Hillary Clinton

Just hours after our first-term Democratic Congressman had helped unveil the Louisville Obama office (without us there - both Stephanie and I have seen Senator Obama before), Stephanie and I spent two hours in a local high school gym with some 3,000 other mainly Democrats (many of them women) listening and cheering on Senator Clinton, who gave a solid 45-minute speech without notes, but who made us wait for a while as she met VIPs back stage and did a Fox News interview. (Clinton had spent lunchtime, earlier in the day, in the Indiana town across the river where Stephanie teaches.) Both Kentucky and Indiana have primary elections coming up - primaries that are usually meaningless because everything is settled - but in Kentucky Republicans who switched political parties to vote in the Democratic Party will be frustrated - because the deadline to party switch by in order to vote has already passed. Greeting us were creative banners made by students (!?) at the high school (the top-rated Manual High, where my manager went and a rival school to Vincent's) and the high school's orchestra, chorus, and cheerleaders. We recognized several women in the crowd, and met a few others. The former KY Democratic party chair gave a short, fiery speech, but the rest of the speakers were almost all women politicians (plus the assistant principal who started it off). It was interesting as always to listen to what songs the played to keep us going as we waited. Clinton's speech dwelled on issues like schooling and health care access. She vowed to get No Child Left Behind repealed, and she irritated our neighbor by pledging to pursue coal to gas processes. She also pledged to lower student loan interest rates and to forgive student loans for school teachers, law enforcement officers, and other public servants - two policy changes that could directly affect us. Her speech was better than the ones I've seen her give on TV (no typed or teleprompter script) though she didn't say how she was going to pay for all of this (though she pledged to bring down the deficit and end the war). I remain torn between the two candidates - or - after all the fighting - calling for us to bring back Vice President Gore as the candidate - or - just throw in the towel and see if the old centrist John McCain returns, who might work well with a Democratic Congress. Still, Clinton seemed solid. Among the banners were those saying "Hillary - Don't Quit" - a direct reference to new calls for her to break the deadlock by dropping out. Among the most entertaining fashion were two young men in red "Hot for Hillary" T-shirt, as far as we were concerned also a reference to a certain Van Halen song and video. We never did get a picture of these young men in their T-shirts, but Stephanie did get a T-shirt (pink) herself. On the way home, Stephanie called her mother and suggested her mother look for us on CBS News, and to our shock Stephanie's mother said there I was - we'd stood in the floor 10 feet or so from the stage - in front of Senator Clinton!