Episode 015... Hillary Clinton at UCSB

When does a Town-Hall Meeting become a Raucous Rally??
The appearance at UCSB by a leading Presidential candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton, was a little of both Thursday night, 17 January 2008. (The deliberately limited crowd of about 1100 was loud, but actually not that raucous.)

Although Team Hill called the event a "Town-Hall Meeting", the blaring Big Head Todd and screaming student supporters made this event a true rally with a few questions from the audience during the latter half. One up-close video post even called the event "town hall-esque" and local news coverage plainly called the event a true rally in their headlines.

HRC spoke for about 1:10 hours total for her stump-speechy remarks, honed a bit for a college audience with a theme looking forward 25 years about how great America would be if HRC were elected as President now.

photo by Paul Wellman

Perhaps as a counterpoint to OLPA episode 013 covering Barack Obama at SBCC, this regularly scheduled OLPA episode Hillary Clinton at UCSB debuted most quickly on Santa Barbara Channels (cable TV-17), less than a week after the HRC rally occurred at UCSB Pavilion Gymnasium at the newish campus Recreation Center.

This regular (28:30 minutes) Off-Leash Public Affairs (OLPA) episode only had time for about 2/3 of her introduction and initial remarks, but if HRC garners the Democratic party nomination another OLPA video certainly will be produced to include the audience questions and the HRC responses that expanded well into new topics not covered in her initial remarks.

An additional, future OLPA video production also would feature the comments, candidate preferences, and the spectacle of the crowd of at least 3000 people waiting outside to get into the gym, most of whom later were disappointed to highly irked that they did not gain admission. The Hillary campaign later apologized in a letter to Daily Nexus.

This OLPA episode Hillary Clinton at UCSB concludes with a short interview with former County Supervisor Susan Rose, who is a lead organizer for Santa Barbarans for Hillary, the local Clinton campaign organization. OLPA Co-Producer David Pritchett also interviews Kathleen Modugno, recent Board chair of Democratic Women of Santa Barbara County. OLPA episode 003 featured interviews with local Democrats on their wide preferences for Prez during July 2007.

This Hillary at UCSB video started playing on TV-17 on Wednesday (23Jan.) for 9 replays ending Monday (04Feb.), the eve of Super-Duper Tuesday. The TV-17 schedule for Hillary included an extra replay at 1100 on 25Jan. The Obama at SBCC episode also is replaying on TV-17, per the schedule outlined in its website entry.

As more than half the people in the gym that night seemed to have a camera, some other interesting videos up close from the floor are posted on the Internets, such as here and here and here.

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