Hillary held a town hall meeting yesterday evening in Columbus, Ohio at Columbus state Community College. She appeared on stage with Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and several local people who told their stories.
The couple on the left have raised 12 children, the youngest of which is 18 years old. The husband is an IBEW union retiree who suffered a massive heart attack which wiped out most of their savings. He will be paying hospital bills indefinitely, along with $300/month back taxes due to an IRS lien on their house.
The young fellow to Hillary's right struggled for years, dropping out of a major university and working for a while as a bartender before deciding to attend Columbus State Community College majoring in construction management: "I was making good money, but I wasn't getting ahead. I didn't have health insurance. I broke my wrist in a million pieces, and I lost everything. There were a couple days I didn't even eat."
He is now working in the field of construction management in Ohio, and he spoke of how construction techniques are going "green," citing an example of a demolition in Newark, Ohio where 50% of the materials (steel, block, etc.) are recycled. He noted the number of jobs that recycling has created. Hillary mentioned a goal of 5 million additional "green" jobs in her administration.
On the right is a professor at Columbus State, who echoed many of the same environmental themes. One statistic he offered was that if every home would just replace one incandescent bulb with a compact fluorescent one, the energy savings would provide the total energy needs for Columbus.
Gov. Strickland and Sen. Clinton listen to this single mother's tale of losing her home to foreclosure:
Hillary reiterated her call for a moratorium of foreclosures and a 5-year freeze on ARM interest resets. She talked about the problem of people being forced out of their homes if they are slightly late on their payments (sometimes through the fault of their mortgage companies posting the payment late), causing interest rates to be hiked beyond their ability to pay.
At around 8:00pm the town hall wrapped up and it was on to Toledo for a late-night rally.