So I just got back from Hillary Clinton's closing rally at Greenspun Junior High School in Henderson, a suburb of Las Vegas. While it wasn't a bad rally, it certainly wasn't particularly high energy. The audience was heavily white and female, with a western surburban ambience of cowboy hats and a sense of aggrieved populism. In the last event before the caucuses in Iowa, the Clinton campaign was dying on its feet, and you could tell in the despondency of the organizers, the low energy of the crowd, and the sagging sense of petty doom. Tonight it did not feel that way. The Clinton camp is pretty confident, though tired.
Still, I've been to many political rallies, and while this wasn't as bad Clinton's closing Iowa rally, I found the whole experience a little off-key. The room was dotted with yellow signs that said 'Hillary' and 'Smart Choice', which is not exactly inspiring.
 Former gubernatorial candidate Dina Titus spoke for some time, then Rory Reid, Harry Reid's son and the Chair of Clinton in Nevada, introduced Bill, Chelsea, Hillary, and oddly, Wes Clark. It was like 'here's a nice family, and also a General'. Behind them in the dead-center of the crowd facing the cameras, Gerry McEntee, head of AFSCME, impishly held a sign that said 'Culinary Workers for Clinton'.  The Culinary workers have gone for Obama, so I suppose McEntee was encouraging dissidents to caucus with Clinton.
Bill Clinton was his usual charming self, though he is wearing on me. Hillary whispered to him before he spoke, and he said 'I'm getting my instructions, I'm getting good at following them', and all the middle aged women in the audience laughed. Obama has a standard joke along those lines as well, as does Bush; apparently you can never go wrong with fake self-deprecation in American politics. Bill referenced the new poll out that shows Clinton up 9, and talked abut how it's important to get people to the caucuses in proportion they answered the survey. Bill said that the people in the room were 'insurgents' challenging someone who everyone thought was better organized. It was an odd attempt to frame the Clinton organization as both unsophisticated and powerful, but it just sounded like the campaign was disorganized. This is not an insurgent campaign, Bill.
Hillary's speech was reasonable. She is still not a good speaker, and went on for a good amount of time on various wonky topics. The energy in the room stayed a relatively constant level, which often it doesn't as people get bored, and she peppered her speech with economic populist rhetoric, including a few digs at the rich. She attacked the nine figure compensation package for the CEO of Countrywide, and said that under her Presidency, there will be a 'higher set of standards for the people that run the corporations in America'. That got huge applause, as did her promise to end tax credits that incentivize outsourcing, and discussing a clean energy future. After a laundry list of items she's going to get done, she posed a rhetorical question of how all of that would be possible. Her answer? By reaching across the aisle, like she has done in the Senate. I hope she's checked with the Republicans on that one.
Hillary also tried a clumsy attack on Obama, claiming he called the Republicans the party of ideas without alluding to him or his statement. It didn't connect. Overall, the red meat parts of the speech going after corporate interests and rich people seemed to draw applause, as did her one mention of ending the war in Iraq. Still, none of this really mattered; the crowd was loving Clinton. One women behind me kept nodding and saying how wonderful and smart she is, and at one moment when Hillary was talking about outsourcing began asserting that Clinton would stop NAFTA. These were true believers.
While you can't really tell anything from one rally, I get the sense that the Clinton camp is measured in this contest. Nevada is not do or die for them, and there is no desperation here like there was in Iowa.
Tomorrow the caucuses get going at 11am. I'll be at one on the strip. |
