Bill Clinton takes a poll

Bill Clinton ended his six-stop sweep through the Metroplex with his biggest crowd of over 600 supporters at Marine Park in Fort Worth's Northside.

The mostly Hispanic crowd booed any reference Clinton or the speakers before him made to Barack Obama.

Clinton asked the audience how many of them knew someone who didn't have health care. From the press riser, it looked like every hand in Marine Park shot up.

He then touted his wife's plan to provide universal health care by offering the same health plan members of Congress get to the rest of the country.

"If it's good enough for my family, it's good enough for yours," the former president said.

-Aman Batheja

Comments

[Julie]

I attended Bill Clinton's rally at Marine Park this evening. While the majority of the crowd was Hispanic, I was nowhere near the only white person in attendance. There were also quite a few African-American supporters in the crowd.

Additionally, as President Bill Clinton rarely mentioned his wife's opponent by name - the crowd did not boo at Obama's name as you suggest. The former President referred to Obama as the "other guy" or the "other candidate."

I was also able to easily discuss the differences between Obama and Clinton without negativity from anybody. As my husband is an ardent Obama supporter, I paid close attention to this issue.

The crowd and I did boo at the mention of various failed Bush policies and McCain's warped Iraq war ideology. However, the supporters or speakers prior to President Clinton did not monger ill will towards Obama as you insinuate.

Plenty of news stations recorded the event. Watch the video. The event was not as you are characterizing.

Maybe the height from the press risers altered your perspective...I suspect you are not the only "journalist" mischaracterizing the Clintons and their supporters as running a negative campaign when this is not necessarily true.

Journalism is about reporting the news in an unbiased manner. As I am a former reporter and managing editor of a weekly paper, I truly understand the job description. Maybe as a blogger, you do not understand the need for objectivity.

I have noted my comments will not be posted unless you approve. To insure your boss is aware of your disconnect from the actual events of the Clinton rally, I shall forward these comments to him as well.

Julie

[Allen]

"How many people here know someone that..." is an old speechwriting trick meant to give the *illusion* that a problem is bigger than it actually is. If, instead, Bill had asked "How many people here don't have health insurance*", only a small percentage would have raised their hands.

For example, if you ask everone at a crowd "How many people here know somebody that is Jewish", just about everybody would raise their hand, despite the fact that only 2% of the U.S. population is Jewish.

This is nothing else but a statistical "trick" to falsely frame a problem that doesn't impact as many people as he would have you believe.