Subtitled:
Ron's Big Adventure (Okay, not so big, but for around here...)
Hillary came to town today and I managed to tweak my schedule so that I could attend one of her events. So in spite my mixed feelings about her, I ordered my ticket and off I went.
I honestly wasn't sure that I would even get into this event. Tickets had to be purchased by last evening so that the Secret Service (SS) could check out the guests in advance. I didn't have any real reason to think that I would be denied entry, but one never knows.
Anyway, I knew very few of the people in attendance (while Glens Falls is close to where I work, it's still about 30 miles from my home, so most of the folks were strangers to me), so I was standing by myself near the rope line (I really wanted to speak to her). I'm a big guy with long hair and a big beard. Not terribly threatening looking, but I was definitely out of sync with all of the suits that were there. An SS guy parked himself right behind me for the duration of her speech. There were two more within about eight feet of me. That's three agents out of the total visible contingent of six standing within reach of me. But I didn't think too much about it.
Her speech was actually quite good. She gave the requisite (and appropriate) slams against the Bushists, but mostly she spoke about local issues like farming and economic development initiatives she had supported in the area.
When she was done speaking, she came to my end of the line and someone asked her to sign a copy of her book. No one near her had a pen, so silly me, I reached into my jacket pocket and started to pull out my pen to offer it to her. Before the pen cleared my pocket, my arm was grabbed from behind and I heard a voice say: "Don't take anything out of your pocket! What have you got there?" Oops! I should have known better, but it was an instinctive reaction. I explained what was going on and he cautioned me again and moved back a bit.
By then, Hillary had passed by my place in line. But, right behind her in the entourage was the Warren County Democratic Party Chair who happens to be a neighbor of mine. After a flash of inspiration, I pushed my way forward called out: "Bill, I came here to shake YOUR hand!" He looked a bit startled, but reached out his hand to me. As I was shaking his hand, Hillary turned around, looked at me and walked back to where I was, stuck out her hand and said: "Thank you so much for coming." I took a moment to thank her for her work on protecting Perkins Funding and other Vocational Education funds that Bush is trying to slash. She said:" Thank you, vocational training is soooo important for our future." I agreed, gave her a thumbs up and turned around and left. (The cuts to vocational ed. that Bush proposed are among the most short-sighted cuts he could make, IMHO. Since I teach on a campus that is largely Vo-Tec oriented, I know firsthand the value these programs have).
Conclusion:I still have a really big problem with her vote on the IWR and several other issues, but I found her to be much more personable than I expected, and her grasp of local issues was quite impressive. Plus, it's been fully two years since she was in this part of the state (not too hard to understand considering the 2-1 voter registration the republics have in this neck of the woods). But all in all, I was pleasantly surprised.