I don't have much to say about the rally itself. She did bark like a dog, which was unexpected. That offbeat moment was the only thing the national media found remarkable about the event. All of my right-wing friends heard about it.
There were staff and volunteers at both events that worked the crowd gathering contact information, but the Hillary group went a little further. Anticipating the upcoming caucus, they not only gathered contact information but handed out hourly schedules for the next five days and asked people to indicate when they could volunteer time for phone banking and other GOTV activities. Also, at the Hillary event we were told we had to fill out an information slip with our contact information if we wanted to get inside the student center and watch the speech. There was no such requirement at the Bernie event.
The Bernie event had no security checks that I remember, but at Hillary's event security was provided by the Secret Service. They herded us through what one of them described as "airport-level" security measures. We had to empty our pockets and walk through a scanner. We weren't allowed to bring liquids inside, but, despite the description, we didn't have to take off our shoes.
There had been a rumor that Bill would also be at the rally, but he never materialized.
Some of her opponents, left and right, have tried to make something of the barking. The context was a story about a campaign commercial she’d heard on the radio back when Bill was running for office in Arkansas, and it involved a dog trained to bark when a politician told a lie. It was kind of an odd digression, I thought, and I was surprised when she actually made barking noises. It was meant to be silly. She was trying to engage the crowd in an informal, friendly way.
When she finished her speech and began working the crowd, I got to shake the hand of the woman who will probably be our next president. On the way home, driving back over the Sierra Nevada at dusk, I started thinking about all the hands that hand has shaken during her career in politics and international diplomacy.
Clinton is an accomplished and impressive woman. Would she make a better president than Bernie? I've been thinking she would. It has nothing to do with the rally. I didn't hear anything new about her policy proposals. I didn't learn anything new about her. Listening to her and Bernie speak at these rallies had no impact on my view of them as candidates. My views are being shaped mostly by online research into their policy positions.
These are my thoughts:
Either of them, as president, is going to be constrained by a Republican-controlled legislature that is unashamed in its commitment to obstructionism. Therefore, the differences between Hillary and Bernie lie mostly outside the sphere of the possible. Hillary may be less bold and pure in her liberal ambitions than Bernie, but she's already pushing beyond the sphere of realistic expectations. The fact that Bernie aspires to push even further beyond the boundaries of that sphere is not relevant to a reasonable discussion of policy goals.
Until we regain control of the House and Senate, what matters is that the Democratic party work around conservative political nihilism to prove there is a viable alternative. The next president must be a Democrat, of course, but she must also be somebody who can make a credible argument that she is willing to compromise and work pragmatically within the system - that she is not the source of gridlock and chaos. She must be the moderate, rational counterpoint to the apocalyptic Republican meltdown that is unfolding before our eyes and will, hopefully, cripple the GOP for a generation, maybe even destroy it.
We have to accept that our political institutions are deliberately designed to foil the revolutionary aspirations of somebody like Bernie Sanders. The presidency is not autocratic. The founders intended the legislature to be the first among equal branches of government, and, despite the expansion of executive power that has been ongoing since Washington left office, the presidency is not a sufficient tool for radical change. Franklin Roosevelt, as an example of a president who pushed the boundaries of executive power, was blessed with a Congress controlled by Democrats, and his working relationship with Congress was essential to creating the New Deal. The next president will not have that kind of working relationship unless the next president is a Republican.
A Democratic president will be able to do a lot of good, just as Obama has done a lot of good despite Republican obstruction. Replacing Justice Scalia and giving the Supreme Court a liberal majority will be a huge step forward and will be a key source of real change in the decades to come. While we celebrate that opportunity, we need to focus on making the Democratic party the rational alternative to shrieking Republican insanity in the coming elections for House and Senate. The 2020 census will be another step forward, as districts are redrawn and the forces of demographic change continue to undermine Republican gerrymandering shenanigans.
The future looks bright, as it should, since the future belongs to liberals almost by definition. However, we need to preserve the health of the idea of rational government while the conservative movement spins out of control and threatens to create a broader morbid despondency.
I like Sanders. I'm not suggesting he's not credible or worthy. He seems honest and authentic in every situation. I have no doubt he believes everything he says and is faithfully committed to the principles and ideals he espoused as a young man. I wish the political environment supported the idea of a Sanders presidency. It doesn't. He's promising things that simply make no sense as rational objectives given the current political reality. That makes him the wrong choice at a moment when the Democratic party needs to promote the promise of workable, practical government while the Republican party drowns on the vomit of its own idiocy.
The most important thing, of course, is that the next president be a Democrat, whether it is Hillary or Bernie. The Republican cataclysm must be contained. It must not become an American cataclysm.