TERRE HAUTE — According to her enemies and much of the national news media, Hillary Rodham Clinton is cold, robotic, calculating, vindictive and about as personable as surgical steel.
Tell that to Josephine Sullivan.
Among a cluster of wheelchair-bound residents sitting outside Meadows Manor East to watch Clinton’s motorcade pass by on Poplar Street yesterday, Sullivan could not have experienced a more warm or personal touch from the presidential candidate.
The fleet of SUVs braked to a halt for several minutes so Clinton could get out of her vehicle, walk over to the seniors, shake hands, pat backs, then lead the small crowd — which included Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh and a phalanx of Secret Service agents — in singing “Happy Birthday” to the 99-year-old Sullivan. Delighted, Sullivan beamed but never dropped her hand-lettered sign that said, “You go, girl.”
Or try running the cold-robot characterization by 17-year-old South High School senior Hillary Newton.
With her father Chris, she was among about 120 Hauteans to line the tarmac fence at Hulman Field just to watch Clinton’s ATA charter Boeing 737 touch down after a flight from Washington, D.C.
Politely advised by a national campaign aide that they would not get close enough to the New York senator for a good look — “She’ll be landing way out there. You have a much better chance to see her at the Saratoga diner …” — Newton and the other folks chose to stand in the chill morning air anyway “to be a part of history.” Their patience was rewarded.
After Clinton deplaned via a stairway gangplank, she eschewed her waiting Chevy Suburban and walked with Bayh to the 12-foot-high chainlink fence. Smiling, laughing, looking people straight in the eyes, she worked her way down the line, signing photos, T-shirts, blank pieces of notebook paper and a 1986 poster of the Arkansas State House that had been signed by her husband when he was governor.
Local Realtor Mike Ofsansky had bought the poster at an auction fundraiser for the Terre Haute Association for Retarded People in 1988.
“I knew he was going someplace, even then,” Ofsansky said of Bill Clinton.
The only item Sen. Clinton declined to autograph yesterday was paper currency.
“I’m sorry, I can’t sign money,” she said, and Bayh affirmed that “there’s a Treasury Department prohibition against it.”
All along Clinton’s campaign trail in Terre Haute, it was hard to find anyone who was buying her negative national image – certainly not Jackie Bishop, who joined a crowd of at least 1,000 in the parking lot behind the Saratoga with hopes of grabbing just a glimpse of the woman who wants to be commander in chief.
Sporting a homemade sign that proclaimed, “I GOT A CRUSH ON HILLARY,” Bishop said she had taken the day off from her job as a cashier at Wal-Mart to come downtown. Her sign featured 11 photos of Clinton.
“Bill is supposed to be in these two,” Bishop said, pointing to a pair of pictures, “but I cut him out. Not because I’m mad at him, just because it’s her sign.”
Like the women and men at Hulman Field, Bishop’s perseverance paid off. After an hour-long session with local residents inside the Saratoga and a media Q&A; with Bayh outside, the two senators climbed upon a small, portable stage and addressed the sun-dappled audience in the parking lot.
With a vigor and enthusiasm that made it all sound brand-new for new sets of ears, Clinton repeated many of the things she had talked about inside the restaurant. When she asked the crowd, “Who would you hire … to do the toughest job in the world?” the people shouted back, “YOU!!!”
After pledging major changes, from dumping No Child Left Behind to restoring America’s “moral leadership in the world,” Clinton told the cheering crowd, “With your help, we will try to turn our country around!” Then she and the Secret Service agents began to work their way along a periphery of outstretched hands and smiling faces that lined a long strip of yellow police tape.
Antiques dealer Marianne Ridgeway was typical of the adoring fans behind the tape. Eliciting a huge grin from Clinton, Ridgeway told her, “‘Madam President’ sounds really good!”
One last hope for company in the Hillary Haters club might have been expected from local news media. After all, journalists everywhere usually can be counted on to hike their cynical legs and pee on almost any politician. Alas, not in Terre Haute.
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews has opined of the Clinton campaign, “I think her press relations are lousy.” But, like so many aspects of American life, perspective from inside the Washington Beltway is often worlds apart from that of the rest of the country.
Good to their word, the Clinton people provided one-on-one interviews for every Hoosier TV and print reporter who had reserved a slot. Nobody with a notebook or camera was shoved, shouted at or made to feel like inconsequential scum.
Time and again, Clinton focused her blue eyes — made more blue by the deep sapphire-colored pantsuit she wore — on the reporter at her side. She listened to questions, thought about answers and engaged in a way that belies the astronomical number of times she has been queried and grilled about every element of her existence.
Over and over, local journalists remarked on her “surprising” warmth, natural manner and graciousness.
But, hey, what do we know? We don’t hang out on Capitol Hill, dine with presidential aides or call members of Congress by their nicknames. We’re just everyday people who live in “fly-over country,” Terre Haute, Indiana, one of a zillion stops on the long, grueling campaign trail of Hillary Clinton.
Our reality is skewed.
Stephanie Salter can be reached at (812) 231-4229 or stephanie.salter@tribstar.com.
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