New Haven Independent

Live From New Haven! The Hillary Show

by Paul Bass | February 4, 2008 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

… or was it Sally Jesse Raphael?

At times it felt more like a cozy, daytime TV studio than a high-stakes last-minute stop before the Super Tuesday presidential primaries when Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton came to town Monday morning. Clinton hosted a 90-minute women’s roundtable talk about health care at the Yale Child Study Center.

The appearance reflected two thrusts of Clinton’s campaign as Connecticut and 21 other states (plus American Samoa) prepare to vote on Tuesday: A pitch to women. And a focus on health care.

Amid personal and policy-oriented conversation, Clinton delivered a four-minute prepared news bite: A renewal of her call for achieving universal health care by opening up U.S. Congress’s own health plan to the nation’s 47 million uninsured people as well as under-insured people.

Clinton pitched the plan as smart politics, a way to grab the universal health care grail that eluded her in the Clinton I years.

Her plan could pass, she argued, because Democrats already support universal health care; and Republican lawmakers would be hard pressed to vote against giving everyday Americans the same health care plan they themselves receive.

“If it’s good enough for Congress,” she said, “It’s good enough for everybody else.”

She said she learned from the collapse of her health care plan in 1994 that it works best to build on an existing plan. Even though people want change, they also fear it, she said. Her plan would rely on the private market and allow people to keep their current insurance plans if they like them.

Click on the play arrow to watch Clinton make the case and detail her proposal.

Clinton said she’d pay for the plan in part by removing the Bush tax cuts for people earning more than $250,000 a year. If they return to paying the income tax rates they paid in the 1990s, she said, the country would have another $55 billion to pay for health care. She’d also offer low-income people tax credits to help pay for her plan.

A Friendly Island

Monday’s event took place at a friendly island within decidedly Barack Obama territory: New Haven, and Yale. The 200 people jammed into a second-floor conference room included lots of top statewide politicians, like Attorney General Dick Blumenthal, the mayors of Stamford and Bridgeport (as well as 2006 Congressional candidate Diane Farrell, pictured at the top of the story with Clinton). Noticeably absent were New Haven’s mayor, all but one of its state legislators, all but one alderman (Alex Rhodeen, whose father, Penn, introduced his old friend Hillary), top Yale officials, even many leading figures from Clinton’s alma mater, Yale Law School. Obama fever has gripped New Haven’s political establishment, its activists, as well as much of Yale.

However, Yale Child Study remains home, and a safe place to erect a televised campaign tent, for Clinton. She worked there as a research assistant as a Yale law student in the early ’70s, participating in some cutting-edge work on child abuse and mainstreaming students with disabilities.

At a time when Obama momentum has put her once-solid national lead in peril, the Yale Child Study visit offered supporting surroundings as well as a stage for Clinton’s command of health-care issues.

Props were assembled, including a toy-filled table set for Isabella Ray (pictured), 5, and her 8-year-old brother Austin. Their mom was on the panel.

Acting as emcee, Clinton nodded, took notes, and added sisterly seconds to the stories of the 11 women selected to sit around a wooden conference table and tell their stories. Some were single parents telling of struggles to pay health insurance or afford medicine or child care, wrestle with family members’ cancer or asthma of mental illness.

When one low-income mom from Waterbury spke of having five children — then corrected herself to say say four, since one had grown up and left home — Clinton interjected without missing a beat. “You’re always a mother,” she said. “It never ends.” Knowing laughter rippled through the studio audience.

The panel included recently retired New Haven police Det. Hilda Kilpatrck (pictured), who spoke of her experiences with young victims of violence as well as with people suffering from mental health problems.

Clinton also spoke of the need for more nursing professors to address a nursing shortage that coincides with an aging population.

During Monday’s show, Clinton introduced a second issue she has increasingly emphasized on the campaign trail: the nation’s foreclosure crisis, stemming from deterioration of the sub-prime mortgage market. She called for a moratorium on home foreclosures. Click on the play arrow to watch her discuss the issue.

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Comments

Posted by: True New Havener | February 4, 2008 2:22 PM

Is using a tax exempt non-profit as this much of a staged prop appropriate?

I understand that politicians go to youth centers all the time for events and announcements, but they don't usually lock the door and run a closed campaign event.

Did Yale charge rent? Were protesters (don't think there would be any but still) allowed to participate.

Again no problem with the idea of a candidate visiting a school to tell about her/his public school platform, but if the principal then locks the door, only supporters are allowed in, and what is basically a staged campaign event is run by the public school staff, while the cameras role, well then that's far from right.

Yale has a massive endowment because of its tax exemption. It should as a matter of public good, allow politicians to tell audiences about their ideas, and it should encourage civic activism. But that tax exemption also requires that it not engage in political campaigns.

This seems to pretty clearly cross that line. It has lent the legitimacy of its name, or at least that of the Yale Child Study Center, to this candidate.

Posted by: cedarhillresident | February 4, 2008 2:28 PM

These are Hillary's stand on the issues

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/

I have to stand by her. I love Obama. But I am really worried that people are not voting on the issues. I could be wrong. This is not American Idol it is the next president of this United States. I have read all there is to read on both candidates and just feel she is the better. The one that can get change. Change I can count on. Maybe Obama could be here VP...what a dream team that would be.

Posted by: ROBN | February 4, 2008 2:47 PM

Its funny that people often think of Hillary as a softy liberal with a great record on health care even though she's a war hawk and she spent seven years on the board of Walmart, the largest private employer in the US with the country's worst record on salary and health care coverage for employees.

I'm not making this stuff up...please rethink it Cedarhill.

Posted by: Our Town | February 4, 2008 2:54 PM

Does anyone know what she's talking about when she says she has thirty five years of experience? Doing what? Certainly not as Chief Executive of the US, the only experience that would count.

Posted by: sailfiend | February 4, 2008 5:12 PM

Hope all of these employees, Mayors, Attorney General, Import-Export bank directors used vacation time to support an election like the worker they pretend to protect and represent.

VOTE REPUBLICAN!!!!

Posted by: anon | February 4, 2008 5:16 PM

Robn, is Obama even remotely electable?

Sen. Obama went to Idaho today to reassure voters there that he has consistently supported gun ownership, saying that he has "no intention of taking away folks' guns."

But the AP reported that in a 1996 questionnaire Sen. Obama said he "supported banning the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns."

Which one of Sen. Obama's positions do you think the Republican nominee will tout in the fall?

Posted by: cedarhillresident | February 4, 2008 6:02 PM

ROBN
I have battled with the choose for months because they are both such great candidates. I do know about the walmart gig and all the other things that she has done wrong. I can find bad in both

This was just emailed to me facts on both I will review them and posted links for others to review
here is her record
http://www.issues2000.org/Senate/Hillary_Clinton.htm#Health_Care

and here is Obama
http://www.issues2000.org/Senate/Barack_Obama.htm#Health_Care

Posted by: anon | February 4, 2008 8:24 PM

Obama = No Health Insurance.

Unfortunately, celebrities don't care about the poor.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/opinion/04krugman.html

Posted by: bugupit | February 4, 2008 8:42 PM

Diane Ferrell ran away from grassroots support and ran away from the most progressive of mainstream Democratic policies. She and Sen. Clinton share a Democratic Leadership Council past. Her appearance today demonstrates in yet another way that while it is Obama who can and will work and negotiate with the Republicans to build concensus, HRC is a liberal-dodging centrist who will alienate the left and be shunned by the right.

Posted by: Fedupwithliberals | February 4, 2008 10:00 PM

It's amazing how low we've set the bar for the highest office in the nation, and most powerful leader of the free world!

Posted by: robn | February 4, 2008 10:33 PM

Anon,

I'd say since Obama's a US senator, that makes him a pretty electable guy. As far as gun control, he's been consistantly against assault weapons and cheap handguns that plague inner cities. I haven't seen the wording of your Ohio reference, but if he's pandering to hunters in Ohio, to me that its a minor sin compared to Hillary's being on the board of Walmart, one of the most destructive corporations on the face of the planet. They are taking apart the middle class, one town at a time.

Cedarhill...

thank you for the information on candidates. To be frank with you, my reason for disliking Hillary is her war stance and her past record with Walmart. To be even more frank, as much as I hate misogyny, it exists quite strongly in the democratic party and I know for a fact that there will be mass defections from the Democratic party if she's anywhere near the ticket. Not to mention the number of Republicans she'll reactivate who would otherwise stay at home, having been frustrated by recent radical Republican spending and nation-building. The realpolitik is that she's politically radioactive and simply unelectable. If she wins the primary, the election is over and there will be another 4 to 8 years of Republicans.

Posted by: jacksmith | February 4, 2008 11:48 PM

Bottom Line:

Like all of you. I know that health care is the most critical, and important issue facing the American people. Now, and in the coming elections. And like the vast majority of the American people, I want HR 676 (Medicare For All) passed into law NOW! "Single payer, Tax Supported, Not For Profit, True Universal Health Care" free for all as a right. Like every other developed country in the world has. See: http://www.house.gov/conyers/news_hr676.htm

"HR 676:
For church goers: less money to insur. companies and more to the church- lots more.
Srs on Medicare: save way over $100/wk. Because no more medigap, long term care & dental insur. needed. No more drug bills."

But if we the American people fail to bring enough pressure on our current politicians to get HR 676 passed into law before the elections. We will have to identify, and replace all the politicians standing in the way of passage of HR 676. And, I think the best first place to start is with the politicians that blocked the bipartisan SCHIP bills for the kids. Passed by congress twice.

But what about the President. It was Bush after all that blocked the bipartisan SCHIP bill passed by congress to assure more health coverage for Americas kids. So which of the presidential hopefuls do I think will be most supportive of implementing the demand of the majority of the American people to have HR 676 (Medicare For All) passed into law immediately!

We have some very fine presidential candidates who would make good presidents. But none of the top Presidential candidates directly support HR 676, the only true Universal Health Care plan. So I am supporting Hillary Clinton. She is the only top candidate that has ever actually fought for universal health care before.

I have enormous admiration, and respect for Hillary Clinton. She fought a pitched battle against overwhelming odds back in 1993. To prevent this disastrous health care crisis that is now devastating the American people, and America. She fought so hard for the American people that she risk almost completely destroying her husbands presidency. I haven't forgotten her heroic effort. If any Presidential hopeful for universal health care deserves my support, it's her.

Also, if we the American people fail to bring enough pressure on our government to give us HR 676 which we all so desperately need NOW! Then we will need the most skilled politician we can get on our side to broker the best health care plan for the American people that we can get. Though it will be less than we need, and less than we deserve. The politician I think to best do this is Hillary Clinton. The Clinton's are probably the most skilled politicians in American history.

The insurance industry, and medical industry that has been ripping you off, and killing you has given Hillary Clinton so much money because they fear her. They have also given Barack Obama so much money because they fear Hillary Clinton. They think they can manipulate Barack Obama against the best interest of the American people better than they can manipulate Hillary Clinton. There is no race issue with Hillary Clinton. The Clinton's are the poster family for how African Americans want white people to be towards African Americans.

As always, African Americans are suffering, and dieing in this health care crisis at a much higher rate than any other group in America. The last time there was any significant drop in the African American death rate was when Bill Clinton was president.

My fellow Americans, you are dieing needlessly at an astounding rate. In higher numbers than any other people in the developed world. Rich, and poor a like. Insured, and uninsured. Men, women, children, and babies. And we the American people must stop it. And fix it NOW! Keep Fighting!!! Never! give up hope. There are millions of lives at stake. Bless you all... You are doing great!

Posted by: THREEFIFTHS | February 5, 2008 1:23 AM

Robn
You say that you dislike Hillary for her war stance and her past record with walmart, I agree
But you should also dislike Obama Who came to this state and supported joe liberman over Ned lamot and his wife michelle obama was on the board
of tree house a vendor for walmart!!! This is why i say Wolf And Fox.

Posted by: robn | February 5, 2008 10:04 AM

3-5ths,

Obama endorsed Joe Lieberman prior to the Democratic senate primary. When Ned Lamaont later won the primary, Obama supported him becuase he was the Democrtatic candidate.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/27/ap/politics/mainD8L0MB280.shtml

I'm not sure I understand your indictment of Michelle Obama...she was on the board of a food company (pickles and peppers) and that company sold food to Walmart. If theres something incriminationg about the way Treeehouse treats its own workers please say it, but they wouldn't have any control over Walmart's treatment of its workers.

Posted by: WTIC | February 5, 2008 11:59 AM

WTIC-AM's morning show hosts, Ray and Diane, talk with Bill Clinton, Former U.S. President regarding Hillary's Presidential Campaign and Super Tuesday Primaries.

Live From New Haven! The Hillary Show

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