Clinton

Just a regular day at the office. I was working like mad to send off a document to our provost when I happened to look out my office window and saw Bill Clinton. He was on his cell phone and waving to people standing across the street. He was on campus giving a speech.

Later, I was thinking back to the 1992 campaign and how it seemed like we kept running into the Clintons since Missouri was a swing state (turns out a co-worker also had multiple run-ins with Bill). My group of fellow VISTA volunteers were really into the election. We started off our Clinton spree with a campaign speech on Labor Day in Independence, Missouri, at the Harry Truman place. We tried to get closer to Clinton by jumping over a couple of barricades and bushes but we never got close. We also avoided arrest. A month or so later, Clinton was in KC to prepare for the debates. We got up early on a Saturday morning to join him at the end of a fun run that was somewhere north of KC. As he finished up the race, he stood there shaking hands with people. I was shaking his hand when someone asked him a question. He didn't let go because he was distracted. My roommate nudged me to let go otherwise I would come across as needy. Hours later, we ended up at the Crown Plaza complex to do some shopping. We quickly realized that his debate preparations were taking place in the building. We lingered around and then just walked up to the front of the room and waited for him to come out. I remember chatting with James Carville and trying to discreetly tell my friends who I had just been joking around with. Bill and Hillary came out and talked to us. Shook their hands again and we talked to Hillary about our VISTA volunteer experiences.

Two days later, we saw Hillary twice in one day. We drove to Lawrence to see her speak to KU students. We dashed back to KC to hear her give a different speech at Democratic Headquarters. We soaked all of it in. We had a big sleepover to watch election results. The next day we had to drive to Sedalia, Missouri, for a VISTA training. We had Clinton signs all over the car and were obnoxious whenever we saw someone driving with a Republican bumpersticker.

My two favorite memories of that time in Missouri involve different politicians. We started following a candidate, Geri Rothman-Serot, who was running against Kit Bond. We despised Kit Bond. We started volunteering for her campaign even though we really had no idea what she stood for other than she gave excellent speeches and wasn't Kit. We were told to show up one day outside of a local television station and demonstrate against Kit and show our support for Geri. We showed up and discovered that we made up 5 of the 7 protesters. I actually felt bad for Kit when he walked out and saw us standing there with our anti-Kit signs. As you can probably guess, I had a sarcastic sign that I tried to hide.

Finally, my least favorite Missouri politican was William Webster. He was well-known for his fight against the Kansas City desegregation case and his anti-abortion fights (think Webster vs Reproductive Health Services). I took a lot of pleasure in his downfall and in his earlier defeat by Mel Carnahan. It was a great day when he was indicted. I happened to be at the Kansas City airport picking up a friend when I saw him hiding from reporters. I walked down 10 or so gates and told the reporters where they could find Webster. His stupid mug couldn't hide from me!

Those were the days. I've come a long way from my political stalking. The former me would have probably jumped out my office window to hug Bill. Now I know how to play it cool.