(no subject)

Off in about half an hour to start a series of civics lessons. Tonight, Alexander and i are off to hear Senator Hillary Clinton speak; tomorrow, the plan is to squeeze out some time to hear Senator Barack Obama. Depending on how those two go, we may even round out things by hearing Senator Gramps McCain or Mrs. former governor Huckabee.

One of Alexander's projects for the last few days has been to research the remaining candidates for the respective nominations to run for the presidency, so he's been reading their websites and putting together his opinions of them. At present, he's slightly favouring Senator Clinton, which puts him nominally at odds with the rest of the household, but that he has a reasoned opinion is the important bit.

(no subject)

Oh, my gods, but the Clinton campaign does itself a significant disservice by not coming close to running on time. If you schedule a campaign event for, say, eight o'clock, at least have someone, even if it's just a local volunteer coordinator or junior campaign staffer in the advance crew, prepared to talk to the audience until you're ready to proceed with the more important speakers. Leaving a room to largely buzz amongst itself for eighty minutes with only a ten second announcement over an hour in that things will be starting in about fifteen minutes.

Great t'underin' Esus but that's a long time to keep people waiting. The 'official' capacity of the building was 6,000, but they didn't have all of it. I'm guessing the main room was set to accomodate about 2,500. Getting there about starting time, we got shuffled off to an overflow area with probably another five hundred to a thousand.

Senator Clinton herself comes across as very self-confident and self-assured. She knows her material and presents it very sincerely. I'm left with no doubts that she could handle the job and do so well; but as far as 'closing the deal' or converting someone leaning toward another candidate, not so much so.