We spent the next day riding across Pennsylvania,...
- Posted at 11:24 PM on Wednesday, May 5, 2010 by minping4849
We spent the next day riding across Pennsylvania, bonding with each other as well as the crowds, growing more and more relaxed and excited, buoyed by the enthusiasm of people who came out to see us at the rallies or just along the highwayAt a truck stop in Carlisle, Al and I climbed up into the big trucks to shake hands with driversAt a Pennsylvania Turnpike rest stop, we tossed a football in the parking lotSomewhere on the trip we even fit in a round of miniature golfOn the third day, we worked our way out of western Pennsylvania and into West Virginia, where we toured Weirton Steel, a large integrated producer that the employees had bought from its former owner and kept runningThat night we went to Gene Branstools farm near Utica, Ohio, for a cookout with a couple hundred farmers and their families, then stopped in a nearby field, where ten thousand people were waitingI was stunned by two things: the size of the crowd and the size of the corn cropIt was the tallest and thickest I had ever seen, a good omenThe next day we visited Columbus, Ohios capital city, then made chanel quilted cheap handbag our way into KentuckyAs we crossed the state line, I was convinced we could win Ohio, as Jimmy Carter had done in 1976Since the Civil War, no Republican had won the presidency without capturing Ohio
On the fifth and final day, after a big rally in Louisville, we drove through southern Indiana and into southern IllinoisAll along the way, people were standing in fields and along the road waving our signsWe passed a big combine all decked out in an American flag and a Clinton-Gore posterBy the time we got to Illinois, we were late, as we were every day, because of all the unscheduled stopsWe didnt need any more of them, but a small group was standing at a crossroads holding a big sign that said Give us eight minutes and well give you eight years! We stoppedThe last rally of the evening was one of the most remarkable of the campaignWhen we pulled into Vandalia, thousands of people holding candles had filled the square around the old state Capitol Building where Abraham Lincoln had served a term in the legislature before the seat of government was moved to SpringfieldIt was chanel shopping bag very late when we finally pulled into StLouis for another short night
The bus tour was a smashing successIt took us, and the national media, to places in the American heartland too often overlookedAmerica saw us reaching out to the people we had promised to represent in Washington, which made it harder for the Republicans to paint us as cultural and political radicalsAnd Al, Tipper, Hillary, and I had gotten to know one another in a way that would have been impossible without those long hours on the bus
The next month we did four more bus tours, this time shorter ones of one or two daysThe second tour took us up the Mississippi River, from StLouis to Hannibal, Missouri, Mark Twains hometown, to Davenport, Iowa, up through Wisconsin, and all the way to Minneapolis, where Walter Mondale held a crowd of ten thousand for two hours by giving them regular updates on our progress
The most memorable moment of the second bus tour came in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where, after a meeting on biotechnology and a tour of the Quaker Oats packaging plant, we held a rally in the parking fake hermes lotThe crowd was large and enthusiastic, except for a loud group of opponents holding pro-life signs and jeering at me from the backAfter the speeches, I got off the stage and began working the crowdI was surprised to see a white woman wearing a pro-choice button and holding a black baby in her armsWhen I asked her whose child it was, she beamed and said, Shes my babyThe woman told me that the child was born HIV-positive in Florida, and she had adopted her, even though she was a divorce struggling to raise two children on her ownIll never forget that woman holding Jamiya and proudly proclaiming, Shes my babyShe, too, was pro-life, just the kind of person I was trying to give a better shot at the American dream
Later in the month, we did a one-day tour of Californias San Joaquin Valley, and two-day trips through Texas and what wed missed of Ohio and Pennsylvania, ending up in western New YorkIn September we bused through south GeorgiaIn October we did two days in Michigan and, in one hectic day, made ten towns in North Carolina
I had never seen anything like the fendi spy sustained enthusiasm the bus trips engenderedOf course, part of it was that people in small towns werent accustomed to seeing presidential candidates up closeplaces like Coatesville, Pennsylvania; Centralia, Illinois; Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin; Walnut Grove, California; Tyler, Texas; Valdosta, Georgia; and Elon, North CarolinaBut mostly it was the connection our bus made between the people and the campaignIt represented both the common touch and forward progressIn 1992, Americans were worried but still hopefulWe spoke to their fears and validated their enduring optimismAl and I developed a good routineAt each stop, he would list all of Americas problems and say, Everything that should be down is up, and everything that should be up is downThen he would introduce me and Id tell people what we intended to do to fix itI loved those bus toursWe motored through sixteen states and in November won thirteen of them
After the first bus tour, one national poll showed me with a two-to-one lead over President Bush, but I didnt take it too seriously because he hadnt really started to cartier santos white camp
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