Alexandria, Va.
Following a grueling day testifying before the House Select Committee on Benghazi, Hillary Clinton held a rally for campaign supporters and volunteers at Alexandria’s historic Market Square on Friday morning.
Fewer than a thousand people, some of them volunteers donning badges and clipboards seeking signatures to get Hillary on the ballot in the Commonwealth, milled around in the late October sun. They were ready for Hillary.
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Alexandria, a wealthy D.C. suburb and perhaps the state’s most liberal city, was easy pickings for the Clinton campaign team. Secret Service checkpoints caused street closures around the town’s city hall, but the crowds didn’t fill up the vacated space.
Local officials, like Bill Euille, the town’s Democratic mayor who lost in the primary but is running a write-in campaign, hung around in the back with VIPs. However, other than campaign officials, State Senate candidate Jeremy McPike was the only one to speak to the crowd. McPike, on the ballot in a few weeks, could help give Virginia Democrats control of the State Senate.
A big push by McPike, and later by term-limited Governor Terry McAuliffe and Clinton herself, was for bringing Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion to Virginia. Republicans, who control Virginia’s legislature, have stymied efforts to expand it. Democrats say it will provide healthcare to 400,000 people in Virginia.
The crowd, mostly white, was a mix of union members (machinists, brick layers, teachers), feminists (complete with ERA NOW signs), and a few mothers from “Everytown,” the gun-control group.
[img nocaption float=”left” width=”300″ height=”225″ render=”<%photoRenderType%>”]26130[/img]Clinton walked out to “Brave” by Katy Perry.
Not necessarily a dynamic speech, there was a little bit of something for every interest group, except for maybe the unions. Clinton renewed her anti-NRA credentials, and promised to fix income inequality and provide “fair pay” for women. Unions, whose members largely already get paid leave, got a promise to enact mandatory paid leave. Teachers were promised further student loan amnesty for taking public service jobs, which Clinton presumably wants to expand to other public service jobs than current law allows.
Clinton spent an unusual amount of time on the NRA, which is headquarted in the state, thanking McAuliffe for banning the open carry of weapons (generally legal in most places in Virginia without a license) in government buildings. She doubled down on a criticism she levied on Sen. Bernie Sanders at the last debate, wherein Sanders voted to shield gun manufacturers from liability claims.
Clinton avoided discussing the previous day’s events, and largely reserved her criticism of Republicans on issues: mostly that of immigration reform, suggesting it brought out the ugliness in Republican candidates.
After a few hours of waiting, a number of Hillary supporters strolled out while she wasn’t even halfway through her speech. They were greated with offers for discounts at America! a tchotchke store popular with tourists on King Street, and a gigantic black chicken from Nando’s Peri-Peri, the spicy chicken joint, offering buy-one-get-one deals.
