Conversation With Hillary

I attended a "Conversation with Hillary" event last Sunday in downtown Boston. Both the conversation event and the rally afterwards were sold out; I'd say about 1,500 people attended the events. She is doing very well on the fundraising front, which is another aspect of her campaign the media hasn't covered.

In her opening remarks, Clinton mentioned Saturday Night Live's sketch about media bias in favor of Obama. She might be anticipating a shift in media coverage.

During the Q&A period, Clinton mentioned her campaign strategy to focus on bigger states and on blue states. This decision may cost her the nomination. It is clear that Obama's team bought into Howard Dean's "fifty state strategy." If you are interested in Dean's strategy, the plan is posted on the Democratic National Committee website.

The conversations turned quickly to the Obama campaign's literature in Ohio claiming that Clinton has been an unwavering supporter of NAFTA. He is also making claims about her health care plan. Someone from the audience mentioned that the factcheck.org clarifies Clinton's record on NAFTA and disputes Obama's claims about her universal health care plan.

As I have already mentioned in previous posts, Hillary is terrific at campaign rallies. In the conversations setting on Sunday, her sense of humor really came through. Someone asked her about energy, and she said, "Well, if you are referring to the energy it takes to run for president, I need renewable nutrition and renewable sleep." She then launched into a complete discussion of energy policy, placing energy policy in the context of the Bush administration and then referring to the tremendous opportunity Democrats have to go in new directions--she practically jumped in the air when she mentioned this. I have to say it does surprise me to see her so excited about policy!

What was really surprising were her sharp comments about Ralph Nader's announcement that he plans to run for president again. She stated that Nader is the reason we have George W. Bush in the White House.

At both events she focused on health care. In my opinion, she needs to broaden her message at this point. Anyone paying attention to the debates knows about her position on health care, and it is time to stop going into the details about her differences with Obama, which she does over and over again. I think she would be better served in both Texas and Ohio discussing economic policies and reform. Her message hasn't changed hardly at all during the past month. I hope she can set a different tone in Ohio and Texas.

I'm off to Ohio tomorrow.