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The Texas Blue
Advancing Progressive Ideas

Liveblogging President Clinton's Dallas Rally

1:02 Clinton goes for the charm offensive with a little humor about the White House, characterizing the job of president as "the most fortunate public servant in the nation." They play songs when you enter a room, you're never stuck in D.C. traffic, you live in the nicest public housing in the nation.

His closing point with that is that one can be caught up in being president, but that Hillary's familiarity and experience would mean that she wouldn't be fazed and would be focused from the get-go on improving lives for Americans. He then leaves the back of the truck for some handshake time with the crowd. Net time speaking: about 14 minutes. Sounds about par for the course compared to his other appearances.

The kids from the charter school have started chanting, "Over here! Over here!" I'm fairly confident President Clinton will be giving them some attention here pretty soon. Have I mentioned that they're adorable?

12:55 Clinton next hits issues, firing off point after point in Hillary's admittedly expansive education plan, each one followed by cheers from the community college audience. Next he hits on Iraq. An interesting point: "from personal experience, we all know that people don't make hard decisions until they have to." He gives an analogy of a neighbor who loses his house in a fire, and how we'd all give them shelter after a tragedy like that. We'd let them stay a month, two months, six months if they had to — but if it's been five years and they're still on the couch, it's not about the fire anymore.

The analogy to Iraq: we went in and did what we were asked to do, but now we're still there when we should have made the decision to leave. It's an interesting way to couch the issue, in that it tacitly validates the initial decision to vote for the authorization of military force.

He notes that we need to pull troops out, and that the true war on terror is being nearly ignored in Afghanistan; there's no way we can be effective there when we're deploying and redeploying troops in Iraq without end.

12:49 Clinton points out the closing statements in the last debate as displaying a clear distinction between the two candidates. Rightly so — Clinton's closing was widely regarded to be very well done.

He mentions that "certainly many have been swayed" by the idea that the best way to bring about change is to start anew, but that he disagrees and thinks that one needs a context of where we've been and where we're going. The nod to Obama's success with his message is an interesting choice.

12:46 Clinton thanks his presenter, and gives a shout out to the charter school kids. And then the first order of business: early voting is going out right now, so go vote — and then go to the caucus site at 7:15 on March 4th to vote for Hillary in the caucus. "This is the only place in America where you can vote twice in the same election without breaking the law, so enjoy it!"

12:43 Out of nowhere, a scream came out of the crowd, followed by many others. Bill's here, of course! President Clinton's on the back of a red pickup, somehow pulling off an orange tie like only he could. He is currently being introduced by someone who didn't introduce herself.

12:26 A mariachi band started up after the college president's brief speech. We've been sitting here listening to them since. Josh pointed out that it seemed to be an unusually long amount of time between presenters. I noted that, were this an Edwards event, this would likely be par for the course. And President Clinton does have six appearances to make today: three in Dallas, two in Fort Worth, and one in Grapevine. He spoke for 13 minutes at his previous appearance. The man's very rushed today.

12:04 Clinton's Texas field director is up speaking, getting the crowd fired up and throwing out T-shirts. Josh looks a little scared of the guy, frankly. He's definitely got some energy behind him, and the crowd's picking up on that.

The field director just introduced the president... of the community college. That was pretty amusing.

11:50 The front lines of sign-bearers have piled into the courtyard here at the event, but not before an adorable group of kids from La Academia De Estrellas, a Dallas charter elementary school, were led into the area. They're a photogenic bunch.

11:29 Josh, George, and our intern Curtis are here at the second of Bill Clinton's three appearances in Dallas today. President Clinton is scheduled to appear here at Mountain View College within the next few hours. The crowd have already started massing, of course. Attendance is pretty diverse; the section near me seems predominantly white and Latino, while Josh is reporting that his neck of the woods has a strong African-American contingent. Curtis tells me the line stretches from the college entrance all the way back to the parking lot entrance. The press is about done setting up, and it looks like organizers are getting ready to let in the crowds.

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