Saturday, October 03, 2015

This Week in "The Media is Being Mean to Hillary"

She's late to everything, including her very few public appearances.

At 3:30 p.m. Friday, one hour after Hillary Clinton was scheduled to take the stage at the gym at Broward College here, Vikesh Patel and three of his classmates left without catching a glimpse of the Democratic front-runner in this key Florida county. She was running late from a fundraiser.

"We've been here since one o'clock," said Patel, who doesn't know much about Clinton but whose parents have followed her and her husband for decades. 

He and his classmates were also going to work the rally into a paper for a speech class they're taking.
"I guess we'll have to go see someone else give a speech," Patel said.

Burn. 

In the back of the gym, another student, Nichole Zapata, was rethinking her decision to bring her grandmother to see Clinton speak.

"This is not a good impression," said Zapata, an undecided voter who plans to vote in 2016. "Hopefully she can win me over once she gets here, if she gets here. Not doing too good, though."

Don't you wish she was just being ignored by the media, like Bernie Sanders? 

In Baton Rouge last week, Clinton ran an hour late for her organizing event. The same day in Little Rock, she appeared more than 30 minutes after the crowd in a sweltering gym expected her.

The next day in Des Moines, Iowa, she walked on stage 40 minutes late in another gym where campaign staffers had carted in fans and bottled water to cool the overheated crowd.

And at an event on substance abuse Thursday in Dorchester, Massachusetts, Clinton was 50 minutes behind schedule.

I'm sure there are reasons beyond her control for it, and besides the weather's finally cooling off, even here in Texas, where she will drag the money bag through the Mostyn's palatial home and also San Antonio just after the first Democratic candidates' debate on October 13, and then swing down to the Valley.  How long will she keep Amber and Steve waiting, do you think?

Pamela Sharpe, an undecided Democrat from West Palm Beach, came to Clinton's event to try to make up her mind on the candidate.

"I'm thinking about getting ready to leave," she said 50 minutes after Clinton was supposed to go on. "I've been standing here a long, long time. There are not enough seats and I have other things to do."

That's it.  Winning hearts and minds. 

Clinton isn't especially unusual in her tardiness. It's a common affliction for candidates on the campaign trail.

They're over-scheduled, running between rallies, private meetings with local supporter and officials, sitting for interviews and headlining fundraisers. Former President Bill Clinton was notorious for often being hours late for events, his former aides argue, because he would shake the hand of every last voter and supporter who came to see him.

But it doesn't help the mood at her rallies at a time when Bernie Sanders, her much more punctual Democratic challenger, is making key early states very competitive and filling larger venues with more enthusiastic crowds.

Bingo. 

Walking out of the event, Zapata, the student who had hoped Clinton would win her over, was less than enthusiastic.

"She could have been better," she said. "She made us wait over an hour for her. I understand she is on a tight schedule, but she could have at least apologized for being late."

"It could have just been better," Zapata said, rushing out to get to her job at Starbucks.

It's probably nothing to get worried about, Clinton folks.