Bill Rocks the Austin Vote
February 28th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Hillary Clinton won’t be stopping in the capital city on her swing back through Texas this weekend—she’ll hold rallies in Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth and San Antonio in the final, frantic days before Tuesday’s primary.
So Wednesday night, she sent her best celebrity weapon to rally her supporters in the capitol city, someone with more name recognition than anyone else in this race: Bill Clinton.
Students and supporters packed the South Mall at the foot of the University of Texas tower, waiting for him to arrive. Warm-up act after warm-up act passed the mic: State Rep. Eddie Rodriguez (D-Austin), city councilwoman Jennifer Kim, a guy who yelled and threw T-shirts into the crowd. And then came the big moment, and as the cries of “We want Bill!” faded, onto the stage strolled none other than… actor Sean Astin. Remember him from “Rudy”?
Of course, Astin was followed by former President Bill Clinton, at around 7 p.m. Walking down the long path to a platform in the middle of the crowd, he was joined by his old Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and former mayor of San Antonio, Henry Cisneros.
Clinton began by promising a change of direction, and a better life in America if his wife is elected. Then he spent the bulk of his speech on the delicate business of selling his wife’s credentials to a crowd most excited to see the former president. He recalled her contributions to school reform as first lady of Arkansas, and her push for health care reform from the White House. As a testament to Hillary’s own star power on the global stage, he told stories about leaders in Northern Ireland who asked to consult with Hillary, above anyone else, in their peace talks; women in China, he said, slogged through nasty weather to hear Hillary speak at Beijing’s 1995 World Conference on Women.
Clinton drew applause with a promise that his wife had no plans for permanent bases in Iraq, then drew a much quieter response when he qualified it by saying a prolonged U.S. presence in northern Iraq would protect us in case Al Qaeda ramped up its attacks.
Austin loves a rock star, and in a town where Barack Obama repeatedly draws starry eyed crowds of ten thousand and up, Bill was the Clinton campaign’s best messenger of hope (Chuck Norris still isn’t available). Descending to shake hands and pose for pictures after his speech, Bill proved he could still fire up a crowd with the best of them. But the former president also mucked around with underdog language in his speech, deriding “the pundits” who say his wife’s campaign is on the ropes.
One UT student organizer introduced Clinton as “our first rock star president,” but even Bill couldn’t draw a crowd like Obama. Hours before Friday’s Obama rally, a line of thousands snaked around buildings downtown, waiting for tickets into a gated area near the stage. Wednesday night, about an hour before Clinton arrived one newscaster debated with a cameraman whether to describe the audience as “hundreds” or “thousands” of supporters. Clinton’s message of solidarity with the forgotten corners of our economy may hold more sway in South Texas and other parts of the state—but the showings at each candidate’s rallies this week suggest Austin would rather see a second “rock star president.”
February 28th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
there could be a snarky “Elvis/Michael Jackson” analogy to be made here, but i’ll be damned if i am going to be the one to do it.
i’d rather point out the curious parallels between Hillary Clinton and Leslie Gore’s greatest hits titles. (”It’s My Party..and i’ll cry if want to”, “You Don’t Own Me”, and “Maybe I Know…that he’s been a cheatin’”)