Short form of the Diary:
There were a lot of Hillary supporters there, and we had fun. There were also some protesters, but they weren’t threatening, due to distance between them and the line/exit, but they didn’t seem to be having as much fun.
This is a first person, chronological story, not a pie diary, for those who are interested in what a “Hillary Clinton Organizing Event” is like and have never attended one. It’s fairly long, so if it gets dull to read for you, just skip to the cliff notes up above :).
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The night before, I got an email from our local superdelegate, for whom I’d done some volunteer work. We had the option to get a chance at the “vip area” which is essentially the bleachers behind the candidate, like you see in the picture at the top of this video. I also got an invite from the HRC campaign, but RSVP’d to my superdelegate, instead of to the campaign, so I’d go on the list.
“Organizing” events are always free. It’s code for “Small Rally”, they’re always announced on short notice, and are usually fit in between the candidate’s other commitments.
Due to various things I had to do the next morning, I only arrived an hour and a half before the doors open. In these events, the line forms early, but this was faster than I expected — in Oakland I’d arrived only 40 min early and was about the same place in line. I did arrive early enough to hear the volunteers get briefed by the staff, but they already had enough, so I joined the line.
These events require stamina. You stand in line a long time, then it’s a couple hours before the line works through security to get inside. Once inside, most people stand, seats are reserved strictly for people who need them, who can’t physically stand. Although this gym was large enough that some folks could sit along the walls. Bleachers hold press equipment/cameras/lights.
The fun part about it is you are standing in line with a bunch of other people who are political junkies for Hillary. So conversation is easy, and you meet a lot of interesting people. In Salinas, the crowd was a different mix than Oakland, less AA, more Latino, even fewer white men, lots and lots of women of all ages, and some kids. My group around me in line was mostly middle aged woman — a couple white, one latina but we also had an AA man who had to leave early to take a final exam (it was at a college) when he learned how long it would take, plus a white dude that was about 10 years older than me (I’m middle aged) who was having trouble with all the standing. He did tough it out to get inside, but had to leave about halfway through Hillary’s speech because he was overheated and his legs had given out. In Oakland my “line partners” were younger, women in their 20s-30s, Asian, white, black, including one woman who got caught sneaking out of her job to try to attend by her supervisor...who also wasn’t supposed to be there. Oops :)
Anyway, we chatted for a couple hours, held people’s line spots while they did things like ditch items that wouldn’t go through security, or said hello to friends elsewhere in lines. After a while protesters showed up, but we didn’t see much of them till we got close to the entrance.
The protesters were a more colorful mix than I saw in Oakland, but better organized even though they were several different groups. They looked kind of like this:
ttttC?bbBBBBB
t = Trump supporters. Covered in american flags, with big posterboards saying “Crooked Hillary”, a fairly high production value “Handcuff HIllary” or “Hillary behind Bars” with photoshopped images. All were 60ish bearded white dudes, in a thin line 1 deep. They were shouting mostly about taxes. More on that later.
C = “Choose Life” people. They were only 2 wide but about 3 deep, maybe 6 total with “Choose Life” signs. Anti-abortion protesters. They were accompanied by the “?” people, two individuals, one had a “Bill is a Rapist” sign and the other “Hillary <something about hating women/enabling”. The “?” people shouted “Puta Puta Puta” (spanish for Whore, if anyone doesn’t know) but got glares from both the Bernie folks and the Choose Life people. The “C” and possibly “?” protesters might have been Cruz supporters if his candidacy wasn’t dead. All of these people seemed pretty uncomfortable with the folks to their left and to their right. These people were white or latino, a mix of men and women. They looked like the same type of people I see outside Planned Parenthood.
bB = Bernie supporters, a thin stream then a thick batch, surrounding a sound system. Signs had a lot of CT on them (“Where is Hillary Emails” (sic), Nevada 68 <very complex CT sign>, Blood On Her Hands <Iraq and “warmonger” references>, plus a “Hillary Debate Sanders” sign. They couldn’t really chant much because they were running a really loud PA system with clips of Hillary from 2008, in particular her “Debate anywhere, any time” clip and the quotes and news items debunking her “Sniper Fire” gaffe. The Bernie supporters looked a lot like the folks in the Hillary line, except it had a higher mix of men. Mostly though Latino, a few AA, a few white.
The protesters were well back, maybe 25’, but no barriers. About halfway between the occasional volunteer, generally good sized men, walked back and forth between the line and the protesters, helping to keep a psychological distance. This helped a lot, compared to Oakland where there were metal barriers right next to the crowd, and they could get within reach of us. So it was much more “1st amendment right to protest” and less “scary nasty gauntlet” than LA or Oakland.
As I’m a big white guy who looks even bigger in a line that is mostly women and compact Latino men, one of the Trumpies started yelling at me, in particular. I was ok with that (if they’re talking to me, they’re not yelling at my fellow line-people), moved out about where the volunteers were, between the line, and we talked about taxes briefly. I said “I believe in paying taxes to get streets, police, services, etc”, he’s “Bernie wont’ pay for that”, which opened him up “My candidate, Hillary, has a plan to pay for everything she’s promising, unlike Trump or Bernie”, which took him aback, and he went off on some technical local property tax issue that I knew nothing about. So I rolled my eyes and got back in line.
I ran into the superdelegate who invited me, he was also walking the distance between the two lines, shook hands, he gave me directions to the VIP table. I got inside, easier this time because I was better prepared for the security and left most of my metal in the car. I got my purple VIP band and headed to that portion of the gym.
I arrived too late to be in the reserved VIP seats, and while they let me stand in a pretty good spot, I kept backing up to make room for shorter people to get in front of me. I can see fine from the back. The gym was quite warm, but again I got to talk to people between speakers. There was one AA woman with an incredible cute little girl, who spent most of her time perched on shoulders of several people. There was a HS Senior Latino boy, in a 3 piece suit “It’s just my style, my mom always says I’ll die of heat in this outfit”, who shared the story of his parents (undocumented, became citizens, got good jobs), wanted to know what I thought about immigration (again, I was a rare white dude). I told him that his parent’s story was great, except I didn’t think they should have had to spend any time undocumented, they should have just been let in legally, and that the folks who used undocumented labor got away with taking advantage of their vulnerability, to screw them out of decent wages and any benefits. Also that anyone here should have a path to citizenship, however they got here. He seemed satisfied with that answer.
There was another 13 year old boy trying out his skills of “I can talk to anyone”. He was regretting his choice of a sweatshirt hoodie. I let him know that Hillary would probably be working a rope-line at the end, and he maneuvered for a better position, didn’t see him after that.
Mostly though, a lot of happy people, in spite of the heat and inconvenience and endless standing. Sometimes several generations there. The kids were excited but well behaved, average age was more middle schools/high school, but some very small children were there with their mothers, drowsy in the heat.
A photographer for one of the local newspapers had caught me engaging the Trumpie and took a photo, partly because I had a Hillary sticker on my forehead. (I figured, lets just own it here. I don’t get to let the Hillary support out much in public). He caught up with me inside to get my information, in case he used the photo.
While waiting for the main event, we had one grandmotherly-woman speaking in Spanish about how Hillary supported immigration reform in the past, translated to English by one of the HRC staff. The woman was not a politician, seemed nervous but very determined to get it out.
The local farm union guy came up and gave a rousing speech on organizing and raising wages, and farm worker overtime (which I guess we still don’t have even with Obama’s new regulations) which is on Hillary’s agenda.
Our congressman Sam Farr is retiring, and Jimmy Panetta is running for his seat. This guy is a local prosecutor, and is related to Leon Panetta. When introducing Hillary, he told a story about how in the 90s, she came out to help speak at one of his campaign rallies. It was pouring rain and only 50 people showed up. Hillary as First lady gave a 30 minute rousing speech, and the 50 folks there reacted really well. Afterwards when J Panetta apologized for the turnout, she said “We touched all 50 of them. That’s always worthwhile, you do it one person at a time.” Hillary in her turn gave a detailed endorsement of Panetta, describing his work and his roots in the local community, as she said “not pro-forma”.
During Panetta’s speech, a young Latina woman took advantage of the pauses in his speech to yell “Bullshit”. The other attendees near her were annoyed, and one contacted the campaign. A couple of HRC staffers and a police officer positioned themselves nearby, but didn’t do anything immediately.
HRC opened up with an immigration reform stump speech, and while she was doing that, a young man with the “BS” woman unrolled a towel that said something like “Hillary will separate babies from their families”. He was silent, held it up high. The two HRC staffers went up to him, and convinced him to leave quietly, not trying to get him to lower the towel. A nearby woman tried to take the towel away from him but the HRC staffers shook their heads and did a “let us handle this” to her. So he got to parade it around, but didn’t cause a disturbance. Meanwhile the police officer was talking to the “Bullshit” woman, and let her argue with him, while walking slowly toward her, backing her slowly out of the venue. She also was willing to leave, and didn’t cause a disturbance, probably partly because her ally was able to show his towel prominently, and partly because the police officer actually handled it well, he never got too close, never tried to touch her, just kept talking and kept moving, letting her back away on her own.
The sound system had been set up so folks outside could hear, as the venue was too small for the folks who showed up. This includes all the protesters, who got to hear all of Hillary’s stump speech if they stayed for it.
Hillary was alternating between going after Trump, and talking about positive things, a mix of policy stuff targeted to the area (jobs, minimum wage, farm worker overtime, immigration policy, affordable college education). Some of the Trump attacks were new, I wish I’d had a way to take notes — there was one after giving an example of all the things the money for the wall could be spent on that would be useful, she said something to the effect of “Trump doesn’t want to make America Great, he just wants to make Trump look Great”. The Playing the Woman Card line was quite popular in this crowd. The stump speech wasn’t the same as Oakland, and it’s only a few weeks later, so she’s getting some kind of targeting advice. There wasn’t a word on Bernie this time, not even by the kind of attack that could also apply to Trump.
People left in a good mood. I stayed longer to see if I could shake Hillary’s hand, but to do it I’d have to fight my way into a crowd where pretty much everyone is smaller than me, and that seemed uncool. So I wandered outside to see what was up with the protesters, as they’d been a sour note in Oakland.
This time, they were all gone. Well almost. Three of the Trump protesters had the stamina to stay the whole time, and were pretty much just chanting “Liar Liar Liar”. I went over to congratulate them on being the last protesters standing, but they just kept chanting, so then I went off, thinking about a BBQ place I saw on the drive down that I wanted to try. I’d been there for about 5-6 hours, and while I brought a few snacks, I was hungry.
These events are fun, but they do take stamina. You will be in line a long time, you will not have a bathroom until you get through security, you will then stand a long time again waiting for the speeches. But you get to see the local folks who have been just names on the ballot, you get to hear a rousing stump speech from 10-20’ away and you get to be surrounded by people like you who are also excited about your candidate.
I recommend the experience, if you have the time and the stamina to attend.