Hillary Clinton and the Blustery Day

Oregon Gov. Kulongosky at Left

[With apologies to A.A. Milne]

Let’s see. South Eugene High School is, I am reliably informed, a venue where JFK campaigned and Jerry Garcia played. It holds about 2500 people. (Which is about the number of people that Barack Obama’s speech at 9,000 capacity Mac Court turned away last month). The first in line got there at 4 AM, but you could still get in right up to when they closed the doors, according to the local news.

Our local yokel newscasts had their weekend Junior Varsity news staffs, so the reporting was pretty lousy. According to KLCC (local NPR affiliate) Clinton showed up an hour late and spoke for 40 minutes.

The Governor was there, as was retiring congresswoman Darlene Hooley. I had breakfast with Hooley at the 2000 Democratic Convention in Los Angeles, and I can only report that she seemed an hysterical nut job at the time. Her daughter had fallen and scraped her knee, and you’d have thought she was lying under a burning wreck waiting for the jaws of life, and bleeding to death.

Her daughter was at least in her mid 20s.

The Eugene Mayor was there yesterday, as was resident City Council curmudgeon Betty Taylor. Didn’t recognize anyone else. Of course, the modern dumbass technique of seating a huge number of token faces BEHIND the candidate, to show what kind of idiots support the modern candidate. (I have never understood what’s so great about one audience sitting staring out at another audience, and staring at the candidate’s ass (in Hillary’s case, AMPLE ass) for 40 minutes of harangue.

Big pandering points: restoration of timber payments (given in lieu of property taxes, in return for having turned huge chunks of the county into National Forest about 100 years ago, and cut off by the Bush Administration as wasteful, leading to a financial emergency for the county), about how “green” we are (Portland reducing greenhouse gases to pre-1992 levels*.)

[* According to trivia I heard t'other day, the first use of the term "greenhouse gases" comes to us from the movie Soylent Green. Appropriate in some weird way.**]

[** Bizarre bit of synchronicity: Charlton Heston, who starred in Soylent Green, has died at 83.]

Clinton was hoarse. Spoke 40 minutes. Rushed to the airport and flew to Montana. Today on NPR, Montana got all the reporting since Obama was at the same dinner. With the exception of Faux Nooz, Eugene was utterly ignored by the national and state media. We don’t count. I get that. Pretty much the same as when Obama visited earlier this month. [* See UPDATE below]

Thanks. Good to know where we stand in the greater scheme of Things.

Day was cold, rainy blustery. Better to stay home and watch on TV. Saturday Market (the local hippie arts and crafts fair) opened its season, and, reportedly, with rain and Hillary in town didn’t see any drop off in attendance, so I’m sure that’s meaningful in some mysterious way.

Faux Nooz:

Clinton: Democratic Primary a Contest, Not a Coronation

by Aaron Bruns

Hillary Clinton delivered an impassioned defense of her continued candidacy in Eugene, Oregon — telling a young Obama supporter who asked whether she really wanted to help the Democratic party or was merely being “self serving” that the race “is not a coronation. It is a contest.”

“Election are about choices. You’re supposed to present your case and you’re supposed to critique the other case. That’s what you do in an election,” she said. “This country is worth fighting for, and I’m going to fight for it.” The crowd erupted in a standing ovation.

Addressing what her interlocutor said were negative statements by her campaign about Sen Obama, Clinton replied “there have been some things, believe it or not, that have even been said about me by his campaign. I don’t take it any of it personally and I don’t take most of it seriously.”

“If you can’t stand the heat, don’t run for president, because it’s a really hot kitchen in the White House.”

She seemed to dismiss Obama’s message of hope and unity as pie-in-the-sky idealism. “I wish I could believe that we could get to universal health care, that we could turn the economy around, that we could end the home foreclosure crisis merely by asking people to do it. By bringing them together. By pointing to a higher cause and expecting them to shelve their commercial, ideological, personal and partisan advantages,” she said. “That is not the way the world has ever worked.”

“I wouldn’t be getting up at 5am and going to bed at 2am if I didn’t believe I would be the better candidate to beat John McCain, stand toe to toe, go at him on national security, go at him on the economy. that’s why I’m here.” [more]

In a couple of hours, you’ll be able to download the .mp3 from local NPR affiliate KLCC. Or, you can watch the entire speech at KEZI TV (the local –GOP — ABC affiliate.)

Courage.

____________

UPDATE 3:19 PM PDT: Who knew? Suddenly Jake Tapper of ABC has taken time off from earth-shattering reports like how he thinks Obama had smoked a cigarette because he smelled it (but Obama’s office said he hadn’t) to note that Hillary Clinton lied her gi-normous ass off in Eugene, yesterday. And, suddenly, we ARE on the map.

Nothing like that 24/7 press, eh? [Hat Tip to John Silvertooth for this link to the ABC blog and the memory of JFK/Garcia at South Eugene High above, adding that Jerry Brown played there, as well].

Jaketapper / Political Punch:
In Oregon, Clinton Makes False Claim About Her Iraq Record Vs. Obama’s — In Eugene, Ore., Saturday. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., attempted to change the measure by which anyone might assess who criticized the Iraq war first, her or Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., by saying those keeping records …

More discussion at Memeorandum. Turns out that, as I noted a month ago, Hillary’s estrangement from the concept of “truth” is at least as pronounced as that of the late candidate Mitt Romney’s. “Truthiness,” thy name be Hillary.

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