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This is the final stretch of the campaign, which sometimes feels like the final week of pregnancy when it’s 90o, you can hardly bear another seven or ten days of discomfort and are just thinking, “Please, let it be over soon.” But sometimes it’s like the last 0.1 mile of a 5K race on a beautiful fall day, on a course that’s downhill at the end so you go cruising in towards the finish line at full speed with your hands raised.
We can see the activity ramping up all over the country for the final push — unions and other groups canvassing in key states, phone banking, social media aimed at making sure every one of our supporters actually votes.
xWow, 97 volunteers with @seiu1199_ne are on the streets in Manchester, NH today to spread the word about @HillaryClinton. #SEIUforHillarypic.twitter.com/W30f1vyW2w
— SEIU (@SEIU) October 15, 2016 xYasmine and her mom are ready to make history and elect the first woman president #ShesWithUs#HERstorypic.twitter.com/JrSr0gRTIt
— Hillary for Florida (@HillaryforFL) October 16, 2016Hillary herself has been off the campaign trail for several days, preparing thoroughly (of course!) for tonight’s debate in Las Vegas. (She flew west yesterday; Bill will join her today.) Surrogates have been out in force, however. The campaign clearly sees potential in AZ, as the line of scrimmage keeps moving more and more in our favor. (Last Democrat to win AZ? Bill Clinton, in 1996.)
Tim Kaine was in Michigan, not a battleground but not forgotten either, for a speech on economic policy at Focus: Hope, an organization founded by a Catholic priest following the 1968 Detroit riots to fight racism and poverty. The speech, elaborating on the campaign's theme of building “an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top," detailed the Clinton plans for economic development and improving people’s lives. Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and Senator Debbie Stabenow spoke before Kaine, and senior statesman (and Twitter wit) former Congressman John Dingell commented from the front row.
x"My dad's bill" -- @johndingell says from the front row as @timkaine talks importance of protecting Social Security
— Jonathan Oosting (@jonathanoosting) October 18, 2016Kaine spoke for close to an hour, speaking from his faith on the importance of addressing poverty as a moral issue:
x.@timkaine during economic speech in Detroit: "Jesus spoke more about the poor than just about any other topic" https://t.co/O99kXgVGY6
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) October 18, 2016 xKaine: "Hillary and I have always rooted for underdogs – she’s a Cubs fan, Lord"
— Jonathan Oosting (@jonathanoosting) October 18, 2016The bulk of the speech, however, was on economic policy. Per the Detroit Free Press:
Fighting poverty is one of the defining moral issues of the 2016 elections, Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine told a group of about 200 people in Detroit on Tuesday. . . .
“In a lot of communities, poverty is hiding in plain sight. Wherever it is, we’ve got to challenge ourselves to tackle it.” He outlined the campaign’s three-pillar attack on poverty, including:
Raising incomes for families, which entails raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, investing in poverty-stricken communities with things like infrastructure improvement projects and increasing tax credits for child care. Making sure communities and homes are safe by fighting things like housing discrimination and predatory lending, ensuring the water and air in places like Flint are safe to consume and enacting common sense gun control measures like universal background checks. And improving education by expanding early childhood development and Head Start programs.Scan has the full video here.
Bill Clinton spoke yesterday at Montgomery County (PA) Community College, in a rural area north of Philadelphia. En route (being Bill), he made an unannounced stop at the campaign office in Bristol to greet hard-working volunteers. Like Kaine, Clinton stressed the campaign’s economic plans, and Hillary’s ability to work across the aisle to get her programs enacted.
x"It is a job being president. It matters that you have ideas that make common sense and can do the job." @billclinton in Montgomery County pic.twitter.com/4JiZzWrvJk
— Hillary for PA (@HillaryforPA) October 18, 2016According to ABC’s Matthew Claiborne, he closed his speech,
"If you don't want someone to drive a truck off the cliff, do not give them the keys," [Clinton said]. "Give Hillary the keys".
Heading west to new battleground state AZ, Bernie! spoke at two “Early Voting” Rallies. (Voting began there October 12.) The first was at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff (near where he did a large rally in March, during the primary):
x@BernieSanders supporter initiating a call and response "HILL" "YES" with the crowd @NAU rally #Election2016@cronkitenewspic.twitter.com/MPtqWo7dob
— Peter Cheng (@PeterSCheng) October 18, 2016The overflow crowd:
xStudents overflow, sitting outside as @BernieSanders rallies for @HillaryClinton at @NAU@NBCLatinopic.twitter.com/3BrSpSQZDl
— Stephen A. Nuño (@stephenanuno) October 18, 2016Full video (ignore the initial photo, which is from a different joint event):
x YouTube VideoIn the evening Bernie spoke to an estimated 5,000 people at an outdoor rally at the University of Arizona mall in Tucson.
x#AZmazing: @BernieSanders is here at @UofA— with thousands of Arizonans who are proud to say #ImWithHer. pic.twitter.com/Mg4qBe47SR
— Hillary for Arizona (@HillaryforAZ) October 19, 2016From the Arizona Star:
The Vermont senator championed many of the same issues he talked about in previous speeches in Tucson, complaining about billionaires buying elections, calling for college to be made free for most Americans, and urging an increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
He said his message was still the same — the election is not about a singular person but about millions of voters who want serious reform.
“Real change never ever takes place unless millions of people band together,” Sanders said. “Our job is to create an economy, create an America, create a government that represents all of us.”
Sanders then listed the ways in which Clinton had listened to his messages, and adopted some of his ideas into her platform: eliminating tuition at public colleges for families earning less than $125,000 annually, forgiving student loans for teachers, lowering student loan interest rates. He slammed the “billionaire” Republican nominee for flying around in his private jet while avoiding paying taxes, and for promising to “sweep up and deport 11 million undocumented people.”
“On November 8th our job is to defeat Trump and elect Hillary Clinton,” Sanders told the crowd.The campaign pace doesn’t slow down a bit, even with tonight’s debate. Today Tim Kaine does GOTV rallies in Upper Arlington and Springfield, OH, and Asheville, NC; Anne Holton has an education panel, two rallies, and a debate watch party in IA; Bernie is in Reno, NV; and Chelsea is at Arizona State in Tempe. Thursday President Obama heads to Miami (the event postponed due to Hurricane Matthew), while Fabulous FLOTUS will be in Phoenix, AZ. Hillary will be at the Al Smith dinner in NYC Thursday, in Cleveland on Friday, campaigning with Tim Kaine in Pittsburgh and Philly on Saturday, then on to NC, NH (with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, reportedly), and back to FL. I find HillarySpeeches.com has the most usable listing of key events, with links to the campaign’s official announcement. They also have good reporting on past events, often with full video.
We’re seeing a lot of comments from people who have already voted — lucky youse guys (that’s RI-ese). I’ll repeat my suggestion that once you’ve voted, change your avatar to an “I Voted” sticker so we can visually track the wave. (There are several variations in the image library; search on “ivoted,” “ivotedsticker,” or “ivotedbutton.”) Even if your state doesn't advertise early voting, check your Secretary of State or Board of Elections website — sometimes the provision for mail ballots includes what is essentially early in-person voting. Just don’t forget to vote for Democrats down-ticket, and for ballot questions. Once you've voted, you can help the campaign with GOTV, drive neighbors to the polls (early or on Election Day), make phone calls, etc.
Are you (or your friends or social media contacts) worried about disruptions or voter interference on Election Day? Don’t fret, do something. I put my suggestions into a separate diary, so they’d get more eyeballs.
Finally, an inspirational piece by VT writer Elayne Clift, “The archetypal journey of Hillary Rodham Clinton” (h/t Scan). Clift notes that most writing on archetypes and quests has male heroes, with women assigned subsidiary roles, sometimes Nurturing Mother, sometimes Temptress, sometimes Virgin:
Women have traditionally been denied The Quest or journey to enlightenment. Locked in their castles birthing future kings, or in convents, where they spent the better part of their lives invisible beyond the cloister gardens, they were denied their hunger for a wider world, their intelligence and courage continually hidden from sight and declared non-existent or illegitimate.
But Hillary, Clift posits, creates new possibilities:
But now, in Hillary, we have a new female archetype – a warrior woman equal to, and in this case surpassing, her male counterpart. She is a warrior capable of undertaking the quest, and emerging intact to win the Golden Fleece.
Another key element of the archetypal journal involves entering into and surviving the Underworld, often a dark cave. Hillary Clinton has had to survive the darkest of caves in an underworld full of deranged men and incipient violence. A good many male warriors might have given up in comparable circumstances, but she persevered, intent on making it back to the light. . . .
Hillary Clinton still has some murky waters to wade through, waters that are home to snakes continually lashing out at her. But when she finally gets to the other side of the river and ascends the mountain there is likely to be a rainbow of colors there. Many of us will be standing with her, relieved and hopeful once more, able to see the world as a place of safety and beauty again.
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Crossposted at HillaryHQ, an independent, progressive blog committed to electing Hillary Clinton as the next President of the United States.