Senator Clinton at the JJH

I was going to title this, "The Insult 37 State Strategy Comes to Canton", but I opted on taking it easy on our Hillary supporters here.

Wow, what an exciting week we are having in my home state. Democrats here are outorganized, outfinanced and outnumbered. Starving for relevance, we have found it in the Democratic Primary here on Tuesday. There is real palpable excitement in the air. I am not sure if we are even outnumbered anymore, by worst measures we are at least in the fight.

Tonight, Thursday the 6th, we had Hillary speaking at the Jefferson Jackson Hamer Dinner in Canton, Mississippi at 7:30. At 5:30 I attended a Barack Obama visiblity rally at the front entrance of the building where the Clinton event occured. Tommorow night I am driving 3 hours north to my real hometown to see the Big Dog speak at a fish fry. Monday my man Barack Obama brings his message of change and hope to the Magnolia State. What a week for a Dem political junkie...


We arrive at the Canton Multi-Purpose Equine Center around 6:00 in time for the Obama rally which was only a hundred or so strong, but people came and went and I did arrive late. There was a small but vocal Clinton contingent there featuring a lady with a banjo belting Hillary cheers. We were laughing with the Sherrif's Officer about how she would be the one photo from the event with her banjo, making us look like a scene from Deliverence. I will give her credit for spunk and gall, she had both and in large measures.

Tickets were $125 for a plate and a seat or $50 for a seat in the bleachers. We elected to buy the dinner plan, since we both had come straight from work. Inside the crowd numbered well into the hundreds. It was a Mississippi melting pot as the Democratic Party is, with rich, poor, black, white, straight, gay, professional, working man you name it.

My friend and I hit the cash bar for a round or two and took our assigned seat. We had a great table. Sitting across from us were two black guys Greg and ???. We enjoyed a great conversation about politics for about a half hour before dinner was serverd. It was beautiful to see all the diversity sitting together talking and breaking bread. For vittles we had a choice of fried catfish, hush puppies, fries, cole slaw,and baked beans. The other choice was BBQ and fixins. We opted for the catfish.

In line I met a 78 year old man who was from Meridian and knew my dad, a longtime Mississippi Dem. I also met a man who was on his local school board. My father has served on school boards before, my sister teaches, and I work in IT for a school district, so that meant a lot to me. I also met some nice ladies from the coast in line for our fish.

I must say that the Obama crown came in force, with me included. I would venture to say the numbers were very close, if not an advantgae for Obama. While the event was pretty much a draw racially, there were a LOT more whites with Obama stickers than AA's with Clinton stickers. Most of all of the black folks I talked to had no hard feelings towards Hillary, but more of an excitement for their candidate. The look in some of their eyes, especially the really old ones, considering what they had seen and endured in their lifetimes, was something to behold.

Hillary took the stage around 8:30 or so. She did fine considering the poor acoustics in the metal building. She did sound tired, and who can blame her. As usual her substance was solid. She made no attacks at her opponent, but spoke more of her vision as it related to Mississippi. I agreed with 95% of everything she said. She did spend the first 5 minutes or so speaking on civil rights type talk that I have not heard in other stump speeches, but I may be wrong. But that would make sense considering the state, no foul either way. She wrapped up around 9:00.

I said I agreed with 95% of what she said. Here is the other 5%. She said she supported expanding drilling in the Gulf so we could benefit from our resources. Uh, NO!! Later she reiterated a right wing talking point that we gave the Iraqi people the ultimate gift, the gift of freedom. I wanted to puke, freedom via clusterbomb.

All in all it was a great event, and two things I drew out of it were that we are large in numbers this cycle and that we are fired up. But wait until Obama gets here Monday. It will be like the Beatles coming to America. The excitement is unreal in both the white and black communities, but the excitement in the black community for Obama is off the charts.