A more accessible Clinton stops for tacos

Over the last week we've listened to her. And in the process we found her voice, not to mention Hillary Clinton's new ad that centers on those carefully crafted lines of humility from her victory speech in New Hampshire.

Clinton is releasing a new ad in the morning in Nevada and South Carolina. You can hear it here, but you've already heard it all many times already. Her talking during that joyous speech laid over lots of shots of a smiling female candidate with lots of real people. No more of this all-alone wonky woman wrapping Christmas presents of new government programs to give to the common citizens of America.

Of course, the Republican National Committee had something ...

to say too: “When you’ll say anything to get elected, you’re always searching for a new voice," said spokesman Alex Conant. "Voters don’t trust Sen. Clinton precisely because her rhetoric is always changing."

A re-energized Clinton, who's suddenly making herself more accessible to real people and actual reporters, flashed through the Southland today, releasing an economic program in the City of Commerce and stopping at King Tacos in East L.A. "Hey man," said Giovanni Zavalza, a tattoo artist, "I've just came over for a few tacos, and next thing I know, I'm looking at Hillary Clinton."

She did a fundraiser in San Diego and later, reportedly, met privately with some of her major L.A. contributors to calm their concerns about last week's campaign tailspin. Saturday, she'll invest in chasing Nevada's Hispanic vote, first in Las Vegas with Henry Cisneros, and then at a Mexican restaurant in Reno, though she didn't get Nevada's big SEIU union endorsement that went to Barack Obama. Saturday night will be spent flying to South Carolina for some Sunday events, including her turn in a full-hour of waterboarding by Tim Russert on NBC's "Meet the Press." A quick trip home to New York and back west again.

The Democrats' attention is shifting West now for a while beginning with Tuesday's MSNBC debate in Las Vegas and the Jan. 19 caucuses. And, as first reported here, Obama is the first Democrat to start his ad campaign in California, also on Saturday.

So enough with the wintry campaigns of Iowa and New Hampshire. Here they come.

-- Andrew Malcolm 

Comments

[miriam biteng]

If you eat taco, she eats, too. If you are latino, she is,too, she is just like you regardless of race and color.She represents whoever you are! And this is the kind of president we need who is just like us!

[calwatch]

Andrew, one of the more annoying things is that we never hear about when the candidates come here to Southern California before it happens. The folks in Iowa and New Hampshire have their newspapers print daily schedules of the candidates, yet the only way someone who didn't personally know a campaign volunteer would find out about the event and, uh, judge the candidate for themselves is through the few hours notice provided in a hidden corner of the Clinton web site (apparently once the candidates leave New Hampshire and Iowa, they don't feel obliged to report their location to the WaPo or NYT campaign calendars). This blog could allow some of us the opportunity to act like those voters in Iowa and NH, if we heard about the event before it was to occur. Thank you.

(I understand how you feel. As simple as that might sound, it's really not. Their schedules change frequently. Although the campaigns are planning their candidate movements about two weeks in advance, for strategic (and sometimes security) purposes they don't announce their appearances publicly more than 2-3 days in advance; it helps keep the opposition out of their face. Also, they often add or subtract stops at the last minute. For instance, today's Clinton taco stand stop was added at the last-minute to appear spontaneous. The best way I'd suggest is the candidate's website. Just click on the candidate's name on the list to the right of this item. If you sign up on their website, they'll let you know by Zipcode when something campaign-related is going on near you, including a candidate visit. You might have to delete a lot of e-mailed appeals for money, but at least you'd be in the know. Thanks for reading.)

[Toto]

Sexism and Racism are not relevant in the primaries to date in relation to how Iowa and New Hampshire voted. When we consider that to combine the votes cast for Edwards and Obama together, we know that the majority of New Hampshire did NOT vote for Hillary. And given the narrow margin between hers and Obama's votes, and the fact that Obama went away with more delegates, we also know that all the hype about her emotional moment giving her a win, was just blown out of proportion.
It perhaps raises a question also, how after the 35 years she claims as experience, it took her one helluva long time to "finally find her voice." The truth is that she has found Obama's voice, who expressed his willingness to listen from the beginning and represent the people from a grassroots level, and she has no shame in adopting his message of change, and even his fired up and ready to go chant. I predict that her next metamorphisis will be to appear as a black male in South Carolina.

[Alex Nunez]

No one else comes across the board like Hillary does. Alll minorities should be proud to have someone to speak for them. She epitomizes change from the Nixon impeachment to the Iraq war. God bless America and suffrage. America in 2008! America in 2008!!!

[David]

These biased, hate-spewing Hillary bashers just never stop. What do they hope to accomplish by pointing out that majority of NH didn't vote Clinton? DUH. Newsflash: the majority didn't vote for Obama either. But they conveniently fail to note that, maybe because of their worship of Obama and purebred hatred of Hillary. Obama supporters are always so angry!

The hype of her emotional win was justified, because Obama and his crazed followers were so overhyped the five previous days. Hillary put in the work, and she won. Get over it. Thank goodness the sensible people of New Hampshire voted competence over charisma, specifics over style, and action over empty words.

Obama doesn't listen. He speaks a bunch of empty words, and his sheeplike followers accept everything he says uncritically. Change...change what? They don't care. Something is happening...what is it? They don't care. Fired up and ready to go...ready to go, where? Nobody knows. A bunch of lame slogans that mean nothing, except to people for whom politics is a game and not serious business.

Keep your blind, wild hatred of Hillary out of the Democratic party, please. We're trying to elect a President here, not a prom king.

[Michael]

Hillary is a corporate panderer and though she's progressive on social issues, it will business as usual toward American economic and environmental policy if she is elected over Obama. Think hard people.

[Ed Swezey]

I don't see anything new in the Clinton campaign approach, nor do I see any contrived spontaneity in the taco stopover. The stop was planned, as a contingency, by the local staffers but the spontaneity is real both from the candidate's viewpoint, who just lives through the day as the staffers have planned it, and from that of the locals in the restaurant, who were not forewarned as your quoted patron states. Clinton did a lot of such stops in Iowa, if you remember all the hype that was made by the press about the missing tip at one of the restaurants. Even after the "stiffed" waitress told them "You people are nuts...," the press kept talking about it for days, just to get as much mileage as they could out of a little slip in the Clinton campaign. On the other hand, there are never any such spontaneous occurrences in any of the other campaigns, notably Obama's, but you don't mention this. Perhaps this is irrelevant to your spin, because all you want to do is to make Clinton look contrived whereas she abounds in spontaneity. She's never at a loss for taking on people on a one-by-one basis. No other candidate Democrat or Republican can do this. She does it as much as she can. That's why her support, even though not a majority, is so firm.

(Well, Ed, you're absolutely correct. Every campaign contrives "spontaneous" stops, partly for the media, partly fdor security. What's different now with Clinton is they've "discovered" or "re-discovered" the power of the interaction between the candidate and the crowd. For a very long time she stopped taking questions from both the crowds and the media, in essence playing prevent defense. Guess, what, her poll numbers started slipping. Think of the awful Christmas ad, she's all by herself labeling presents not for her family--where are they, by the way?--but as a queen might hand out gifts to her people, universal pre-K, etc. Think the Iowa stage where she gave a victory speech for third place and was surrounded by the tired faces from her husband's presidential era. Flash forward to New Hampshire, suddenly she's in a diner surrounded by real people asking questions. And one of them makes her misty-eyed. And when she comes from behind to win by 3%, she's on stage all by herself, except for momentary family hugs, and what's in the background? Not another sterile banner--"Experience counts." But more cheering, adoring fans, waving fans. Real people. And her speech? Apparent humility. In the last week I've listened to New Hampshire and in the process I discovered my voice. It's a big change, Ed. Not announced. But significant. So we wrote about it. It's the kind of unpredictable things you'll find here regularly on this year's dramatic political scene as it unfolds. Thanks for reading. It's fun to discover this all together.)

[Mary]

It took her 35 years to find her voice? Hillary is a robot and will say whatever she need to say to get her and bill back in the white house. Remember all the scandals--Monica (i did not sleep with that women) clinton impeachment, white water, hillarycare--ron brown, etc. People do want to go back to politics as usual?

[bill]

Why is there no mention of her Statement " NO WOMEN IS ILLEGAL" ?? And after that "NO MAN IS ILLEGAL" ???

[David]

All you hillary cool-aid drinkers are really insane. But then I would expect this from LA-LA land. This women has nothing to offer the US but lies, corruption and socialism. Do you people really want that? Are you so stupid and lazy that you need cradle to grave government handouts to survive? Just look at the Katrina grifters, free money and housing and it's still not enough. Too bad the storm didn't kill them all, would have saved us a lot of money and grief.

Liberalism is a mental disorder!

[Keith Henderson]

If the Filipino vote ever becomes a major segment in some state, can we make these candidates eat dinuguan?

[PulSamsara]

She's switched to Taco's after having her fill of Chowder in New Hampshire.

Barack Obama for President of the UNITED States of America.

End Nepotism in the White House.
America is a Democracy - Not a Monarchy.

[PulSamsara]

She's switched to Taco's after having her fill of Chowder in New Hampshire.

Barack Obama for President of the UNITED States of America.

End Nepotism in the White House.
America is a Democracy - Not a Monarchy.

[Jenna]

I get that change is important but this whole "corporate pandering" thing starts to get annoying after awhile. The world is not so black and white. Corporations are not the enemy. In case you didn't notice, they are the ones that employ people and have an important place in society too. I want someone who will keep corporations accountable without squelching economic growth. Bill did a good job and I think Hillary would as well.

(Good point, Jenna. Thanks for reading--and coming back.)

[Anonymous]

I guess my problem is that there's aboslutely no policy initiative or legislation that she's led (or Bill) that helped Latinos. And don't get me started on her (Or Bill's) stance on immigration - lets just say they haven't shown too much care for humanr rights or equality in that area. I know one Latina who definitely isn't buying it and will not be voting for her under any circumstances.

[decider]

When Bush was running for the White House, I knew he was the wrong guy.
When he ran again, I knew he had the wrong ideas. However, he still won not only because of the powerful people behind the swiftboating ads, but because of the stupidity of electorate. Now, the same group of people who supported Bush are trying EVERYTHING to keep Hillary from getting the nomination and supposedly smart and educated voters are paying attention and buying it all in. Obama is not ready to be the president. He just does not have enough experience. When he says he will bring about change by being a Washington outsider, what does he really mean and how does he plan to acheive that? He has never really explained this even just on the surface, or gave any specific examples. Every Johnny come lately wannabe has always professed to be washington outsider. The change he keeps repeating sounds just like a mantra or the equivalent of a ululation to me. By the way the "Yes we can " is a Walmart motto, again nothing original. Edwards is freakishly left of left field he sounds like a leftist fascist. Romney is a businessman looking at an opportunity for more profits, while Huckabee is grossly misinformed about world events. Ron Paul is a Don Quixote, and Gulliani is the ideological mother or son of George W. Bush. Forget about grandpa Thompson. The truth is McCain is the best republican to who can be elected to the presidency, but he still does not have the grasp of details of economic policy and a health care plan that matches that of Hillary . He may be better in military matters, but Hillary can listen to generals and formulate a plan and make a decision as good or better than him or any of the other candidates.