Hillary's not done yet!

Clinton had an event at the same location as the Obama event. Again I was just on time, and again there was a *huge* line! She is not done yet, she is fighting back. The crowd was almost as large, perhaps a bit smaller, with people again in the overflow room.

Behind me in line were three folks who had driven all the way from Central Vermont to be part of the action in New Hampshire this weekend. They were quite envious of me living just across the street in Nashua :) As they said, "noone every campaigns in Vermont" (it is not an early primary state and it is a very blue state). The mother had brought her 12 year old daughter to experience the various events, and especially see Hillary. There seemed to be several people like that in the crowd - mothers with daughters, from young girls to teenagers. The idea of a woman as president was appealing to them.



The mother from Central Vermont had pretty much decided on Clinton, though she liked Obama and Edwards too. She said she felt both were a bit naive compared to Clinton. She was quite a pro-peace person, but still liked Clinton because she said Clinton had to say the things she said to get elected as a woman commander-in-chief and later govern with the Republicans. She felt one had to be tough, very smart, and at times say certain things to appeal to everyone. She had also loved Bill Clinton when he was president.

The crowd was not as young as Obama's crowd - lots of women, lots of middle aged folks (again more women I think), and quite a few old people. Several people from non-white ethnicities as well - quite a few Indians. Earlier in the campaign, when she had a big lead, she was barely in New Hampshire. Obama was here week after week, holding town hall meeting after town hall meeting, taking lots of questions at each one. Now things have become a bit reversed. Obama did not take any questions at his event, but Clinton said she would take questions as long as there were questions. And the event went on and on! I left at 2.30 (about 2.5 hours after the event began), and when I looked out my window an hour later, the event was still going on! She did answer all questions I guess.

She did a very good job speaking - went it a lot of more detail than she has done in the past, and borrowed talking points from both Obama and Edwards - talked about how she has worked with Republicans to pass bills, and talked about ending poverty. She also focused heavily on how hard work was necessary to bring about real change, saying that it was easy to just talk about it but actually doing required hard work. She mentioned her early work right after her law degree with the Children's defense fund, because she wanted to help people who were not born to privilege (again echoing Edwards and Obama). All in all, if not for her centrist positions on so many things I think I would quite like her.