Hillary and Chelsea: “Well, here we are!

Katharine Q. Seelye’s piece in today’s NY Times offers a moving tribute to Hillary Clinton’s campaign effort this past weekend.

Seelye begins:

“On Mother’s Day, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was not served breakfast in bed. She did not go to a fancy lunch, or get to be queen for a day.

“Instead, she rose early and spent a 16-hour day slogging through a cold rain in West Virginia, the next state on her to-do list.

“Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain took the day off.”

Seelye quotes Clinton:

“I’ve come to believe that hard work, determination and resiliency are encoded in our DNA,” she said of women. “We know that we have the ‘worry’ gene. We know we have the ‘put your coat on because it’s cold outside’ gene. But we also have the ‘stand up and fight for what you believe in’ gene.” This brought thunderous applause.

Seelye adds more words from Clinton:

In a reflective and conversational tone, she blended the experiences of everywoman, from “all these mothers who take whatever life throws at us,” and the mother who “gets up every morning, gets the kids ready for school, does the laundry, buys the groceries, cooks the dinners, helps on the homework and maybe works the dayshift, a nightshift or a double shift” to those who “dare to compete in the boardroom and the backroom.”

Finally, Seelye reported:

“Mrs. Clinton had her own Mother’s Day celebration on Saturday, with her family at home in Chappaqua, N.Y. Her husband gave her flowers, as did her daughter, and jointly, they gave her a vase and a small perfume bottle, both from West Virginia.

“The family also shared a meal together, aides said, a rare treat for this triumvirate of campaigners, who regularly make six or eight stops during the course of their separate 18-hour days.

“Asked at the Jarvis house on Sunday how she was celebrating Mother’s Day, Mrs. Clinton looked at her daughter.

‘“Well,” she said, and the two threw their arms around each other, beaming and saying almost simultaneously: ‘Here we are!”’

My Hillary Clinton Mother’s Day Card and Word from West Virginia

After church yesterday, I enjoyed dinner at the home of my son Steve and his wife Nancy. Steve waited expectantly as I opened the envelope containing my Mother’s Day card. The front of the card featured an attractive photo of Hillary Clinton and the words: “I know the job is probably the hardest in the world. It involves dealing with wars, handling disputes, and trying to manage unbelievable problems and challenges every single day.”

Inside, the card read: “But enough about being a Mom.”

Chatting with Steve and Nancy out on their sunny deck, I was reminded that on Mother’s Day 1980, I joined thousands of women in Chicago’s Grant Park to march in support of the Equal Rights Amendment. Our slogan on that occasion was “Give Mom equal rights for Mother’s Day.”

In the meantime, while I basked in the sun and enjoyed my grilled turkey burger, Hillary was hard at work on the campaign trail, touring the birthplace of Mother’s Day in West Virginia. Clinton visited the home of Ann Jarvis, credited with founding Mother’s Day 100 years ago.

The AP reported:

“Clinton spoke to reporters afterward and told stories about women who have changed history by pressing for equal rights and breaking into male-dominated careers.

“She highlighted her own mother's working-class upbringing and quoted from letters she said mothers have written her recently.”

Over at CNN, Bill Schneider is pondering how a big win for Clinton in tomorrow’s West Virginia primary might impact the Democratic race. Noting that the latest polls show Clinton with a 43-point lead, Schneider contends: “A big Clinton win will send a powerful message that there are a lot of Democrats not ready to get on the Obama bandwagon.”

It looks as if Kentucky is waiting in the wings to give Clinton another big win in that state’s primary a week later.

All of this is to say that Obama hasn’t got the nomination wrapped up yet and it’s always smart not to count Hillary Clinton out.

And besides, a lot of us mothers have got her back.

Obama Camp Ignores Latest Polls to Project May 20 Victory

Photo credits: AP



The sky’s the limit for arrogance in the Obama Camp; the press has received word that Obama will declare victory on May 20.

I’d suggest that Axelrod, et al, take a closer look at RCP’s latest poll averages:

Clinton leads Obama by 43 points in West Virginia, and she’s ahead by 34 in Kentucky.


Despite the media’s shameful attempt to force Clinton from the race this week, the contest is a dead heat in the national polls with Obama leading Clinton among Democrats by a paltry 2.1 percentage points.



Big margins in the upcoming primaries could give Clinton the lead in the popular vote, so a word to the wise to Obamaphiles: curb your arrogance until the Democratic Party - not your advisors - has declared its 2008 nominee.