Hillary Clinton visits Harrisburg: Not your father’s presidential rally

You could see and sense pride and even awe in the eyes of the girls and college-aged women who drifted into the hall. The possibilities of what they themselves might achieve with their lives because of this campaign lit their faces.

For all the talk about how Donald Trump is bucking the system, it’s nothing compared to the kick in the pants threatened by Hillary Clinton.

 

by Bill Keisling

Pennsylvania’s importance in the upcoming presidential election was evident this Tuesday as Hillary Clinton spoke before a packed house at the venerable Zembo Shrine Center in Harrisburg.

The event featured a feisty and ebullient Clinton. It also showcased the many strengths and weaknesses of the Democratic Party in Pennsylvania.

The strengths were evident, but you had to look thoughtfully under the surface to find some of the real meaning.

The crowd, measured by size, would please any presidential contender.

The doors didn’t open until 3:45 p.m., but lines started to form hours earlier, before 1 p.m.

The queue quickly snaked down the ornate Zembo Shrine’s driveway, across the long front sidewalk, and then around the corner for several blocks more.

When everyone was finally let in, the floor of the auditorium was pretty well filled, as did the balconies ringing the floor.

It was a full house — two or three thousand people turned out, I’d guess.

But make no mistake: this was not your father’s presidential election rally.

Because of the outsized and often controversial personalities of Clinton and her opponent, Donald Trump, the simple historical shocking fact of this campaign often is overlooked: after two hundred and forty years of our republic, a woman may soon be elected President of the United States.

That stunning possibility was not lost on the many women and girls who made up the audience at Hillary Clinton’s Harrisburg rally.

You could see and sense pride and even awe in the eyes of the girls and college-aged women who drifted into the hall. Older women appeared just as excited.

“Why would anyone vote for that fraud Trump?” one matronly woman from Lancaster County asked two college girls from Dickinson.

Obama’s 2008 campaign was a source of pride for African Americans. Jack Kennedy’s campaign uplifted Irish Catholics.

Not enough has been said about what Hillary’ Clinton’s run for the presidency means to our women and girls.

The possibilities of what they themselves might achieve with their lives lit their faces.

The public address system piped a lot of songs by women performers, especially Pennsylvania’s Taylor Swift.

They also played Sheryl Crow’s Woman in the White House:

“Don’t you think it’s time we put a woman in the White House?
With a whole new attitude
We could use a little female common sense
Down on Pennsylvania Avenue

After 230-something years of waiting
It’s way past overdue
Yeah, I think it’s time we put a woman in the White House
Girls, how about you?”

I point all this out because it was apparent at the Harrisburg rally that Hillary Clinton’s campaign is far more subversive and historic than is the campaign of Donald Trump.

For all the talk about how Donald Trump is bucking the system, it’s nothing compared to the kick in the pants threatened by Hillary Clinton.

As we in Pennsylvania saw with the election of Kathleen Kane as state attorney general, a woman brings a different set of sensibilities and perspectives to high public office. A man would never have taken offense at the thousands of pornographic and demeaning emails as did AG Kane.

So the very fact that a woman’s in charge threatens the old boys’ club.

But as we learned with Kathleen Kane, it’s not enough to have a different perspective, or sensibilities.

If the holder of political office doesn’t have first-rate political skills, she will be eaten alive.

Which brings us to Hillary Clinton, and the political skill she displayed at her Harrisburg rally.

After brief introductory remarks by Gov. Tom Wolf and other state Democrats, Hillary Clinton at last appeared.

Clinton seemed robust and energized as she smiled and waved her way across the stage to the lectern. She has an easy and practiced politician’s smile.

She comfortably took possession of the lectern and flipped open a bound notebook of her prepared stump speech. She spoke for a little more than a half an hour, at times glancing at the notes. She had an easy, breezy, yet confident style that connected with the crowd.

“There are only thirty-five days left, can you believe it?” Hillary began. “And we’ve got to get everybody you know registered to vote.”

This was supposedly the purpose of Clinton’s rally: to register voters and run up the Democrats’ advantage at the polls.

But of course Clinton had her own agenda, and she didn’t take long to get down to it: Making fun of Donald Trump.

“I’m closing this campaign the way I started my career: fighting for kids and families,” she said. “Standing up for fairness and opportunity, for justice, equality. Taking on all those kitchen table issues that keep people up at night. And you know I want to really bring people together around making sure that every family has the tools they need to get ahead and stay ahead. That is the basic bargain of America. And I want to be sure that we do everything we can in this campaign to draw the contrast between me and my opponent.

“I don’t think we could have two more different people asking for your vote. Two more different visions. Two more different sets of values and experiences. And we have to make sure that everybody — everybody — understands what’s at stake.”

“What does Donald Trump want to do?” she asks. “He wants to eliminate the rules we already have. He wants to get rid of the Consumer Protection Bureau. He wants to get rid of the rules on Wall Street….

“Donald Trump rooted for a housing collapse. Actually back in 2006 and ’07, he said, ‘Boy, I hope the housing market collapses because I’ll make a lot of money that way.’ Who wants that to happen? Somebody who is so out of touch with what’s going on in America, living in his big tower, he has no idea….

“This is the pattern with Donald Trump. I mean, really, if you look at his business record, which is his main claim to being President of the United States, right? He says he wants to do for America what he did for business.”

The crowd boos.

“Well, let’s compare,” Hillary goes on. “This is a man who we now know paid no taxes. That’s what we suspected, but until his tax returns were made public we couldn’t prove it.

“And he claimed that he lost a billion dollars — in the casino business.”

The crowd laughs, and applauds.

“Someone down here is yelling, ‘The house always wins!'” she goes on with a broad smile. “Who loses money running a casino?” she asks. “Besides Donald Trump?”

This was when Hillary was the most fun, and drew the most laughs: poking fun at “Donald.”

And this probably presages the remaining weeks of the campaign.

Hillary, as confident and experienced a public speaker as she is, comes across as a lawyer (which she is) addressing a courtroom, more than a politician addressing voters.

So what we’re going to see is divorce court, with HRC in her red blazer going after Trump, the phony baloney money bags dead-beat.

A Jack Kennedy delivery a crackling and rhyming public address Hillary Clinton is not.

But sometimes there are flashes of Hillary, holding sway at the lectern and grinning broadly, where she somehow almost reminds you of Franklin Roosevelt having fun with a crowd.

And that’s something really amazing, when you think about it.

There was a time — and not too very long ago — when all a woman in state and national politics could do was smile and wave, wear a pretty hat, and go along with the guys.

No more.

Hillary Clinton, after all, has come a long way, baby.