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Friday: Hillary at WFU
posted at 2008-04-18 22:00 | Last modified 2008-04-19 10:23
I thought Hillary Clinton did an excellent job tonight at Wake Forest Univ. A lot of the credit goes to the spellbinding Maya Angelou, who managed to highlight Clinton’s competence and her compassion at the same time – something neither Mark Penn nor Patti Solis Doyle ever really figured out how to do. (Maybe Clinton should hire Angelou.)
There’s an enormous difference between Clinton in her "job applicant" mode – all details, all efficiency - on the campaign trail, and Clinton talking about her big-picture take on issues like diplomacy and civil rights. Tonight was all about the latter, and Clinton was relaxed, genuine, warm, even conciliatory toward Barack Obama as she spoke about fighting racism and sexism:
Wednesday's controversial debate never came up. Nor did "sniper fire," or lapel pins, or any of the other "electability" issues it addressed. Instead, Angelou asked Clinton questions, and Clinton answered them. Here and there, it felt a little artificial, but most of the time it worked really well.“There is something happening, and certainly Barack and I are instruments of this historical happening, but it is much deeper and broader than us. It goes right to the heart of what we believe the purpose and promise of America is in the 21st century.”
One exchange:
Angelou said,
“I am embarrassed when I speak to young people and tell them that the jobs which your grandfathers and grandmothers had, and maybe your fathers early on, are now in South America and in Asia, where the people who make those same goods -- clothes, or machinery, or whatever -- are being paid 10 dollars a week, rather than the union or the proper salary. And that that money is going into the pockets of the greedy and the rich, who - I don't know if anyone ever told them - I have not yet seen a Brinks truck go to a cemetery. So I don't know what you would do with it. What could we hope for, Senator?”
Clinton’s response:
“If we don’t begin to pay attention to the growing inequality of wealth, and the loss of good jobs that supported families, we won’t recognize our country in the next decade…
“First of all, we have to get rid of every single benefit that still remains in our tax code that goes to any business that moves a job from NC to another country. That is fundamentally unpatriotic. Why would we be subsidizing the export of jobs? It's a free country -- if you want to go create jobs in some other country, that’s fine. But just don’t expect to do it with our tax dollars subsidizing you. I'm going to make that a key demand."
WRAL has video here.
Clinton also took three audience questions on potential VPs, equal benefits for GLBT workers, and the price of gas. More on that to follow.
Comments? Drop me a line.
