(Cross-posted from The Courage Campaign also at dailyKos)
As part of our Presidential Candidate ATM Watch series, I decided to try to follow Hillary Clinton while she was here in Los Angeles on Saturday. It was her first trip to our neck of the woods since announcing her candidacy for president and I figured what better way to track her than to go where she goes and capture whatever public appearances she makes on video. Will she actually address California's issues with California's voters? I had to find out.
I started out with very little to go on. All I knew were 2 vague pieces of information: 1. she was scheduled to appear at a "public event" with Mayor Villaraigosa in Los Angeles and 2. she would be attending a fundraiser in Laguna Beach at 11:45am. A google search gave me nothing. So I asked around. One of the tips I received was that Mayor Villaraigosa was going to be appearing at L.A. City Hall that morning to kick off Keep America Beautiful, a nationwide urban beautification project, as well as that of our local permutation Keep Los Angeles Beautiful. The event was to begin at 8am and while I had no confirmation that Hillary would attend, it seemed up her alley so I decided to operate under the assumption that she would be there.
So, I borrowed a video camera and set my alarm for 7am.
Follow me over the flip…
When I awoke Saturday morning, my first order of business was to google "Hillary Villaraigosa" again, the very same search that had resulted in nothing useful the previous evening. This morning, however, word had gone out: she would indeed be appearing at the mayor's side at city hall. Sweet!
I got in my car and headed off to the event.
I managed to park in a $6 lot nearby and made my way to city hall. It was sort of a ghost town, with only media and an army of young Keep America Beautiful volunteers gathered in front of a fence-like barricade at the base of the building's steps. Behind the barricade sat many empty chairs and a podium. It wasn't until 9am that there was any sign of life on "stage" but little did I know what a lineup was in store. As the launch of Keep America Beautiful, the event featured song and dance from green-friendly groups, children from local schools, as well as a call to action by Darryl Hannah, Ed Begley Jr. and "Recycle Man" (yep, we can get pretty surreal up here in L.A., ourselves…) Finally, as 10am approached, the mayor and the senator were introduced to the blaring trumpets of the All City marching band.
After a relatively brief (and enthusiastic) speech by the mayor to introduce the Keep America Beautiful campaign, Villaraigosa then turned to Hillary. What was interesting about the whole thing was how sort of lowkey her appearance was. Neither of them mentioned the fact that she is running for president and while that fact certainly goes without saying, I liked how there was a sort of silent acknowledgement that this event wasn't about her.
In her brief speech, which she literally seemed to give off the top of her head, Hillary focused on improving the environment; her message: it takes a village.
And while the speech could have been given anywhere, she did customize it to California:
California has led the way. California, through conservation and energy efficiency and laws that really make it clear that you want it done in the most efficient way. You want cars to continue to take people all over L.A. and California but you want to increase gas mileage. The rest of the country needs to follow the example that the state and city here have set and I intend to do all I can to try to make sure that's exactly what we do.
Umm, actually, Senator, we'd really prefer not to have to take our cars all over creation, it's just we have no other choice. But I digress…
The full video of her speech is here:
Once the speech ended, Hillary and Antonio posed for pictures, handed out some local environmental awards and finally sort of worked the crowd at the barricade. I went off to get some food and plan my next move. I knew that Hillary would be heading down to Laguna Beach next but I still didn't know where. Was it worth heading all the way down there (an hour's drive) only to come up empty handed? What the hell, I figured, if nothing else it would be an adventure.
I was on the road around 11am and had a fairly traffic-free ride. I had jotted down the general freeway instructions to Laguna but since I didn't know where exactly I was going, I had no real endpoint. So when I came upon the 73 toll road, I asked for directions into the heart of Laguna and figured I'd start there.
I first thought I might be on the right track when I came upon Rte 1, which ran along the ocean. I saw what looked like the driveway to a country club backed up with cars…hmm, I wondered, could that be it? I stopped at a drive-thru ice cream place and asked if they knew where Hillary would be for a fundraiser. They didn't but said I might want to check out the Patriots Day parade going on down the road a bit. It was as good a place to start as any.
I headed into the little downtown area and parked. There was no parade in sight so I figured I'd poke my head into a few stores and see what leads I could find. In the second store I entered, I met a man named Alex who seemed fairly confident that she was staying at "the hotel across from the Ritz" and that that was where the event would be: "…the tents are all set up and everything." Hmm, OK, at least it was something. He pointed me in the direction and as I drove down the 1, I called the Ritz and got the number for the nearby hotel, which I proceeded to call under the auspices of looking for directions to the hotel as I was running late to the fundraiser. Not surprisingly, the concierge informed me that "Hillary Clinton is not holding a fundraiser here."
Arggh. A dead end. Well, I figured I'd keep driving in the same direction and see what I could see. Suddenly on my right was a lineup of anti-war protesters. I slowed down as I drove by and honked my support. As I passed through an intersection, I saw two women adorned with STOP THE WAR paraphernalia, walking up the street. I pulled over and rolled down my window. "Do you guys know where Hillary is," I asked. Wouldn't you know it, one of them actually did and offered to write directions down for me in exchange for a ride to her house. I obliged.
Once armed with directions, I headed up to the private home where the fundraiser was being held. It was located in the area that locals call the "top of the world" as it was at the top of a huge hill, not surprisingly, in quite a wealthy neighborhood. Military Families Speak Out had planned a small protest there and I was happy to join them as they waited outside the home in hopes that perhaps Hillary would speak to them on her way out. Either way it would make good video.
Judge for yourself below. I was right about one thing…it was quite an adventure.
We'll continue to track the candidates as they travel to our fair state, the ATM of presidential campaigns. We're under no illusion that that practice will end, we'd just like them to speak to some ordinary voters while they're here and address California's issues, not just take our money and run off to Iowa.
So check in with us HERE for our ongoing adventures tracking the candidates and please join the conversation. Have a tip of where a candidate is going to be? Leave it in the comments or e-mail it to me at todd AT couragecampaign DOT org. And if you've gone to an event, we'd love to post your take on it here on the blog – with video of course if you have it!