Waiting for Bill Clinton

Unlike Godot, Bill Clinton does actually show up in this post, but not until the very end. Those who do not wish to read about the rest of my day's adventures can scroll down. I bolded Clinton’s name when he actually appears. You can read Susie’s post about Bristol here and Atrios’ brief note on Bryn Mawr here. An early news report is here.

I had a comp day coming and decided to take it and spend the day chasing former president Bill Clinton. He was scheduled to appear at a rally in Bristol for Patrick Murphy around noon and then at a later rally at Bryn Mawr for Lois Murphy and Ed Rendell. What else would a sane person with piles of things that need to be done at home do on an overcast day away from the office? It should be said that one reason for traipsing around after Clinton is that I had heard him speak in Philadelphia when he was running for president the first time and seeing him again in the area would have some symmetry. Serendipitously he was on PCN last night in a rebroadcast of a Joe Sestak rally. Knowing that political events don’t always go as planned I enjoyed watching Clinton on tv, in case I didn’t get to see in person again.

For the morning rally people were advised to show up around 10:30, with the gates opening at 11:30 and Clinton slated to talk at noon. The times had shifted in the flurry of announcements I saw, always going later.

Expecting a crowd, I arrived in Bristol right around 10:30, and found parking about 5 blocks away from the street area where the rally was to be held. People were orderly and patient. The side streets were blocked off and the policeman at the main entrance area was polite. I noted buttons or t-shirts for Patrick Murphy (“The 8th district is Murph Turf”), Paul Lang, Mike Diamond, and Harris Martin. A number of people were working the crowd with volunteer sign up sheets. The one who told me the secret service wanted everyone to sign up for security reasons was, in my view, pushing the honesty envelope just a tad. One of the local cats stepped out an open window on the third floor of a building onto the roof of a second floor bay window and sashayed around, looked the throng over and decided we were less interesting that the birds in nearby trees. A few tail flicks later the cat went back inside. One or two people were concerned about the cat’s well-being but no one shouted “Jump, Kitty, jump!” as they might have in a more disorderly setting. There was a banner over the intersection. It had never occurred to me to look at how banners are attached to buildings but since the cat had gone and the volunteers with sign up sheets had moved on there wasn’t much else to occupy the mind. There are metal strips bolted to the bricks on the buildings and at the end of the metal strip there is a place for a banner ropes to be attached. How ingenious. My respect for architects and urban planners grows.

At 11:30 we were allowed onto the blocks near the stage. Bristol is a pretty town. There were a lot of streetside trees. I ended up in front of a store called Design Works that had a lot of interesting lamps and home furnishings, along with Halloween decorations. If I had more disposable income (or were more willing to part with what I have) I could probably spend a lot of money in there. As it is I resisted temptation and stayed outside. Just to the right of the stage someone had put a life-sized (or thereabouts) statue of Yoda in an upper story window. He appeared to be looking over the festivities. There were several cameras on a raised area across from the podium. They took crowd shots and a couple of the cameramen encouraged people to cheer. My guess is this footage is for reactions shots but I could be wrong. A few people started grumbling about having stood so long. When I arrived there were already a lot of people there so some had probably been on their feet for over two hours at this point.

At noon Neal Samuels (?), vice chair of the Fighting Dems team came onto the podium. It was a pleasant surprise to see a sign language interpreter on the stage also. The platform was high enough that you could get a good view from where I was, about half a block away. There was a HUGE flag behind the stage. Samuels gave a welcome and asked everyone to recite the pledge. Then a woman came out to sing the Star Spangled Banner and the crowd joined in. CBS3 said there were thousands in attendance and I would not dispute that. As sappy as it sounds there is nothing quite like standing in a mass of strangers saying the pledge and singing the national anthem. Really. Just ahead of me were two young men with an alarming number of facial piercings. My teeth hurt just looking at the multiple lip rings. Their underpants were hanging out of strategic holes in their jeans. One had on a shirt with the caption “3 inches of blood.” Not my usual noontime compadres. On either side were an older woman in a fleece sweatshirt with pictures of birds appliquéd on it and an older gentleman in a “veterans against the war” t-shirt that had clearly seen better days. A yuppie looking mom with a stroller had passed by not long before, as had a man with a boy on his shoulders. There we all were, together, reciting the pledge and singing together, under the trees on a street in Bristol. I thought it was a beautiful moment.

Joseph Saxton, the mayor of Bristol, came to the podium next. I don’t know anything about his mayoral abilities but he is a great speaker. He talked about the history of the town, and its motto – “Welcome, Friend,” and invited everyone back for future events. I was really impressed. The city has a very effective booster in Mayor Saxton, as least from what I could see at this one event.

Next up was Bucks County Commissioner Sandy Miller. In her talk she said if Patrick Murphy were not such a wonderful candidate, Bill Clinton wouldn’t be here today.

Following Miller were a host of state house and senate candidates. Each spoke for a minute or two. I didn’t take notes during most of these talks. My apologies to the candidates for that.

John Norvaisas, 145th state house district
Larry Glick, 143rd state house district
Jay Trimble, 144th state house district
Brad Kirsch, 29th state house district (he made a point of saying he was running on his own money because he could but we should donate to other candidates)
Marion “Les” Leszczynski, 178th state house district
Mike Diamond, 31st state house district
Chris King, 142nd state house district
John Galloway, 140th state house district
Harris Martin, 18th state house district
Tony Melio, 141st state house district (incumbent)
Jeff Albert (not in attendance, but mentioned and a bio read), 12th state senate district
Dave Wilsey (not in attendance but his remarks were read), 24th state senate district
Chris Serpico, 10th state senate district, who gave a very lively talk with references to elephants and teaching his children to drive (R to go backwards, D to go forwards)
Paul Lang, 6th state senate district, was next. His speech was, as usual, very good. He compared his and Patrick Murphy’s military service to that of their opponents.

At this point a singer came on stage to entertain us until Murphy and Clinton arrived. It was 12:50. I had been standing on middle-aged knees, one less sturdy than the other, for two and a half hours. If you can walk around your knees won’t freeze up but swooping around the crowd probably would have attracted the attention of security, and not in a pleasant way. There were few enough people to shift now and then but too many to stroll unimpeded. I weighed my options – stay and wait for Clinton here or head on over to Bryn Mawr and try to get a good seat there. The flyer for that event said it would begin at 1:45 and it was rumored to be a full-house. I made an executive decision and headed back to the car. Other people who had to be back at work or who looked like their knees were even older than mine, were also leaving, but most people stayed.

Traffic on the turnpike and the Blue Route was relatively light. Finding a parking spot was no fun. The place I found turned about to be a 15 to 20 minute walk from the building where the Clinton / Lois Murphy rally was to be held, with two stops along the way to ask for directions. Some colleges put up signs everywhere to make it easy for people to find buildings and such. Bryn Mawr is not one of these. I guess if you are on campus you are supposed to know where things are. The location made it sound like an indoor setting but this was incorrect. It was in a green area in the middle of an old stone building. It was nowhere near as crowded as I was expecting and I found a spot on the grass to sit down. Three serious looking men in dark suits came in and someone came over to ask me if Clinton still had a secret service detail. The same thought had crossed my mind and we discussed this topic for a few minutes. I looked at a stone pillar behind me. At the bottom was an inscription that the stone had been laid in 1903. Some had scratched a note below that saying it had not been laid since.

Near the center of the green area there was an octagon-shaped stone cistern, about 2 feet deep. I wondered how many people had fallen in it while strolling around at night. Two women in spike heels stood on the edge to get a better view and I worried about their safety. At this point, around 3:00 p.m., it started to rain. I needed to leave by 3:30 or 4:00 to leave time for traffic before picking up the kids, and considered packing up then and calling it a day.

At 3:10 the headliners arrived. Rendell spoke for about 2 minutes, introducing Lois Murphy. She talked for about 2 minutes about her race and introducing Clinton. He opened by telling us that even though it was chilly and raining he had taken off his suit jacket because this was his 31st wedding anniversary and he was taking Hillary to dinner and didn’t want his jacket to be rumpled. The crowd loved it. He talked about his friendship with Rendell and what a good and honorable candidate Lois Murphy was. He said the founding fathers were pretty smart people who set us on the path to form a more perfect union, not a partisan union. This led to the observation that the people in power now were not representative Republicans but from a narrow strip of the Republican Party. This left the Democrats as both the liberal and conservative party. Some of his remarks were similar or identical to ones I had heard on PCN the night before but, make no mistake, Clinton is a spell-binding speaker. I abandoned note taking to just listen to him talk. He uses words well and has a wonderful voice. In his closing remarks he said the problem with rallies is that you were preaching to the saved and he urged everyone to talk to their friends and neighbors and get out the vote. By 3:40 I was out the door and headed back to the car.

I wish I could have heard Clinton in Bristol and in Bryn Mawr to compare his remarks and the audience reactions but it just didn’t work out that way. The trip to Bristol was well worth it, just to say the pledge and sing if nothing else, but also to hear the state house and senate candidates, especially those I had not heard before. I did regret missing Patrick Murphy’s remarks, as it is always a pleasure to hear him, and he doesn’t usually give the same speech twice, so there is always something new.

For those who are wondering why I didn’t just write two paragraphs giving the political gist of what happened at the two events, well, if I had to spend the whole day watching cats on balconies and looking at ribald inscriptions, you could at least read about it. Plus, this is what a lot of political stuff is like and there’s no sense pretending otherwise. A special thank you to the nice young man at one of the campaigns who did everything possible to encourage me to come to Bryn Mawr. I appreciate your efforts.