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Hillary didn’t have any public appearances yesterday. But as we already know, lying idly in her recliner chair eating bon-bons isn’t her preferred style, when there’s a campaign to run. So what was she actually doing (in addition to debate prep)?
In the morning she called in (by pre-arrangement) to Steve Harvey’s radio show. I was not familiar with him (showing my cultural insularity) — Harvey is the Chicago-based African-American host of a popular radio and TV show that (per its own website) “combines heart, humor and music along with celebrities from the worlds of sports and entertainment.” The big-deal interview yesterday morning was basketball star Magic Johnson and his wife Cookie, promoting Cookie’s new book Believing in Magic.
After Harvey gave her a full-throated endorsement — and she stressed the importance of every single person registering and turning out to vote — they discussed grandparenting. Then he asked, “So what separates you from Donald Trump?”
She laughed. “Oh, my. Can I have a full hour?” Then she outlined her history — her faith-grounded family, the influence of mentor Marian Wright Edelman, and her experience helping people throughout her career. She said again how appalled she was that Trump refuses to apologize to Obama for his years of birtherism. She referenced her plans for college affordability, including help for the historically black colleges and university, and the latest Tulsa police shooting of an unarmed black man, and systemic racism.
“This is coming from her heart,” Harvey told his audience. In the debate, he said, we will hear what the two candidates really are, without teleprompters and without being able to pre-determine the agenda.
Clinton closed by urging people not to stay on the sidelines. “The next 50 days will determine the next 50 years.” She gave out the iwillvote.com site for people to find out how to register in their state.
Harvey assured her that his show is doing everything it can to get people registered and voting: “We’re not going to let you down — we’re going to get it over the wall.”
Here’s the link to full audio — share it, make it go viral. It should be especially powerful in the African-American community, but worth promoting everywhere (except in Trumpland).
Hillary also held a conference call with her national security advisers, in response to the NY-NJ bomb explosions, to discuss "what we've learned about the most recent attacks and how we can make our approach even more effective." These are high-level (but sub-Cabinet) former officials in Homeland Security, the Pentagon, CIA, and State Department. No press were allowed on the call, but the campaign released a partial transcript that was picked up by, among others, the Washington Post (with the great headline, “Clinton says ‘ranting and waving our arms’ is no way to respond to terrorism”):
“We know what it takes,” Clinton said at the outset of a call with a team of national security and counterterrorism advisers. “We can't lose our cool and start ranting and waving our arms. We shouldn't toss around extreme proposals that won't be effective and lose sight of who we are. That's what the terrorists are aiming for.”
. . . .
Clinton has sought to emphasize her experience as secretary of state and as a senator from New York, telling reporters Monday that she is “the only candidate in this race who has been part of the hard decisions to take terrorists off the battlefield.” She pressed that argument during Tuesday's call with advisers, according to a transcript provided by the campaign.
"Events of the past few days have underscored that to defeat the terrorists we need experienced, steady leadership," she said. "Calm, not panic. Resolve, not fear. I’ve been with many of you in the Situation Room advising on operations to prevent terrorist attacks and bring terrorists to justice."
In keeping with this week’s focus on children and families, the campaign (via Tim Kaine's Twitter feed) also disclosed the full report — from 1974 — showing Hillary's work for the Children's Defense Fund investigating why children with disabilities, poor children, and non-English-speakers were not attending school:
Hillary is clearly thrilled with the enthusiasm she’s getting from youngsters, especially girls:
As they did during the primaries, the Clinton campaign is pushing early voting wherever it exists. (These promotions remind me of the clever and touching “Home to Vote” ads put out by the pro-marriage equality forces in the Irish referendum.) The campaign account (@hfa) retweeted this:
And this is running in Iowa:
Today Hillary heads back to Florida, with a rally planned in Orlando. According to her campaign, she plans to focus on "building an inclusive economy that welcomes people with disabilities.” In keeping with that theme, I’m going to close with this new ad that got a lot of play in our threads yesterday, but is too good not to feature again. (Go to @NyleDiMarco for more pictures of him, including one with Tim Kaine. He’s a professional model.) Make this one go viral too, please!
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Crossposted at HillaryHQ, an independent, progressive blog committed to electing Hillary Clinton as the next President of the United States. Please considering supporting the HillaryHQ GoFundMe appeal to enable Scan to continue his independent journalism ad-free through the November election.