Remember that ludicrous “reset” Hillary Clinton wanted with Russia? The one that, to say the very least, didn\’t work out?
Well, now, after two months of – in the words of George Gershwin – Plenty O\’ Nuthin\’, she\’s trying it for presidential campaign. She has “re-launched” today, with a rally at New York\’s Roosevelt Island.
So how did things go? Tell you what: I\’ll let the folks at MSNBC give the the answer, via this transcript of a panel discussion about the re-launch, which I pulled from Mark Finkelstein\’s blog at newsbusters.org:
ALEX SEITZ-WALD: It was a pretty enthusiastic crowd–there was however an overflow area behind the stage that didn\’t really get filled. Campaign officials say that was just a precautionary measure in case they needed more room. I\’d say a largely enthusiastic crowd but they were not overwhelmed.
RICHARD LIU: She was saying how she was going after the everyday American. But those who are maybe watching the background and who was there in the crowd, they didn\’t seem to reflect necessarily the everyday American per se, in terms of looking at diversity and those who were there but, of course, that\’s just what we saw on the camera. What did you see there on the ground?
JOY REID: Yes, it was a predominantly white crowd. Interestingly enough, it was a pretty young crowd given a campaign-type of event but distribution of age was a lot more what the campaign wants to see and I did speak with a lot of young voters who were excited particularly about issues like gay rights and women\’s rights. But yes, in terms of ethnic diversity, the campaign, when I spoke with them, they said they were very happy with the level of diversity. There were African-Americans here, there were Asian-Americans here, there were Latinos here. There were Latinos, deliberately so, on the stage along with African-Americans.
But if you look at the Democratic party as a whole, was this crowd as diverse as the party? No it was not. But that\’s something that the campaign is going to have to deal with. It\’s also about who\’s really paying attention at this particular moment and who\’s in New York, quite frankly, So there are a lot of factors going into it, but I would say on the diversity side they were on the low end here.
LIU: Right. So well said there, Joy, about this being one event, on Roosevelt Island, and there are many more events to be had as the election moves on
To summarize:
-The crowd was “enthusiastic” (no kidding, they came specifically to see her) but there were a lot fewer people than they had planned for and they were “not overwhelmed”.
-The crowd was far too Caucasian for MSNBC\’s tastes – not an unfair assessment given that there are about two million Black and two million Latino citizens in New York City and almost all of them vote Democrat. Where were they?
Again, this is the take from a panel of MSNBCers. Not Fox, not Rush Limbaugh fans, but MSNBC people.
Here\’s a question for you. If Hillary Clinton cannot fill the house on her much-publicized “re-launch”, if even the people who attend are, relatively speaking, not that excited about it, and if she is not attracting a lot of Blacks and Latinos…..
….where is this campaign going?
Or, put another way, I assure you that Bernie Sanders and Martin O\’Malley had to be far more pleased with today that Ms. Clinton.
Hillary Clinton inevitable? Believe me, she\’s evitable.
