Hillary and Barack in our Port City
Barack Obama campaign officials announced his visit to the Port City in a conference call Friday morning. Which would have made him the first presidential candidate to campaign publicly in Wilmington leading up to the primary. One day after this announcement, Hillary Clinton’s campaign officials announced that Hillary will visit the Port City on Sunday.
Hillary Clinton will attend a rally at 7 p.m. Sunday on the Wilmington Riverwalk. Admission is free and open to the public starting at 5 p.m. All attendees will have to go through metal detectors and are asked to leave large bags at home.
Barack Obama will hold a town hall meeting at UNCW’s Trask Coliseum at 1 p.m. Monday. Doors open at 11 a.m. The event is free and open to the public. However, space is limited and tickets are required and may be picked up at Obama headquarters (511 N. 3rd Street) from 11 to 9 on Sunday.
Obama Headquarters was out of tickets when I showed up there at 11:30 this morning. I wasn’t really surprised, but I was really disappointed. Oh well, I’ll head over to Trask Coliseum tomorrow anyway and maybe I will be able to get in or catch a glimpse of Obama or at least feel the energy of the event.
There was a great turn out for Hillary’s Riverwalk talk last night. In fact, the line to get through the security check was about a mile long.
Hillary spoke to the ‘P’eople last night. Really trying to drive home her plans to keep jobs in America (and especially North Carolina) by prohibiting tax incentives to companies moving jobs out of the country. She talked about her regulated, universal plan for mandatory health insurance for all Americans. Hillary claims her plan will help to crack down on insurance companies who are picking and choosing their clients in a way that keeps insurance companies fat and lays the financial burden of the uninsured on the taxpayer’s shoulder.
No politician today can, nor should they, leave off discussing the environment. Hillary said last night that she has a bold and comprehensive plan to address America’s energy and environmental challenges. In addition to discussing her better known cap and trade program and her initiative to reduce electricity consumption by 2020 she also talked about smaller ideas which really excited the crowd gathered last night. Ideas such as investing in green collar jobs—retrofitting homes and buildings making them more energy efficient while also creating new jobs in America, and also about investing more in Green Corps, a field school for environmental training.
The item on Hillary’s speech agenda that roused the most excitement, however, was her open and on-going invitation to a debate with Barack Obama. She said she was willing to debate him Lincoln-Douglas style—no moderators, just “him against me”. Hillary said that Obama’s campaign managers have advised against an open debate because Hillary’s questions were “too tough” and “mean”. Hillary’s response to these accusations was, “If you think the questions posed during a debate are tough, just wait until you get to the White House”.
These are just a few highlights from last night’s campaigning. To hear Hillary’s full speech recorded live on WHQR go to the Grove Project News wire (see Hillary Clinton Visits Wilmington).
Good report Rachel.
I would hope that the topic that Hillary touched on that would generate the most animated response would be the war in Iraq, an issue that has taken a back seat for far too long. With some two-thirds of Americans opposed to the war, it’s also an issue that both Hillary and Barack can hammer McCain with.
After nearly two dozen debates I’m not sure it’s in Barack’s best interest to agree to another, although I like the suggestion of a Lincoln-Douglas style affair. Alas, this is SOP for a front-runner in any campaign, the idea being that said front-runner has little to gain and lots to lose.
Of course Hillary spoke on the War in Iraq and of course the crowd roared when she said she would begin pulling troops out of Iraq starting within the first 60 days of her administration.
Hillary also spoke in great detail of her plans to care for veterans. Plans that include immediate access to counseling for soldiers returning home from the war, affordable health care coverage, on-job training through programs such as Helmets to Hardhats, and preventing homelessness among veterans by providing rental assistance if necessary and affordable home loans—the list goes on.
Mainly her emphasis was on ending the war immediately and ending our dependence on foreign oil. More specifically she said, “We’ve got to get those oil guys out of office”.