I confess, I’m coming in at Q & A time, but because she keeps talking and since I’ve been taking old school notes, I’ll blog her (plus my husband insisted I watch her…).

Somebody named Katie (sorry, missed her last name) insists everyone take their cell phone and call 5 people to tell them they’re at the Hill rally and why they’re voting for her. Katie erroneously says this is the first time this has ever been done, but Obama’s been doing this for months.

Darlene Hooley is introduced and says Hillary is the only one to pull ‘us out of the disaster of the Bush presidency.’
‘Do you want prosperity? Do you want universal health care? Do you want to end the war in Iraq?
It’s at this point that someone in my house asks, ‘why do they talk about ‘getting out’ of Iraq? Why do they never talk about ‘winning’ in Iraq?’

Teddy the K is introduced, a bit hamfistedly, by Hooley (but Hooley was quite winning in her own way)
Ted says Hill is the smartest presidential candidate and that’s why she’s the best candidate (which brings us to 2004: why did they back Kerry, then?)
Ted says she wants to make our lives better and from day one she’ll be ready to be commander in chief. Plus she promises to give us universal health care and to solve the problem of global warming.

Hillary is introduced by Ted (slightly blowing the intro but, hey, that’s what happens in live events all the time).
Hillary promises to put Ted in the line up when it comes time to a bowl-off with Barack Obama because Ted’s so great and Barack’s so bad.
(can I please go back and watch Serena and Ivana now? Serena is just killing her right now. How about Serena for President?)
“High” lights
Did Hillary really meet Dr. King when she was 14? I’m going back to my Hill books to check.
She wants to make college affordable again and wants to make the government in charge of the direct loan program again. Goes through crowd and asks some of the interest rates which range from 23%-25% .
(Jankovic is getting her clock cleaned by Serena)
She trots out her ‘what didn’t you like about the 90’s, the peace or the prosperity’ line again? (let me count the ways)
She says she wants to get rid of “predatory” student lenders. (Oh, great the government in charge of loans and mortgages. If you want to raise the prices of housing and college put the gov’t in charge)>
She claims that as president she’s have a green advisory board and will cut greenhouse gases by 80% (you think grocery and fuel’s expensive now?) and reduce our “foreign” oil imports by 2/3 (uh, sorry Canada and, by the way, we want to redo the NAFTA agreement which, Hillary, means Canada doesn’t have to honor its preferential oil prices for us anymore).
She claims that Portland greenhouse gases have been reduced from the 1990’s levels (a study which has been debunked and dismissed but they didn’t bother to tell Hill).
Holy crow, Serena is giving away the second set to Jankovic! Some serious unforced errors going on–which reminds me, Hill often gives up unforced errors–lying about Bosnia, for instance. Why do that?)
She wants to set up a federal green building directive to make sure buildings are built green.
She hands over the mic to an organic farmer who doesn’t want to lose her crop for a year while an LNG terminal is built near her house in Gale’s Creek.
Hillary says she’s fighting an LNG terminal that Dick Cheney and his cronies allowed to be built in the “middle of Long Island Sound.” Es verdad?
An OHSU nurse asks a question about stem cell research and Hill says she’d ask congress to send her a bill Bush has vetoed twice and she’ll sign it (can’t declare an egg a life. Hey what about the adult stem cell break throughs recently? Does she not read the papers? I thought only the G-4-3 doesn’t read papers.)
A teacher (I think) asks about improving the schools without ‘being punitive.’ Hillary says her choice of words is spot on, ‘punitive’ being the operative word. (They want job security without having to show that how they’re teaching is effective. Can I do that?)
A shout out to the Intel Science winner in the audience.
Hillary says she wants there to be a wholesale effort by the feds to make our nation energy independent (NOW can we drill in ANWR?) and if the ‘oil companies don’t do it I’ll impose windfall profits taxes! (What’s a windfall profit? The part that goes back to investors or the part they give up to the feds, states, and locals in taxes; or the part they use for oil exploration?)
A child asks the question about why the rivers are drying up and what are we going to do about water.
Hillary kindly tells the child that it’s an ‘excellent question’ (nice touch, Hill) and proceeds to grasp for a way to answer the question. Talks about it being a state and local issue. Doesn’t feel the need to ask the kid what the heck she’s talking about, but, hey, as long as the Bush administration is allowed to let the “rivers dry up,” why ruin a question she can riff on? But she can’t really riff on it. She’s smooth but her response involves mostly a series of program suggestions and questions and platitudes.
(Serena is well in hand in a third set. Goooooooooo Serena!)
Hillary is still talking and taking questions.
(Serena eventually screws up triple set point and comes back to win on Jankovic’s serve).
Hillary is done, thankfully, at 11:22am.
On to Eugene (or is it Medford?).
Don’t care.
Go Hill, I’m voting for you on May 20th!
Change your registration to become a democrat for a day. Sign up by April 29th.