name on them, playing on his thirst-quenching gaffe during the State of the Union rebuttal.
