The kudzu vines were wilting in the heat as I searched for a place to park at Clinton College (HBCU) in Rock Hill, SC. I was surprised by the length of the sign in lines and worried that the venue would be filled but they moved the event outdoors into a quadrangle to fit the crowd. Because Clinton College is only a thirty minute drive from the Charlotte airport the local Rock Hill audience was a small fraction of the whole crowd which was predominantly white with a solid female majority. The local paper, the Rock Hill Herald, reported a crowd size of about 600 people, a number that is consistent with my personal estimate of 600 to 800. Joe Biden drew a much smaller, but blacker, crowd at his appearance a month ago at the college according to the Charlotte NPR station WFAE. www.wfae.org/… Because of the unmeasured dilution effect on by North Carolina voters, such as myself, there is no good way to analyze what the different crowd make ups imply for the South Carolina primary election. However, it looks very good for Senator Warren in Charlotte.
The crowd didn’t need warming up after waiting an hour or two in the 91 degree heat under the hot sun. The introductions were mercifully short. Then Warren bounded up the steps to the platform that the introductory speakers had struggled to walk up. I got out my I-Phone and hit the video button. She started with a humorous bit about looking for her husband, who was with her, but had apparently found a cool spot indoors. She had just finished telling her early life story about her mom’s courage and determination in saving her family after her father had a disabling heart attack, when my phone overheated and shut down. No more video. I had to revive my phone for the selfie.
The Energizer Bunny might have melted but Warren kept on spinning her story about her love of teaching, never losing a beat. After going to college to become a school teacher then studying law at a small school, she became a teacher again, at a school somewhere in Massachusetts. How she pulled that magic trick off, she didn’t tell. It was the academic equivalent of going to the moon.
The Rock Hill Herald reported the brief town hill part of the rally clearly and accurately. Kudos to reporter Cailyn Derickson for the excellent article. www.heraldonline.com/… Here’s a piece of her excellent writing on the first audience question.
Uchechi Kalu, a teacher at the S.C. Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities, asked Warren, a former teacher and Harvard professor, how she would transform the public school education system.
“How about we start with putting a former public school teacher in the White House?” Warren answered.
The crowd erupted with cheers and claps.
Warren said that, as part of her education plan, she would make a public school teacher secretary of education.
“Understand this — education is not free,” Warren said. “Education is something we need to put real resources in. You want to build an America of our best values? You want to build an America that leads in this world? Then invest in every one of our babies.”
Read more here: https://www.heraldonline.com/news/politics-government/article235422817.html#storylink=cpy
Sen Warren explained that a 2 cents per dollar “property tax” on America’s largest hoards of wealth would cover everything from early childhood education to free public college and student loan forgiveness, and there would be money left over to do even more. What she didn’t have time to explain is that these very good investments pay for themselves over time unlike Republican tax cuts that steal from the poor to give to the rich, leaving America in debt. Early childhood education has a lifetime return on investment. Moreover, it allows young parents to study and work to reach their potential and not get stuck in dead end jobs. I know this well because the UCLA child care center taught our pre-school children well while I studied geochemistry and my wife went to law school.
My wife (tbirchard at dailykos) used her legal skills in the community effort to keep the child care center from being shut down. Years after our victory the new and improved child care center we fought for was visited by presidential candidates. I was excited to hear Senator Warren’s plans to expand early childhood education.
When asked by the second questioner, how are you going to get things done in Washington with the present gridlock, she reframed the problem. She pointed out that the government is working just fine for the largest multinational corporations. We need systemic change on all levels of government to root out corruption and make it serve the people, she explained. Please see the Herald article for the exact quotes. My overheated phone is evidence that climate change is real.
I left the rally feeling energized. Writing about environmental issues can be extremely depressing, especially when so called government leaders are lighting the fires to send the world up in flames. Senator Warren is raising our hopes and expectations, but she has the energy, intellect and integrity to, as Captain Picard says, “Make it so”. I believe I just met the next president of the United States.