I used this stamp for years on every envelope that left my house!! Nothing seems to have changed.
Posted on 11/09/2007 10:32:39 AM PST by Chi-townChief
Organizers claim they didn’t intend to come off as secretive
"It won’t happen again."
Given the uproar over a closed-door meeting in which Clinton delegates gathered at the Parkway Ballroom on Wednesday for a pep talk from former President Bill Clinton, I’ll bet it won’t.
Traci Otey Blount, a spokeswoman for the Hillary Clinton campaign, moved swiftly to douse the fire storm caused when media were locked out of a meeting billed as a “People’s Rally.”
A gaggle of cameramen and reporters were forced to stand in chilly temperatures for three hours across the street, while a predominantly black crowd of about 450 Clinton supporters gathered inside.
“It was a misunderstanding on the Clinton campaign’s part,” Blount said Thursday. “We discussed whether it was to be a closed event or an open event. We were talking with everybody. We didn’t finalize if it was closed or open. With all the support that we have in Chicago, it was definitely something we wanted to showcase. We take full responsibility.”
According to Bishop Tavis Grant — head of a group called the 21st Century Alliance of Aggressive Leaders and spokesman for a group of community groups that have come out for Clinton — the campaign didn’t verify the former president’s schedule until last Friday.
“The advance people weren’t on the ground until Monday. And it wasn’t on the media wire until Tuesday,” Grant said. “We didn’t want to come off as a secretive or back-door meeting.”
‘Marching orders’ But that’s exactly what it looked like Wednesday when scores of prominent and lesser-known Chicagoans filed into the historic Parkway Ballroom for a private chat with Bill Clinton.
Worse yet, apparently some of the people a public relations professional cited as being at the closed meeting apparently were invited but did not attend.
“But none of those people were there for the purpose of endorsing Sen. Clinton. The meeting was not designed or organized in that fashion with that intent or objective,” Grant said.
Bill Clinton’s appearance at the South Side venue must have been thrown in at the last minute because there was a fair amount of confusion about what was supposed to be taking place. For instance, some community leaders were under the impression that they were going to an open rally.
“The event was basically for former President Bill Clinton and was for all of Hillary’s delegates and supporters,” said the Rev. James L. Demus, pastor of Park Manor Christian Church, who is no longer on the fence about whom he is supporting.
“Clinton gave us some marching orders and told us here are some things you can say when people ask you why you are supporting Hillary and not some other candidate.
“I would characterize it as getting marching orders from one of the highest leaders in the campaign,” Demus said. “I’m a fan of [Sen. Barack] Obama — like him going on ‘Saturday Night Live’ with a mask on — but when it comes to who I feel is the best qualified from Day One to lead this country, with hands down it is Hillary Clinton.”
Demus said rather than trying to shield black supporters from media scrutiny, the media blackout was an oversight.
“It was just a blatant mistake that was made. That is why an apology has been lifted up,” he said.
‘Hillary is becoming very electable’ The Rev. Leslie Sanders, a delegate for Hillary Clinton, said he worked in Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign and has a long history with the Clintons.
“There’s a tremendous field of candidates running for president,” he said. “All of them would make a better president than the one we have right now.”
But Sanders is putting a lot of stock in Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers. Among this group of leaders, this presidential primary is more about who has the edge among all voters and is not seen as an opportunity for an African American to make history.
“Those of us in Illinois have an emotional attachment to Barack other than looking at the overall picture of who has the best opportunity to bring about a change in the White House,” Sanders said. “From a national perspective, Hillary is becoming very electable.
“She has the right to reach out to all communities, just like Barack has the right to reach out to all communities.”
But Hillary Clinton hasn’t reached out to all communities — at least not in Chicago.
What she has done is reach out to a select group of allies, ministers and community activists in the black community who have jumped on her bandwagon.
mailto:marym@suntimes.com
This was no mistake. Clintoon’s make mistakes, but not this kind of mistake. It was premeditated and so was the aftermath. In the end, the only ones left out in the cold were the press............
With the Clintons, its always a “misunderstanding”.
Since when have the Clintons ever cared about inconveniencing others?
I agree. That’s it in a nutshell. And that ‘true blue’ is a figment of their imagination, not yours and mine.
I used this stamp for years on every envelope that left my house!! Nothing seems to have changed.
“We didn’t want to come off as a secretive or back-door meeting.”
Translates to: "Who the h*ll told YOU about our secret meeting?"
She didn’t want to be recorded doing another southern fire-and-brimstone preacher accent.
blatant:
–adjective
-brazenly obvious; flagrant: a blatant error in simple addition; a blatant lie.
-tastelessly conspicuous: the blatant colors of the dress.
I don't think he meant to say what he said!
The Clintons (and the Democratic machine in general)are always trying to do stuff under the radar, such as filling the ballot boxes at election time with votes from dead people, and coersing their voting block (which includes most minority voters)with their lies about Republicans. We KNOW that the Republican Party, and Conservatives especially, have done more to advance minorities in our society than the Democratic Party has EVER done. President Lincoln fought to end slavery, and he was a Republican. Republicans amended the Constitution to grant blacks citizenship and the the right to vote. It was the Republicans who pushed for civil rights legislation from Lincoln’s time up through the 1960’s, against the objections of Democrats.
So when Clinton is preventing the Media from being present at his “one-on-one” with minorities, you wonder just what wool they’re trying to pull over the minorities’ eyes this time. Not that the Media can be depended upon to report honestly or openly on anything their beloved liberal co-consirators are up to.
When is the FEC going to step in and go after the electioneering behind the church pulpits that the DEMs are so fond of doing in the black churches?!
And Hillary screams that the Bush administration is secretive? Come on, this whole thing smells bad and chances are it has to do with voting “irregularities”...Sad thing is, blacks just continue to thwart their own independence when they lay down at the democratic altar of subjection.
Traci Otey Blunt, outreach and partnerships manager, National 5 A Day for Better Health Program, discusses the Men's 9 A Day Campaign at the Black History Month 2004 community event.
You’re right. I couldn’t agree more.
Bill showed us what a one party state could turn into. And he also showed us what a one party nation could turn into, with the media’s help.
It’s too bad there are so many mentall ill people out there. I guess someone was bound to exploit them sooner or later.
Also .... by claiming that this event wasn’t to endorse Hellary .. then Hellary campaign funds don’t have to pick up the tab for the expenses
Exactly!
The Clintons will also have them bused in to vote even when the polls aren't open, ask Jay Dickey in Arkansas!
On the Sunday before Election Day, in GOP Rep. Jay Dickey's Arkansas district, black preachers told their congregations that there would be no sermon that day -- instead they were all going to the polls, which had been specially (and illegally) opened for the purpose of their casting their votes. Is anyone confused about whom the votes might have been for?
Hi Kathy....yes, we just can’t get rid of them!
Thank God, Chelsea does not (yet?) appear to have any political aspirations...LOL
LOL! Thank God indeed!
The modern, urban, religio-politico, Rev. James L. Demus:
“I’m a fan of [Sen. Barack] Obama — ... — but when it comes to who I feel is the best qualified from Day One to lead this country, with hands down it is Hillary Clinton.”
(Ask him why he feels Hillary’s best qualified and you’ll get the same kind of doubletalk Hillary spewed about giving illegals licenses, or else you’ll get the brushoff.)
But not surprising.
When she says she prefers the term progressive and wants to get back to what the word liberal used to mean at the beginning of the century (as she said in that first youtube debate), she is referring to flat out marxism. Progressive is the term that those early US communists back at the turn of the century when Lenin was king used to call themselves so as to avoid direct identification as communists.
I doubt most liberals know it, but calling themselves progressives isn’t actually a new term, but rather, an old one.
One would expect her to at least traipse around the hallowed grounds of her mentor, Saul Alinski. Ol' Saul would be disappointed, and would probably admonish her by saying, 'Hillary, where there are no women, be thou a woman.' (paraphrasing a quote to Alinsky by a rabbi, who admonished Saul at one time to be a man where there were no men.)
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