Bill Clinton: Not What I Expected
I have to be honest, last night I fully expected to come out of that building hating Bill Clinton. I even had a version of this post drafted hours before I left blaming Clinton’s continued negative attitude as the reason Hillary would lose this election. Obviously this isn’t that post. I’m getting way ahead of myself though, so let’s go back to the beginning…
I arrived in Marietta shortly after 6 PM and parked several blocks away from the event location. After a brief walk I arrived at a decent sized line and heard a lot of speculation that we were too far back to possibly make it into the main venue. Just before 8 PM they started letting people in, well before the advertised 8:15 PM opening. The procedure for admission consisted of simply filing out a volunteer form for the Clinton campaign and a walk past a police K9 unit, no metal detectors or visible Secret Service. After getting in the building I found that the fears of not getting in were ridiculous, the standing area (most of a basketball court) was almost empty. Once that started to fill up they then opened up more seats in the balcony off to the side. Not wanting to stand, this is where I ended up. The gymnasium probably ended up filled with what would be a capacity crowd, but there was still some empty space. I don’t know whether or not people were turned away.
There were only three speakers at the event: State Rep. Jennifer Garrison, Gov. Ted Strickland, and Bill Clinton.
Jennifer Garrison
I only learned this week that Garrison was a Hillary supporter, but it was far from a surprise. Her speech clocked around 7 minutes and mostly served as a time killer until Clinton and Strickland arrived from Stuebenville. It wasn’t that she’s a bad speaker of course, but she obviously wasn’t who everyone came to see.
Highpoint: She referred to Clinton as “articulate”. Remember how much trouble Joe Biden got in for applying that word to Obama?
Ted Strickland
Like Garrison, it was obvious that he wasn’t who everyone was here to see. This problem was compounded by the decision to have Bill Clinton take the stage at the same time. His speech also timed in around 7 minutes.
This is third time I’ve seen Strickland speak and I have to say this was far from his best performance.
Highpoints:
- Clinton’s entrance marked the first appearance of the Secret Service. It was hilarious to watch people near the podium gradually turn their cameras away from Clinton and Strickland throughout the speech to take pictured of the agents.
- At one point Strickland lead the crowd through two repetitions of the OH-IO chant.
- Asked the media to pan their cameras over the crowd to show the Clinton supporters, none of them did.
- Introduced Bill Clinton as the “future first laddie”.
Bill Clinton
Clinton’s speech seemed very long after the two seven minute speeches, it clocked in around 1 hour and 6 minutes. He addressed almost every issue imaginable. Specifically education, healthcare, Iraq, homeland security, and the economy were all addresses at length.
The speech was heavy on anecdotes and policy issues, with only a few attempts at humour. This was all right, but didn’t really match up with my perception of him. When he did try to be funny it went over well and provided some of the most memorable lines of the night.
As I mentioned at the start of this post, I completely expected Bill to heavily attack Obama. That didn’t really happen. There were a few thinly veiled attacks at Obama’s lack of experience, but these rarely mentioned Obama by name. Furthermore he remarked several times at how historic it would be to elect either an African American or a woman president. At one point early in his speech he even made sure to say something positive about most of the other Democratic candidates. Edwards (for fighting poverty), Biden & Dodd (both for helping pass one of his anti-crime bills), Richardson (for his past work and being a viable Hispanic candidate), and even Obama (for getting young people involved) were mentioned.
The length of the speech, coupled with the late hour of it, put a bit of a damper on things towards the end. For the most part though, people stuck around until the end.
I’ll wrap things up later on tonight with an addition to this post.
Update: As noted in the comments, the Marietta Register has audio of the speeches.
Where I Stand
I went in to this event an Obama supporter and I left this event an Obama supporter. There isn’t much that’ll change that. Last night’s event, did however, make the idea of a Hillary Clinton presidency seem much more palatable.
As for Bill Clinton, the man I listened too last night wasn’t a liability to the campaign. I’ve been losing respect for President Clinton over his words since this election started, but last night he did a pretty good job of presenting the case for his wife.
Update #2: Local journalist Steve Adams has a write up on the Clinton event on his personal blog.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
But David, David! If you didn’t come away hating him, as you expected, what DID you come away feeling for him? Don’t leave us hanging! Or, worse yet – speculating!
February 18th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
[...] David on the Bill Clinton event he attended. function toggleview(element1) { var element1 = document.getElementById(element1); if [...]
February 18th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
I’m glad you got in, here in Toledo earlier in the day there were reportedly over 750 inside to hear the former President speak and quite a few who did not get inside, including me.
February 18th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
David –
How about one of the jokes? Or humor lines? I’m glad you got to see him. There were reports around yesterday that Gov. Strickland was shaking or something on TV. Did he look sick or anything, flu?
February 18th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Glad you got in. Seems like Pres. Clinton has toned down his anti-Obama rhetoric in the last several days. In regards to “articulate”, I looked up the word to make sure I understood the definition. Basically, it means to “express or state clearly”. In that light, I think both candidates articulate very well.
The difference is in the tone. I think when Biden said it, he said it as a surprise or in a demeaning manner (as if to say Obama could articulate well, but nothing else). Here, Garrison obviously meant it as a compliment.
Which brings the point that there will be A LOT of slips of the tongue this yer, we’re going to have to live with a lot. And my preference is to look over a lot.
Bill Clinton is also one who articulates well. He’s very astute politically and knows how to get his message across. I’m not surprised that you didn’t come out hating him. In fact, had his speech been earlier in the day and a little shorter, you may have even been more positive.
(Remember, I’m a self-described conservative saying these things. If I can be that nice about the former president, how can liberals NOT like the guy?)
February 18th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Lisa:
Sorry you didn’t get in. I heard the cut off point for the Marietta venue was around 1,700, so it was probably larger.
Bill:
I actually have (low quality, but mostly understandable) audio of the speech, but can’t get it to upload on my dial-up without timing out. I’m going to go back through and try to get some clips up until I figure out a way to get the whole speech uploaded.
As for Strickland, he seemed fine. He even stood up through most of Bill’s speech.
February 18th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
I didn’t think Biden’s remark was anything bad either. I found it funny how people took a compliment like that and turned it into some kind of huge racial faux pas. I failed to put it in context, but I viewed this more as vindication for Biden than anything.
My general opinion of Clinton’s speech was positive, I only meant to point out that those two things worked against him somewhat. That also applies more to the impression that I read from the crowd more than my own impression. I noticed a lot of people gathering their stuff and trying to stretch towards the end of the speech. I will say that I’m still sore from those narrow bleacher seats though.
February 18th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
If you go to http://mariettaregister.com, we have audio of the event available free for download.
I’m voting for Obama myself, but I was in the press pool at the event and enjoyed it, except for the Clinton campaign press people. They were not too friendly.
February 18th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
[...] Bill Clinton: Not What I Expected [...]
February 18th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Thanks for pointing that out, my recordings were barely understandable.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Bill:
Since audio is up elsewhere I owe you a joke.
When talking about reforming NCLB he said it was his only guaranteed appluase everywhere he went. He said they could drop him from a helicopter in Idaho, 200 miles from the nearest Democrat, and the elk would cheer.
He also talked about a gap in healthcare coverage that he called the doughnut hole. He went on to say that he hated that the only guilt-free part of a doughnut was slandered like that.
February 18th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
What did he say (anything serious) about NCLB? My understanding is that it’s essentially the Goals 2000 program he proposed while in office.
I have specific opinions about NCLB, based on the fact that my wife is a special education teacher. Our state has done a lousy job of implementing the program. From what I’ve read in other states, I’m not sure anyone has done a good job.
I’m curious of any direct comments about the program.
February 19th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
NCLB was actually one of his main topics. He said several times that it needed changed and that the logic behind awarding money to schools was deeply flawed. It doesn’t make sense to take money away from under performing schools and then expect them to get better.