Three times in the past I've almost seen President Clinton. In October 1994, on the eve of the Republican massacre, my housemate/landlady/friend Anne and I went to the University of Albany campus, where President Clinton was to speak. We waited for a long time, but then I had to leave to meet a driver who had hit my new car at the Pine Hills police substation to file a report. Anne left too. As it turns out, President Clinton drove by moments later and got out at that exact spot to shake people's hands. In October 1996, on the eve of his big win against Senator Dole, Clinton visited Columbus, where I had just moved, to speak at the Ohio State campus. It got there late, it was raining, and I ended up going home disappointed, having not gotten near the speech. As it turns out, an Ohio State student and her young son - whom I would meet five months later - also tried to hear Bill. But, carrying on umbrella, they got turned back by the Secret Service. But, on their way back to their car, Bill's motorcade drove by and Bill looked up when four-year-old Stephanie said: "Look - It's Bill," and Vincent responded: "Bill Nuy the science guy!" In the late 1990s both Clintons spoke at one of the New York City hotels where I was attending the American Sociological Association meeting, but I missed this also.
But, today, in the dying days of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, Bill Clinton came back to Kentucky to speak in Shively, a formerly white lower-middle-class south Louisville suburb, at Butler High School, on his way to a similar event in Bardstown. Six weeks ago Stephanie and I heard Hillary speak more uptown, at Manual High School, to an enthusiastic crowd of Hillary supporters who cheered on her, the former state Democratic party chief (whose party the Clintons had both helped raise money), and four women state legislators who were endorsing Clinton. But that was six weeks ago. Chelsea has been to Kentuckiana twice since then. Her mother still leads Senator Obama by wide margins, just as she did - and in the actual election - in nearby West Virginia. The white, rural and lower-middle-class and older (and women) voters abound in both Shively and in Kentucky. But Obama has won more delegates - even almost in neighboring Indiana - and he has begun to stockpile superdelegates and endorsements - including in the past 24 hours from Senator John Edwards, Senator Kerry's 2004 running mate, and a major white, lower-middle-class union that had endorsed Edwards (the United States Steelworkers union). And, Monday night, Obama had spoken in downtown Louisville, to 10,000 people.
In the medium-sized Butler High gym there was more like 300 people, just half filling the gym. The former party chair and one of the four women legislators, who represented this district (which is slowly also attracting African Americans moving down like the whites before them from the Louisville West side), were there to introduce Hillary's husband, the former president. The crowd was episodically excited and listless. When Clinton came out, he wore a black suit, sported white hair. He's thinner after his heart surgery. His face was very red and his voice a little hoarse. He came out swinging, pointing his finger and railing against the media and the party establishment - as he imagined them - for prematurely annointing Obama as The One. Early on he played the class card, in a way I had not heard in the media. The people who don't support Hillary, he said - in a jab not only at President Bush and Senator McCain supporters - but also at Senator Obama supporters - they have good jobs, they have health insurance, they've paid for college and they have pensions. They don't NEED a president, a president like Hillary, like you do. Certainly, the voting demographics (if you throw out the African American vote), and the location of Obama signs around Kentuckiana, where they abound in more affluent but in-town neighborhoods like the one around our church and around the site of the Derby eve party we went to, where wealthy white liberals live, support this. But I'd never heard the Clinton's turn their populist, class rhetoric against fellow Democrats.
Clinton then went in to a somewhat policy wonk-ish outline of Hillary's proposals, skillfully linking most to pocketbook issues for people in need (like us) - for example, tying her energy-conservation, energy-independence ideas to fighting the high price of gas. He also reminisced a bit about the economy and deficit reduction of the 1990s. It had to be tough because the Clintons, really like the other people in the room, see the handwriting on the wall. They may believe Clinton is the best candidate and the most electable candidate - he asserted both and spun the electoral math like pro-Clinton pundits have for the last several days on TV. But they also have to feel their days are numbered. This may be one of the last campaign stops ever where Bill Clinton is campaigning for himself or his wife for president, and he could feel that. The light crowd - albeit, on a rainy Thursday afternoon - underlined the challenge. In that gym, I felt a little like I did watching David Lee Roth, and his OK band, drag himself out to play a crowd of a few hundred in a converted old A&P grocery store, off of Lafayette Road in Tallahassee. Roth - who had and would again play giant stadiums and arenas with bandmates Eddie and Alex Van Halen - could barely talk himself into doing it. And both of them ran late, we wondered, hesitating.
One of the most interesting parts of the afternoon was meeting - as I went in - Stephanie's colleague/boss at Indiana University Southeast, Magdalena, a Ecuadoran American education professor who had landed a grant that got Stephanie an IUS consulting gig and almost every semester - but not this one, as Magdalena is on sabbatical, a dozen elementary education majors, to help out with her kids at school. I got to hear how Magdalena and her family moved to Louisville from Ecuador just 12 years ago, and how Magdalena had recently become a U.S. citizen and had even been elected as a delegate to the state Democratic Party meeting. Magdalena - whom we'd also run into at Manual High School (unfortunately, I got pictures of her neither times) - is a big Hillary supporter. She doesn't have a deep conspiracy theory but she believes Howard Dean and the national party leadership secretly back Obama, and have therefore stalled on trying to find a way to seat the Michigan and Florida delegates, because they believe that will aid Obama. She also said that, if you count Michigan and Florida's votes, Clinton has actually received more popular votes than Obama. She was effusive about the West Virginia win, as was Hillary's husband: he pointed out that - even though Obama barely visited West Virginia, a point he didn't make - Obama outspent Hillary 2:1 (a lower margin than in other primary states) - partly through their "grassroots"/on the ground operation in West Virginia, and still she won by 42 points. Neither of them conceded that the Clintons and their advisors had made a series of major campaign strategy blunders, and that Reverend Wright-gate and bitter-gate have also given plenty of whites who may harbor fears about Obama as an African-American, a multiracial person, a person with a Muslim-, Middle Eastern-, and/or foreign-sounding name, and that these gates give them an excuse to act out those fears, to dress up their bias. Magdalena also hinted that Clinton faces challenges as a woman, something that the most recent gate, "sweetie"-gate, may underline.
(Magdalena had also been canvassing for Hillary in New Albany, where Stephanie teaches, soon before the Indiana primary. Magdalena faulted both Louisville's Congressman Yarmuth and Southern Indiana's Congressman Hill - both Democrats likely running in November against Republicans whom they unseated - for endorsing Obama. She appears to be a very serious, even-tempered person, and yet she confessed that she really doesn't like Obama now (unlike with the campaigning started. Ditto, when a church member recruited people to go to the opening of the Louisville Obama event, he expressed with disdain - " . . . unless you're going to that OTHER event (meaning the Clinton rally at Manual, which of course we were going to)." So there's hostility all the way around - Clinton supporters against Obama and his supporters, and Obama supporters against Clinton and her supporters.)
Not only had Magdalena volunteered a little (canvassing even) and seen Hillary speak at Manual, she had been to an intimate question and answer and meet and greet event at a Louisville bar with Chelsea Clinton, who she liked very much and with whom she had spoken for five minutes, and she had gotten both Hillary and Chelsea to sign a pamphlet. Now, she had brought the pamphlet with her and was determined to get the trifecta, to get Bill to sign it. As Bill wound down, we pushed towards the stage. And here this somewhat surreal event resembled not the Roth concert at the Moon, but another kind of event that my parents, sister, and I attended 36 years ago. In spring 1972, my family - with me parents trying us out as teenagers - went to a promotional appearance at the Framingham (Massachusetts) Mall by the actor who played "Danny," on the "Partridge Family," a TV show that we did watch sometimes. Teen and pre-teen fans mobbed "Danny," and within minutes he had to flee the mall, literally running with security guards. Bill didn't run but people pressed towards - even though their weren't that many of us - and I fell once. I felt sheepish and did it partly because Magdalena was there. I didn't have a pen and much to write on, but Magdalena suggested I asked him to sign a Hillary campaign sign I'd gotten. But I quickly saw he was passing these back to Secret Service people or other aides when people handed them to him. But he did appear to be signing some things, and he shook people's hands, and he talked with people. Some people actually talked with him for a couple of minutes, maybe supplying stories about how they were NOT those people with everything made (like some of those East End families with Obama signs), how they were people who NEEDED a president. I hung back a little, wondering what I might say to him (could I actually complain that he was being paid to lobby for the murderous government of Columbia to whom his administration had funneled hundreds of millions of dollars of military aid while he was in office? could I thank him for the 1990s, even though the manufacturing boom was built on SUVs, sprawl, and air pollution, and the general boom was built partly on the dotcom boom and real estate boom that the Fed really should have not let get so out of control?). I also wasn't pushing hard enough to reach him. But, seconds before he went back stage, I reached out my hand and shook his hand. I'm sure I'll wash it some day, but I was excited to "meet" President Clinton - even in this somewhat bizarre, anti-climatic setting - a half-empty high school gym.
Magdalena had actually handed him her pamphlet, and was waiting patiently to get it back. I'm afraid she'll never get back her hard won autographs of Hillary and Chelsea. Although I still thought we might be going to Ohio for the weekend, she pressed me to do some volunteer work between now and the election. Before going into the gym, as I met her, I had asked a campaign staff person whether they still needed housing for out-of-town volunteers. She said yes, and later tonight I called (but have not heard back). We also got an e-mail from church - where there are a number of Obama supporters - pitching for hosts/housing. Maybe if the Clinton campaign doesn't call back, we'll offer our computer room for an extended weekend to them, even if we volunteer a little for Hillary's campaign. That may seem paradoxical. I've loved Bill, I like Hillary and Chelsea, I loved many things about the 1990s, and I know Obama has weaknesses as a politician and a public servant (as Hillary does also). But I'm not sure what the point of continuing to divide the Democratic Party and turn people against Obama is. Like the recent movie "Definitely Maybe," some of this event was a nostalgic trip down memory lane for me and no doubt for others there. Just as when we go see a 70s or 80s rock band in concert - for the first time, post-9/11 - part of us says: maybe we just should have seen them back then, so we wonder the same thing. Maybe I just should have seen Bill in Albany or Columbus, not now, when part of the thrill is gone.
(Magdalena also promoted IUS and its English program and its small classes and family atmosphere [as a possible place for Vincent], after I told her about Stephanie and Vincent going to an open house for prospective students there and being somewhat disappointed [see "Another disappointment"]. I have heard from one of my colleagues that the "lodges" are now getting finished and can now be toured.)
But, today, in the dying days of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, Bill Clinton came back to Kentucky to speak in Shively, a formerly white lower-middle-class south Louisville suburb, at Butler High School, on his way to a similar event in Bardstown. Six weeks ago Stephanie and I heard Hillary speak more uptown, at Manual High School, to an enthusiastic crowd of Hillary supporters who cheered on her, the former state Democratic party chief (whose party the Clintons had both helped raise money), and four women state legislators who were endorsing Clinton. But that was six weeks ago. Chelsea has been to Kentuckiana twice since then. Her mother still leads Senator Obama by wide margins, just as she did - and in the actual election - in nearby West Virginia. The white, rural and lower-middle-class and older (and women) voters abound in both Shively and in Kentucky. But Obama has won more delegates - even almost in neighboring Indiana - and he has begun to stockpile superdelegates and endorsements - including in the past 24 hours from Senator John Edwards, Senator Kerry's 2004 running mate, and a major white, lower-middle-class union that had endorsed Edwards (the United States Steelworkers union). And, Monday night, Obama had spoken in downtown Louisville, to 10,000 people.
In the medium-sized Butler High gym there was more like 300 people, just half filling the gym. The former party chair and one of the four women legislators, who represented this district (which is slowly also attracting African Americans moving down like the whites before them from the Louisville West side), were there to introduce Hillary's husband, the former president. The crowd was episodically excited and listless. When Clinton came out, he wore a black suit, sported white hair. He's thinner after his heart surgery. His face was very red and his voice a little hoarse. He came out swinging, pointing his finger and railing against the media and the party establishment - as he imagined them - for prematurely annointing Obama as The One. Early on he played the class card, in a way I had not heard in the media. The people who don't support Hillary, he said - in a jab not only at President Bush and Senator McCain supporters - but also at Senator Obama supporters - they have good jobs, they have health insurance, they've paid for college and they have pensions. They don't NEED a president, a president like Hillary, like you do. Certainly, the voting demographics (if you throw out the African American vote), and the location of Obama signs around Kentuckiana, where they abound in more affluent but in-town neighborhoods like the one around our church and around the site of the Derby eve party we went to, where wealthy white liberals live, support this. But I'd never heard the Clinton's turn their populist, class rhetoric against fellow Democrats.
Clinton then went in to a somewhat policy wonk-ish outline of Hillary's proposals, skillfully linking most to pocketbook issues for people in need (like us) - for example, tying her energy-conservation, energy-independence ideas to fighting the high price of gas. He also reminisced a bit about the economy and deficit reduction of the 1990s. It had to be tough because the Clintons, really like the other people in the room, see the handwriting on the wall. They may believe Clinton is the best candidate and the most electable candidate - he asserted both and spun the electoral math like pro-Clinton pundits have for the last several days on TV. But they also have to feel their days are numbered. This may be one of the last campaign stops ever where Bill Clinton is campaigning for himself or his wife for president, and he could feel that. The light crowd - albeit, on a rainy Thursday afternoon - underlined the challenge. In that gym, I felt a little like I did watching David Lee Roth, and his OK band, drag himself out to play a crowd of a few hundred in a converted old A&P grocery store, off of Lafayette Road in Tallahassee. Roth - who had and would again play giant stadiums and arenas with bandmates Eddie and Alex Van Halen - could barely talk himself into doing it. And both of them ran late, we wondered, hesitating.
One of the most interesting parts of the afternoon was meeting - as I went in - Stephanie's colleague/boss at Indiana University Southeast, Magdalena, a Ecuadoran American education professor who had landed a grant that got Stephanie an IUS consulting gig and almost every semester - but not this one, as Magdalena is on sabbatical, a dozen elementary education majors, to help out with her kids at school. I got to hear how Magdalena and her family moved to Louisville from Ecuador just 12 years ago, and how Magdalena had recently become a U.S. citizen and had even been elected as a delegate to the state Democratic Party meeting. Magdalena - whom we'd also run into at Manual High School (unfortunately, I got pictures of her neither times) - is a big Hillary supporter. She doesn't have a deep conspiracy theory but she believes Howard Dean and the national party leadership secretly back Obama, and have therefore stalled on trying to find a way to seat the Michigan and Florida delegates, because they believe that will aid Obama. She also said that, if you count Michigan and Florida's votes, Clinton has actually received more popular votes than Obama. She was effusive about the West Virginia win, as was Hillary's husband: he pointed out that - even though Obama barely visited West Virginia, a point he didn't make - Obama outspent Hillary 2:1 (a lower margin than in other primary states) - partly through their "grassroots"/on the ground operation in West Virginia, and still she won by 42 points. Neither of them conceded that the Clintons and their advisors had made a series of major campaign strategy blunders, and that Reverend Wright-gate and bitter-gate have also given plenty of whites who may harbor fears about Obama as an African-American, a multiracial person, a person with a Muslim-, Middle Eastern-, and/or foreign-sounding name, and that these gates give them an excuse to act out those fears, to dress up their bias. Magdalena also hinted that Clinton faces challenges as a woman, something that the most recent gate, "sweetie"-gate, may underline.
(Magdalena had also been canvassing for Hillary in New Albany, where Stephanie teaches, soon before the Indiana primary. Magdalena faulted both Louisville's Congressman Yarmuth and Southern Indiana's Congressman Hill - both Democrats likely running in November against Republicans whom they unseated - for endorsing Obama. She appears to be a very serious, even-tempered person, and yet she confessed that she really doesn't like Obama now (unlike with the campaigning started. Ditto, when a church member recruited people to go to the opening of the Louisville Obama event, he expressed with disdain - " . . . unless you're going to that OTHER event (meaning the Clinton rally at Manual, which of course we were going to)." So there's hostility all the way around - Clinton supporters against Obama and his supporters, and Obama supporters against Clinton and her supporters.)
Not only had Magdalena volunteered a little (canvassing even) and seen Hillary speak at Manual, she had been to an intimate question and answer and meet and greet event at a Louisville bar with Chelsea Clinton, who she liked very much and with whom she had spoken for five minutes, and she had gotten both Hillary and Chelsea to sign a pamphlet. Now, she had brought the pamphlet with her and was determined to get the trifecta, to get Bill to sign it. As Bill wound down, we pushed towards the stage. And here this somewhat surreal event resembled not the Roth concert at the Moon, but another kind of event that my parents, sister, and I attended 36 years ago. In spring 1972, my family - with me parents trying us out as teenagers - went to a promotional appearance at the Framingham (Massachusetts) Mall by the actor who played "Danny," on the "Partridge Family," a TV show that we did watch sometimes. Teen and pre-teen fans mobbed "Danny," and within minutes he had to flee the mall, literally running with security guards. Bill didn't run but people pressed towards - even though their weren't that many of us - and I fell once. I felt sheepish and did it partly because Magdalena was there. I didn't have a pen and much to write on, but Magdalena suggested I asked him to sign a Hillary campaign sign I'd gotten. But I quickly saw he was passing these back to Secret Service people or other aides when people handed them to him. But he did appear to be signing some things, and he shook people's hands, and he talked with people. Some people actually talked with him for a couple of minutes, maybe supplying stories about how they were NOT those people with everything made (like some of those East End families with Obama signs), how they were people who NEEDED a president. I hung back a little, wondering what I might say to him (could I actually complain that he was being paid to lobby for the murderous government of Columbia to whom his administration had funneled hundreds of millions of dollars of military aid while he was in office? could I thank him for the 1990s, even though the manufacturing boom was built on SUVs, sprawl, and air pollution, and the general boom was built partly on the dotcom boom and real estate boom that the Fed really should have not let get so out of control?). I also wasn't pushing hard enough to reach him. But, seconds before he went back stage, I reached out my hand and shook his hand. I'm sure I'll wash it some day, but I was excited to "meet" President Clinton - even in this somewhat bizarre, anti-climatic setting - a half-empty high school gym.
Magdalena had actually handed him her pamphlet, and was waiting patiently to get it back. I'm afraid she'll never get back her hard won autographs of Hillary and Chelsea. Although I still thought we might be going to Ohio for the weekend, she pressed me to do some volunteer work between now and the election. Before going into the gym, as I met her, I had asked a campaign staff person whether they still needed housing for out-of-town volunteers. She said yes, and later tonight I called (but have not heard back). We also got an e-mail from church - where there are a number of Obama supporters - pitching for hosts/housing. Maybe if the Clinton campaign doesn't call back, we'll offer our computer room for an extended weekend to them, even if we volunteer a little for Hillary's campaign. That may seem paradoxical. I've loved Bill, I like Hillary and Chelsea, I loved many things about the 1990s, and I know Obama has weaknesses as a politician and a public servant (as Hillary does also). But I'm not sure what the point of continuing to divide the Democratic Party and turn people against Obama is. Like the recent movie "Definitely Maybe," some of this event was a nostalgic trip down memory lane for me and no doubt for others there. Just as when we go see a 70s or 80s rock band in concert - for the first time, post-9/11 - part of us says: maybe we just should have seen them back then, so we wonder the same thing. Maybe I just should have seen Bill in Albany or Columbus, not now, when part of the thrill is gone.
(Magdalena also promoted IUS and its English program and its small classes and family atmosphere [as a possible place for Vincent], after I told her about Stephanie and Vincent going to an open house for prospective students there and being somewhat disappointed [see "Another disappointment"]. I have heard from one of my colleagues that the "lodges" are now getting finished and can now be toured.)
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