The seated Hillary Clinton supporter, Ernestine Kirkland, wanted to know if the New Haven campaign for her candidate is planning events or renting space “over there” — as she motioned south and east towards Dixwell, Newhallville, and the Hill.
The Obama people, she said, were working diligently in those communities of color in the lead-up to Connecticut’s Feb. 5 Democratic presidential primary. “What are we planning to do?”
The answer to that question, and others, were offered — or not — at what was billed as the first Hillary House Party in the state Sunday. It attracted more than 50 supporters to the spacious East Rock home of Debra Hauser (pictured in the middle).
Hauser is one of 60 members of the campaign’s statewide steering committee. (Click here for the list.) While the list is headed by many of the state’s big-city pols, including Stamford’s Mayor Dan Malloy and Mayor Bill Finch of Bridgeport, there appear to be only a handful of New Haven pols. They include State Reps. Juan Candelaria and Bill Dyson, neither of whom was present Sunday.
The only local New Haven official noticed at the Hauser party was Ward 13 Alderman Alex Rhodeen (front and center in the photo). But there were grassroots Democratic activists at the shindig and pep rally from the immediate area, including endorser Deb Heinrich (on the left in the photo), the state representative from the Madison; and Branford area, and Anne Ramsey (on the far right, pictorially, not politically), from Hamden’s Democratic Town Committee.
With only 16 days to go to the primary, the Clinton campaign has apparently deployed to Connecticut four or five paid staff, including its director of constituency outreach, John Williams, and Bryan DeAngelis, the director of communications (both, at their urging, not pictured).
Rolling into the state after having worked in what they described as the exciting victory in New Hampshire, the small staff is relying on activists and longtime Clinton admirers like Hauser to enlist their friends, to run phone banks, to initiate spontaneous, entrepreneurial actions. One house party guest testified she leafleted for Clinton at the recent UConn men’s basketball game, but as there were three entrances, she needed two more people. She suggested other people do the same at the upcoming UConn women’s game. When 15,000 people gather, she said, that presents an opportunity.
Lawn signs, pins, bumper stickers, talking points, and other campaign tools were available and passed out, and names taken. Could you write a check? Oh, absolutely.
Much of the gathering was given over to testimony on the part of several speakers as to why they love Hillary Clinton and how the activists in the room might respond to the ripples of Obamania, including the New Haven mayoral endorsement of the Illinois senator.
Penn Rhodeen, a local lawyer, political activist (and father of the above mentioned alder), knew Hillary Rodham back when,he said. She was fresh out of Yale Law School, he said, and the star of the moot court — lest anyone think her smarts were second to anyone’s or that she has ridden a husband’s coattails. “She could have gone on to a prestigious Wall Street firm,” he said, “but she chose to work at the Yale Child Care Study Center to learn about kids’ issues, and then worked with me on children’s legal defense issues.”
“Those are her values,” he said, “then and since. She’s smart, tough, warm, the real thing.”
Rhodeen, the younger, for the above reasons said he considered Hillary Clinton a kind of “local girl.” Other, older supporters, such as Hauser and Lindy Gold (pictured above with Kirkland), said they are rooting for her to be the first woman president, but surely not only because she’s a woman.
“This is a time,” said Gold, “for more than hope. I think Obama is not ready to lead, but to help to lead.”
Hauser, a clinical psychologist who is also the chair of the National Center of Women Exposed to Violence, was visibly moved by pride in Clinton for having talked about women’s rights as human rights.
“I’ve followed her closely. Even when she was First Lady, she did that differently. She was my kind of First Lady. But look, Obama is not a gimmick. He’s the real thing, certainly no gimmick. Yes, he’s visionary, but he’s also green. Hillary is ready, and most of us in this house support her not only because she’s a woman, but because she’s the one, she’s the best for the job. This is the most important presidential contest of our lifetimes, and Hillary Clinton has the best combination of heart and mind to do the job.”
The view from the city’s college campuses, as expressed by Ben Stango (on the left) of Yale and Nicole Colomonico and Mark Bouchard of the Quinnipiac University Democrats, was a little uphill. “The kids at Quinnipiac,” said Colomonico, the secretary of the group, “say things like they like Obama because he’s got good looks, or he has the JFK mystique. When we ask them if they know any of his policies, they go blank.”
She, like Stango from Yale, intend to counter with lots of phone-banking, especially given the short amount of time before the Feb. 5 day of electoral reckoning. The statewide campaign has created a Clinton College Caravan. It will pass through Yale and Quinnipiac, and culminate, they said, at the University of Connecticut.
Before Ernestine Kirkland left the house party, host Hauser pow-wowed with her about what she thought might be done in the city’s African-American community. Williams, the coordinator, had told her that, yes, the campaign wants to diversify its venues, time is too short to actually rent space, and, frankly, money is a concern too.
The New Haven operation, he said, is actually being run out of the apartments of Yale Law School students. He also said other physical sites for the statewide campaign’s 16-day duration included union halls in Hamden and up in Hartford.
Kirkland listened patiently and then suggested the Elks Lodge up on Dixwell as a good location for an event. Hauser said she would help with the follow up.
To find out about that, and everything else the campaign can put together against what seemed to be an accepted sense of an Obama-leaning New Haven, click here on the Clinton campaign website and go to the Connecticut page. Apparently, first up, is a South Carolina Democrats’ debate-watch party at Archie Moore’s Monday at 8 p.m.