Disclaimer: This is a Hillary Clinton appreciation thread, which means that most people who come here really like Hillary Clinton. If you have criticisms, please be respectful.
If you missed any Saturday diaries or conversation, click here.
Some good diaries relating to California and otherwise:
Eternal Hope: No reasonable person can argue Hillary is equal to Trump.
SantaFeMarie: Here I am, a-wooing
Laurel in CA: The anti-woman card
Lesboyd: I just wanted a sofa
While Bernie might be getting attention as usual for his rallies, the LA Times notes that Hillary Clinton has other advantages that could give her a boost in California.
But in a state of 17 million voters, meeting everyone is impossible. Hence the surrogate who makes the pitch at small meetings, hits a neighborhood to knock on doors and bombards his own backers with pleas for help.
Clinton’s most frequently utilized national stand-in is her husband, the former president. Besides him, perhaps the most obvious surrogate in California this primary season has been Dolores Huerta, the cofounder of the United Farm Workers and a symbol of Latino political activism. She’s appearing in television ads for U.S. Senate candidate Kamala Harris and on Sunday and Monday planned to join Bill Clinton at events for his wife’s campaign.
Here are more on Hillary’s plans to visit California. She’ll be in Los Angeles and Riverside May 24, and plans to stop in Orange County, Salinas, and San Jose sometime soon after.
Meanwhile, Bill Clinton was in Chula Vista (San Diego County) and Pomona (Los Angeles County) today Saturday.
Bill Clinton told hundreds of people in the Bonita Vista High School gym — and hundreds more in an outdoor overflow area where his comments were piped in — that they needed to help deliver a big win and the necessary delegates to allow Hillary Clinton to clinch the nomination before the summer Democratic convention in Philadelphia.
"She needs to go to that convention with the wind at her back," he said.
The former president said his wife’s plans for education, equal pay and better pay will "help us all rise together."
"We are the best positioned country to take everybody along for the ride," he said.
He suggested Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and New York senator, would do the best job of helping the country welcome people regardless of where they are from and who they are. He added the country needs to eliminate discrimination against the LGBT community and people with disabilities.
Not too shabby for a man whom GQ’s Jason Zengerle treated as though he was nearly at death’s door.
As for me, I had my first canvassing experience on Saturday in my town in Contra Costa County. I was set to organize the whole thing, but fortunately, it turned out that the neighborhood leader was going to be in town, so she took charge of the packets and the explanations, while I got to do some actual canvassing (I would have been stuck at the table otherwise).
We had a good turnout, with nearly 20 people showing up to canvass. After receiving our clipboards and instructions on what to say, we paired off and went to our respective neighborhoods. We were to visit each house and determine whether the residents were definite Hillary supporters or on the fence.
My partner and I thought we would be going to a neighborhood where we would walk from house to house. How wrong we were. Instead, we had to drive to nearly every house, our map taking us to parts of my town that I had never seen, despite having lived there for years. Small windy backroads connected to long driveways, some with gates and some without. There were precious few sidewalks, or even places to park alongside the road. My partner, the unfortunate person driving, had to back down a steep driveway more than once.
Most of the people were not home, so we left fliers providing information about Hillary Clinton’s policy proposals. When we did catch people at home, they were often not the people on our list, but sons, daughters, or spouses. On one occasion, we pulled up to the house of one probable supporter just as one man was coming out the front door. My partner explained that we were there supporting Hillary. The man told us solemnly, “This is not the best time.” We looked at his face, at the other cars in the driveway, and we understood. The voter we were visiting was 88 years old. By June 7, Hillary will probably have one fewer supporter.
Otherwise, in between the not-at-homes and the inaccessible driveways due to gates, we did have some good conversations. For that, I have to credit my partner, as she had a much easier time chatting people up than I did. At one house, the targeted voter wasn’t home, but his 20-something year old son was. His son looked as though he had a barber shop set up in his garage, and was giving someone a cut. He said that his dad was “probably” for Bernie, that his mom was definitely for Hillary, and he himself liked a lot of what Hillary had to offer. He said that he liked Bernie’s proposals, but Bernie didn’t really have much substance behind them, and he was dissatisfied with Bernie’s positions on guns. As the son was not yet registered to vote, we made a note to get him the registration number before the deadline.
We also met up with the daughter of a probable Hillary supporter who herself lived in Concord. She said that her father was for Hillary, but her brother was voting for Bernie. She herself was planning to vote for Hillary. She said that she liked Bernie initially, but “the past few weeks” had really changed her mind about him. “California is really important this time around, isn’t it?” she said.
Our canvassing experience revealed a wider wealth gap in my town than I ever knew existed. My town is pretty wealthy overall, so there is no real “poor” area, but there was definitely a big difference between some of the middle class homes we visited off of the main streets and the chateaus hidden along winding roads out of view. Even those winding roads told the story of a town that was once middle class and rural, but over time became home to the very wealthy. There’s no lesson to be drawn with regard to Hillary, as her targeted voters were equally middle class and wealthy, but I found it interesting.
We didn’t have any negative experiences with Bernie supporters or Trump supporters fortunately. The only time that came closest was when the neighborhood leader explained what to say to an undecided about choosing Hillary over Bernie, and a passerby broke in, “That’s why I’m voting for him!” Otherwise, the people we talked to were mostly receptive to what we had to say. I would be happy to go canvassing again sometime soon. Only maybe I could walk this time.
If you have any money to spare, please consider
**CONTRIBUTING TO THE CAMPAIGN**
This is your open thread.
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