I've decided I should take more advantage of the fact that I live in NH and try to see more of the candidates this time around. (Well, at least the Democrats. I don't give two shits about any of the Republicans. :) ) In 2004 I saw Dean and Kerry. Before that, I thought about attending some of these rallies, but I never got around to it.
Hillary Clinton had a few rallies around NH today, including one right here in Nashua where I live. The event was scheduled to start at 3:00. My "wife" and I got there around 2:00, and people were already having to park on a field a fair walk from the place where the event was taking place at Daniel Webster College. I'd seen one other candidate at Daniel Webster College before -- it's where I'd seen Howard Dean. That was an indoor event, and so that's what I had been expecting. This turned out to be outdoors. I'll find out just how bad a sunburn I have on the top of my head from standing out under the bright sun from 2:00 to about 4:30. :)
The event actually got under way at about 3:25. We had a pretty good spot, standing no more than 20-25 feet away from the stage. I was using my iPhone camera to get some pictures, which is pretty good as cell phone cameras go, but I found myself really wishing I had a zoom lens, even as close to the stage as I was.
Bill gave Hillary a pretty good intro, and I learned some things I hadn't known about the projects she'd worked on before running for her first elected office in the Senate.
I liked a lot of what Hillary had to say. She started with universal health care as the first issue she brought up. She also talked about tax fairness, getting the troops out of Iraq as soon as possible (stressing the importance that a withdrawal has to be carefully planned at executed), education and student loans, improving America's standing in the world (that is, repairing the huge damage Bush has done). She took a lot of crowd-pleasing swipes at the Bush administration, mostly by saying how she'd do things better, with it being obvious who'd done things much worse. She never mentioned any of the other Democrats running, she simply relied on stressing the experience she has which makes her "ready to lead". Of course, she let Bill do most of the work talking up her accomplishments rather than doing that herself.
There was only one slightly sour note for me, and that was the way she talked about us having "given the Iraqis a chance", which they hadn't taken advantage of, in the context of talking about why we should leave Iraq as soon as possible. That bothers me a bit because I think it's mainly our fault (well, the fault of Bush and his cronies, to be more precise) that we've wrecked Iraq and created a situation in which I doubt anyone could be reasonably expected to make progress.
Hillary is not the most stirring orator. Not bad, mind you, but Bill's better. :) She could stand a little improvement in how she emotes, and her sense of timing with applause lines.
Apart from that, I was pleased with what she said, and walked away feeling that (while I haven't made any firm decisions on any of the Democrats yet) I certainly wouldn't mind seeing her win. Then again, rallies are meant to do that sort of thing, and even though I want to try to attend more of these events, I'll probably end up making up my mind based more on issues stances and reading about the candidates than I will based on live events.
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