Hillary Clinton, And Her South Carolina Campaign

Walt went down today to see Hillary Clinton make a speech in Aiken, SC:

Hillary came to Aiken today, and I went to hear her speak. I do not count myself as a Hillary supporter, but she is a famous personage, and she may become President, so I thought it would be worthwhile. Also, I thought maybe I could make a few extra bucks by asking a planted question on behalf of her campaign. In this I was mistaken, however; nobody made me an offer.

About 1,200 people showed up, but 200 were turned away because the gym could only hold 1,000. Most attendees were older than 50; there were also a lot of teenagers, but very, very few people in between. It was during business hours, and most people were at work. Blacks were under-represented in the crowd. Although Aiken County is 30% black, only 10% of the audience was. This under-representation is even more striking when you realize that about 60% of democratic voters in South Carolina are black! However, the delegation of local Democratic dignitaries (County councilmen, chairs of local Dem organizations, etc) was about half black. I interpret this to mean that Hillary has more support among black politicians than she does among the black population at large. There were about 20 volunteer staffers handing out buttons and placards, etc. More than half of these folks were black. I don’t know what that means.

The newspaper had made a big deal about how security was going to be “tight”, but I was surely impressed in the other direction. There were no magnetometers, people did not have to open their bags, there were no rules about what could be brought in and what couldn’t, people did not even have to walk by a cop to get in. Truthfully, fans going to Penn State football games are vetted more carefully than the public was here. There were a few cops standing around, and Hillary had about 5 Secret Service men watching the crowd, arriving long after everyone was already seated. The general public sat as close as 30 feet from her; if anyone wanted to throw a pie at her, it would have been easy to get within range.

Hillary arrived 15 minutes late, which is about as close to being on time as I’ve ever seen for a politician. She gave a 45-minute speech. There was one rude interruption during her presentation. Pretty close to the beginning, a young guy with long hair and a beard stood up in the aisle and shouted at her. Hillary did not miss a beat; she did not stop talking, and since she had the microphone and the protester didn’t, I couldn’t hear a single word the guy said. He shouted about two sentences from about 100 feet away, waving his arms; a cop and a Secret Service guy approached him from behind. I thought they might wrestle him to the ground, or taser him, but the guy stopped on his own, and the cops did not restrain him. The guy turned around and walked out, with the cop following closely.

I think Hillary looks better now than she did when Bill was president. I guess she’s paying more attention to her appearance. She is an effective public speaker, but she did make a mistake (which I believe went unnoticed by most of the audience). She started out saying that her presidency will have four goals. I thought good, when speaking to inform or persuade, it helps to put the main ideas explicitly in front of the audience. However, she then did not list the goals, but rather went right into Goal #1, Restoring American Leadership. Her next goal was Goal #3, Reforming Government! She never said what Goals 2 and 4 were!

The content of her speech could not have been a surprise to anyone. We should get out of Iraq. Universal health care. Develop alternative energy sources. More education spending. America has been on the wrong track for 7 years. If the Democrats want to win, they need a candidate with experience.

Right now I’ve got three issues which concern me: (1) global warming, (2) homeland security, (3) illegal immigration. I’m not sure which one is my highest priority now, and I certainly don’t know which will be my highest next November. I will make my choice based on a subset of those issues. If Global Warming is my Number 1 in eleven months, then I will vote Democratic. If it’s Homeland Security, I’ll vote Republican. If it’s Illegal Immigration, I don’t know what I’ll do. Here’s what Hillary had to say:

Global Warming: She mentioned it, fairly early in her speech. She wants to do an “Apollo Project” effort on alternative energy sources, such as biofuels, ethanol, hydrogen, solar power, geothermal, and wind power. She left out nuclear. That tells me that although she may (or may not) attach more importance to climate than President Bush, global warming is not her first priority. But we knew that – her first priority is socialized health care.

Homeland Security: She said nothing on this subject during her 45-minute prepared speech.

Illegal Immigration: She said nothing on this subject during her 45-minute prepared speech.

After her prepared speech, she took about 8 questions from the audience. It made me reflect on the stupidity of politicians and their staffs. Hillary has taken some hits recently for “stacking the deck” at public appearances – having campaign workers planted in the audience, asking questions for which the answers have been prepared in advance. It is a way to make the candidate look smarter and more well-informed than he/she really is. Well shit, there’s no need to plant questions here in Aiken. Person after person delivered up creampuff cotton candy questions. I don’t think they were planted; I think the questioners wanted to show common cause with the candidate.

Except for the very last question. A teenage girl, so nervous she could hardly get the words out, asked “What do you think about illegal immigration?” Hillary was ready. Without hesitating at all, she said that we need to strengthen the border. However, from a practical standpoint, we cannot deport all the illegal aliens. Hillary said that she wants to identify the illegal aliens, so that they may pay their back taxes. If they’ve been using a false SS number, then they will not get back those contributions. These aliens should get in line for citizenship, behind those aliens who have come here legally. And, they should speak English! At the English remark, the audience burst into spontaneous applause!

It was a very well composed answer, and it was delivered with perfect timing, without pausing to gather her thoughts. She or her speechwriter developed her position beforehand. Her position is offering illegal immigrants citizenship, and getting tough on them at the same time. In fact, it sounds kind of too tough, for a Democrat, doesn’t it?

Here’s what I think: Although she has obviously put a great deal of thought into this detailed position, she does not think it’s important enough to mention during her 45-minute prepared speech. And it has been this exact issue which has embarrassed her in the recent debates! In the past month or so, Hillary has been conspicuously waffling on the illegal issue, and she has been slipping in the polls. She is not stupid; her waffling was not because she didn’t know what she thinks. She waffled because her opinion is contrary to the opinion of most Americans, and she knew that being honest about it would cost her the election. So, over the past weeks, she has built up the courage to…well…mislead us about her intentions. She wants to win, so she’ll give us the impression that she will be tough with these people, even though that is not her actual intention. Is Hillary the first candidate to lie to the public? Hell no, most of them in both parties lie. However, it is important for us to recognize it when they do, so we can accurately gauge who will represent the majority, and who will represent a special interest.

One last thought. I was surprised when even a Democratic audience applauded about making illegal aliens speak English. If liberals feel that way, how does the average American feel? The immigration issue is a runaway winner for whoever wants to pick it up. The Republicans are supposedly behind in the election. Maybe so. But if any Republican candidate is man enough to turn his back on the corporate campaign donors, who want to displace American workers with low-paid foreigners, he’ll win the election. Unfortunately, I am not optimistic that this will happen.