{"id":12238,"date":"2016-05-20T23:01:43","date_gmt":"2016-05-21T05:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=12238"},"modified":"2016-05-20T23:01:43","modified_gmt":"2016-05-21T05:01:43","slug":"small-crowd-big-presence-bill-clinton-stumps-for-hillary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2016\/05\/small-crowd-big-presence-bill-clinton-stumps-for-hillary\/","title":{"rendered":"Small crowd, big presence: Bill Clinton stumps for Hillary"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Clintin\"<\/a>

David Crisp\/Last Best News<\/p>

Former President Bill Clinton spoke to a crowd of about 500 Friday night at the Will James Middle School.<\/p><\/div>\n

Former President Bill Clinton showed some of his old political touch in Billings on\u00a0Friday, but he told a crowd at Middle James Middle School that this year\u2019s presidential campaign is not about the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not trying to take you back in time,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m getting you to look forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clinton was campaigning for his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who opened a campaign office at 2525 Sixth Ave. N. in Billings this week. She is within fewer than a hundred delegates of wrapping up the Democratic Party nomination over U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who drew a crowd of 3,000 to the Montana Pavilion at MetraPark on May 11.<\/p>\n

Friday night\u2019s event was a more casual affair. A long line waited to go in when the doors opened at 6:30 p.m., but the line moved quickly without security measures. By a quarter to seven, the gym was nearly full, and the line was nearly gone.<\/p>\n

A large area roped off for the media was opened to late arrivals shortly before the speech began. The crowd of perhaps 500 people showed a wider age range than at Sanders\u2019 rally, which was dominated by young people. Friday night\u2019s crowd ranged from babes in arms to old party stalwarts, with a mix of young and middle-aged people as well.<\/p>\n

Some carried signs, and at least one wore a T-shirt reading \u201cBill for 1st Dude.\u201d Among those waiting was Carol Mick, wearing a red, white and blue spangled baseball cap and a T-shirt that read \u201cWe need a president who will fight for strong public schools in every ZIP code and every community across the country. I want to be that president.\u2014Hillary Clinton.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mick said she is supporting Hillary Clinton because \u201cwe don\u2019t have time to train anybody. \u2026 She knows how to do it, and she still listens to the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>Singer and songwriter Star Nayea, who was in town from Seattle for a meth conference, provided pre-speech music on behalf of the Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council. Asked why she is backing Hillary Clinton, she said, \u201cShe\u2019s a woman, No. 1.\u201d She added, \u201cI love Bernie, too,\u201d but she said that Bill Clinton was the first president she ever voted for and that she had \u201can immense amount of respect for Hillary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Montana legislators Robyn Driscoll and Margie MacDonald introduced the former president. Driscoll called him the \u201cnext presidential spouse\u201d and said that electing Hillary Clinton would help her daughter compete with men for jobs and wages, help her grandson live in a world of diversity and help the nation remain envied and respected around the world.<\/p>\n

MacDonald said that Hillary Clinton sent her an autographed copy of her 1996 book \u201cIt Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us\u201d after MacDonald helped lead a campaign against anti-Semitic hate in Billings.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe will not back down or give up on her powerful mission,\u201d MacDonald said.<\/p>\n

In classic Clinton style, the former president combined folksy anecdotes, touches of humor and wonkish policy details in his 40-minute speech. He only briefly mentioned his wife\u2019s likely opponent in November, Donald Trump, noting that Republicans have nominated a guy who says he has $10 billion but won\u2019t show his tax returns.<\/p>\n

He said the United States is doing better than any other major economy in the world and has created more jobs in the Obama presidency than in any other administration since the last Democrat held the office\u2014allowing the audience to reflect on who that was.<\/p>\n

\"Hands\"<\/a>

David Crisp\/Last Best News<\/p>

Clinton lingered long after his speech to shake hands.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re first or second in the world in every scientific survey,\u201d he said, \u201cand our party still believes in science.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he acknowledged that many Americans feel that things are out of their control, in part because 80 percent of Americans have not received a pay raise since the Great Recession. Trump\u2019s \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d slogan is just code for \u201cYou\u2019ve been shafted. I\u2019m going to make it the way it used to be,\u201d Clinton said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBridges,\u201d he said, \u201cwork better than walls.\u201d Even if the bridges need a few speed bumps to slow things down, that\u2019s still better than building walls, he said.<\/p>\n

Why try to recover the past, he asked, when we could ride on an escalator together.<\/p>\n

He laid out a series of policy proposals, among them:<\/p>\n

\u2666 Increasing the minimum wage.<\/p>\n

\u2666\u00a0Moving toward clean energy and smart manufacturing to create new jobs.<\/p>\n

\u2666\u00a0Tightening overtime regulations, as the Obama administration has just done.<\/p>\n

\u2666\u00a0Turning on the Small Business Administration \u201cspigot\u201d to get more loans to small businesses.<\/p>\n

\u2666\u00a0Preserving Dodd-Frank restrictions on Wall Street.<\/p>\n

\u2666\u00a0Reducing student debt by allowing students to refinance loans and by giving students who spend time in AmeriCorps or other public service work $23,500 tax-free to reduce their debt.<\/p>\n

\u2666\u00a0Increasing the focus in schools on skills training.<\/p>\n

\u2666\u00a0Setting a minimum tax rate for the wealthiest Americans.<\/p>\n

\u2666\u00a0Providing tax breaks for those who invest in impoverished communities, such as on Indian reservations. \u201cThere are too many places left out and left behind,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u2666\u00a0Passing immigration reform.<\/p>\n

\u2666\u00a0Releasing nonviolent offenders more quickly.<\/p>\n

\u2666\u00a0Awarding tax credits to companies that share their profits by activities and investments that benefit the nation. Some companies focus only on profits, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir shareholders say, \u2018We don\u2019t care about the workers,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cOften they don\u2019t even care about the customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that Hillary Clinton is the best candidate to break congressional gridlock because she had a history when she was in the U.S. Senate of working with Republicans to pass legislation for children\u2019s healthcare, to increase adoptions out of foster care, to help New York City after 9-11 and to improve equipment and healthcare for the military.<\/p>\n

He said her focus always has been on finding a way to make something good happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s spent a lifetime saying, \u2018What are we going to do about it?\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He urged Montanans to give her their support \u201cnot because you\u2019re against somebody else but because you want to build a bridge.\u201d<\/p>\n

In characteristic fashion, Bill Clinton lingered long after his speech to shake hands with and talk to many in the crowd, accompanied by Secret Service agents as he slowly worked his way around a rail that separated him from those who wanted to see him up close.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s still good,\u201d said Angie Cormier as the crowd slowly dissipated. He sounded as if he could still run for president, she said, \u201cbut I\u2019m glad it\u2019s Hillary.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former President Bill Clinton showed some of his old political touch in Billings on\u00a0Friday, but he told a crowd at Middle James Middle School that this year\u2019s presidential campaign is not about the past. \u201cI\u2019m not trying to take you back in time,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m getting you to look forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":12239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[3857,1277,2853,1428,4403],"class_list":["post-12238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-bernie-sanders","tag-bill-clinton","tag-donald-trump","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-will-james-middle-school","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}