This will be a quick one because it's late and I'm tire and I have to work tomorrow.
I went to see Hillary today at the Monona Terrace (the construction of the place I opposed back when they were thinking of building it - but that's another story). It was pretty emotional. She had a nice build up of speakers and said some things I felt needed to be said. People of all ages. Lots of Packer fans were there and lots of children. The barriers had to be moved back a number of times.
Again this will be fast. I'll start by saying what they played while we were waiting. The played Harmonious Wail --pure polka. This is true Wisconsin and Harmonious Wail is a local band. Needless to say, it was a fun wait.
The speakers before Hillary were good. I was especially impressed by Jon Erpenbach (spelling?) because he was having house parties for Edwards before he dropped out. As far as I'm aware, he was a big one for the Healthy Wisconsin movement - a universal health care plan for all Wisconsinites. I was very hopeful about this plan. And I was thrilled to see him up there talking about universal health care.
Kathleen Falk. No comment there.
Barbara Lawton : She spoke mostly about Hillary's health care plan, and her plans for green energy and GW. I like Barbara Lawton better than Doyle since Doyle sold us out on Healthy Wisconsin. Back when I was volunteering for HW this summer, Doyle was very skeptical about HW and said he didn't believe it was reality-based. He then, in turn, squandered away the Senate's hard work with trying to get it passed by making backroom compromises with the Republicans in the assembly.
Tammy Baldwin : She spoke about her journey as a woman in congress. She's also a big advocate for health care reform.
Then Hillary spoke. She covered all the bases. She said nothing negative at all about Obama, but made some cutting remarks about GW and Cheney. She said something about the two oil men leaving the WH to huge cheers.
Her two other biggest cheers were when she said she would close Guantanamo and restore Habeus Corpus and when she praised Feingold for his tireless efforts.
At one point she said she would end the non-funded mandated NCLB. I wasn't sure what she meant, exactly. Was she going to end the mandates or was she going to end NCLB? It wasn't clear, but she got big cheers for saying it. She doesn't want to turn teachers into big test givers and students into little test takers. I think it would be great if she would pledge to end the program, but I haven't seen anything from her saying this is in her plan. 'Fix it' is what she's said. Pretty vague. But none of the candidates say anything more specific at this time.
I guess this is more 'highlights' than the whole speech, because I didn't take notes and I'm writing fast.
The room got deathly quiet when she talked about what being a president would entail. She mentioned something I think we forget when we're in this whole mess of primary stuff. We are electing someone who's going to have to make a lot of very difficult decisions. There won't be time to give great rabble-rousing speeches anymore. Someone's going to have to get to work and get the job done, get the country back on track and be a huge beaurocrat - the biggest in the country. Those weren't her words, but she got the message accross. We're not having a campaign to see who can win it. We're voting on the next president. It was a pretty powerful moment.
The last really big highlight for me is when she mentioned the health care industries. I read something today that I'm not sure is true - that Obama is getting a lot of insurance industry money, while Hillary is getting more pharmeceutical money. I'd have to check on this, but I'm tired and won't do it today. Hillary talked quite a bit about how you have to fight the insurance companies to get things done. She mentioned how much money they spent on her last attempt and that they'll try to spend even more this time to make sure they don't lose their profit margin.
She ended on a positive note- asking humbly for our vote tomorrow. People say that when you hear her, you feel more kindly towards her. I know I certainly did after leaving the speech.
The night ended on American Girl by Tom Petty. I happen to like Tom Petty so I thought it was a good choice.