Donald Trump was on 60 Minutes last night for what turned out to be a softball interview. He was allowed to say anything and wasn’t countered on anything. I watched just two minutes of it and was overwhelmed with everything he said that was flat out wrong.

Donald Trump: “We need strong borders. We have people coming to our country who can't be vetted properly. They don't have paperwork. They don't have anything. We don't even know where they come from.”

This is a lie. Trump is well aware of the fact that the United States has an extensive vetting program in place for those who seek refugee status in the United States.

Donald Trump: “Look, we have people that hate us. We have people that want to wipe us out. We have people that, if given the chance, will try to wipe us out.”

This is glaringly inaccurate. ISIS is not in favor of wiping us out for no reason. They have a real desire to establish a purely Islamic state based on the time from about 2 centuries after the Prophet Mohammad existed. By now, Trump should know this and to say otherwise is a lie.

Donald Trump: “And, as you know and as everyone knows, I was against the war in Iraq. I was totally against it, because I said it would destabilize the Middle East. And it has. That's exactly what has happened. It was a very bad decision. The way President Obama got us out of that war was a disaster.”

No we don’t know. Because the only thing he said about it was in March of 2003 when he said it was a mess. Not that he opposed it. Opposing a poorly run war is not opposing the actual start of the war.

Donald Trump: “And we are going to have surrounding states and very importantly, get NATO involved, because we support NATO far more than we should, frankly, because you have a lot of countries that are not doing what they are supposed to be doing.”

NATO has been involved in dealing with the Syrian and ISIS war since 2014. The individual member states are all involved and have been working to get rid of the group.

Donald Trump: “We have to wipe out ISIS. And speaking of Turkey, Turkey is an ally. Turkey can do it by themselves. But they have to be incentivized. For whatever reason, they are not. So, we have no choice.”

Actually this is something Turkey has said they can’t do themselves and they asked for help a long time ago.

Donald Trump: “Hillary Clinton invented ISIS with her stupid policies. She is responsible for ISIS. She led Barack Obama, because I don't think he knew anything. I think he relied on her.”

A woman. Invented a misogynist regime that enslaves women. No.

That was two minutes of Donald Trump on what was once a great place for reporting.

Friday brought exciting news! The 2016 Democratic Party Platform (PDF) was released to the collective yawn of everyone not obsessed with these kinds of things. So naturally, Frank told me to write about it because “it would be interesting.” The wreckage of my eyes due to the draft watermark was a special bonus just for me.

There has been quite a bit of ranting in the press over the supposed two sides (Clinton and Sanders) and the disagreements on various parts of the platform. But I don’t want to get into those kinds of fights on this blog as it is an oasis of calm compared to the rest of the internet. So I will just go over the highlights of the document.

Issue Number One: Economics

The primacy of economics is crystal clear in the 2016 Democratic Party Platform. The first two sections (after the standard preamble, “this is who we are” opening) were dedicated to economics. Although even that understates its importance, because the following two sections are also primarily interested in economics.

The section on the minimum wage and unions was artfully done, in my opinion. It blended the need for people to make a better wage ($15 an hour) with the right to organize and collectively bargain. These two issues alone would fix many of the biggest problems we face.

Economic Fairness

After dealing with improving the economy and creating good jobs, the platform transitions into issues of economic fairness. These often ignored issues greatly impact women and their families. They include: lack of equal pay, paid leave, and proper wages for caregivers. This is actually a big deal.

Unfortunately it did not include specific language that covers what is needed to achieve equal pay: transparency in wages. This, along with vigorous backing of those who bring up pay disparities, is crucial. It is a very real and important issue.

I like that paid leave has become a major issue. And just as important is the treatment of caregivers. They need to be rewarded in the one way we seem to use to measure respect in this country: more money. If you don’t like income inequality, this is one of the ways to fight it.

Wall Street and Trade

The Democratic Party Platform includes a lot of details on how to reign in Wall Street. But it is clearly a very careful effort to balance the divergent views on how to handle the problem that is Wall Street.

And that isn’t the only place that acknowledges that there are some major disagreements on policy. Trade policy is another. The TPP is mention only once and very carefully. The word is that Obama didn’t want the platform to come out against it. It is important to acknowledge dissenters even if their exact wording isn’t adopted.

Social Security

There is language to strengthen Social Security. It discusses making high income earners pay more, but it doesn’t seem to be referring to the payroll tax cap. Instead, it states, “And we will make sure Social Security’s guaranteed benefits continue for generations to come by asking those at the top to pay more, and will achieve this goal by taxing some of the income of people above $250,000.” (The current cap on payroll taxes is less than half of that.) I give it a pass, however, since I think that is something that needs to be legislatively worked out and they do mention making the wealthy pay more.

What’s most interesting about this section of the Democratic Party Platform is how clear it is about maintaining Social Security. When Republicans talk about making the program stronger, they almost always mean that they want to cut benefits. They don’t put it that way. They say they want to cut cost-of-living adjustments. The Democrats explicitly say no. The Republicans want to raise the retirement age. The Democrats explicitly say no. Most important, the Democrats explicitly say that strengthening Social Security requires investing in it — not cutting it until it is a useless program.

Miscellaneous

Since 2006, the Republicans have been on a mission to kill the Constitutionally mandated US Postal Service. So it was very nice to see that the Democratic Party Platform included proposed language to turn a portion of the USPS into a community bank.

The platform has multiple planks detailing how to improve and repair our current failing infrastructure. It calls for a “major federal jobs program” to address this problem. It also calls for a “national infrastructure bank” to pay for “critical infrastructure improvements.” These are exceptionally good ideas.

Death Penalty

For the first time (as far as I can tell) the Democratic Party Platform staunchly opposes the death penalty. The last platform barely mentioned criminal justice and didn’t say much other than more care should be taken for the imposition of the death penalty. This is a pretty big deal since it is stating something that a lot of the members have believed for a long time.

Final Thoughts on the 2016 Democratic Party Platform

One thing I noticed early on is that it entirely ignores the Republican Party. Usually these things are filled with language like, “And this is how we are different from our main opponents.” This time, it only mentions Donald Trump as if the Republicans are completely irrelevant. Considering the current mess of the party? That might be true.

The Democratic Party Platform is long — almost 40 pages. Almost every issue that Democrats care about is addressed in it. As a result, I haven’t gone over every detail and make this long post even longer. But it’s worth reading in whole — or at least skimming for issues you care about. And enjoy the fact that no matter what, it will be better than Trump’s the Republican’s.

In my continuing adventures of observing the political process in person, I went to the Democratic National Committee’s Platform Committee testimony section here in Phoenix. This is where the Committee asks ordinary people to weigh in on what they think the Platform should say.

Platforms have a long history in the US and elsewhere even though now few people read the ones put out by parties. In fact, you can say that Martin Luther’s 95 Theses were a platform as was the Communist Manifesto even though we don’t really think of them that way. The Democratic Party’s first one was in 1840, and it is slightly different than the one we will adopt in Philadelphia.

Once upon a time, they were a vital tool for parties to help spread the word about them and sometimes, like in 1948, were a way of saying to the world, :This is who we are. This is what we believe in. And this is why all of those former Democrats ran out the back when we adopted this.” The reason I mention that one is because it was the start of a major split of the Democratic Party that culminated in the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Johnson’s declaration that we would lose the South for a generation.

Platform Committee Testimony

I got there in the afternoon around 1:30. The room wasn’t super full since of course everyone could watch this on C-Span, so most people didn’t need to go in person. They were wrapping up the morning session on energy and the environment. While the speakers had 3 minutes each to talk, there was also time for questions and answers so naturally it took a long time.

I was at the Platform Committee meeting for the health and safety testimony in the afternoon session. There were a few stand outs. First was the President of Arizona’s College Democrats[1], Joseline Mata.  She was one of the students stuck in an abstinence only school and was asking that comprehensive sex education be given to students.

The next one was Monica R Simpson, executive director of SisterSong, a national organization devoted to women of color’s reproductive justice. She had an amazing story to tell and she was also one of those people who knows how to work a room — building emotions through the use of her mellifluous voice. She talked about the lack of access to all of reproductive health care, not just abortion, in many states. Later she was able to get a photo with Platform Committee member Dr Cornell West, who she obviously was excited to meet.

There were three women who spoke from the nurses union and they were not having any of this nonsense about the ACA. They want single payer and they want it now. This caused the closest thing to drama we had all day when Neera Tanden asked some rather pointed questions about Germany having a private insurance system that covers everyone. The last woman broke down in tears over how hard it was for her to use her insurance — she has it, but it is too expensive to use. This is one of those things that make policy decisions so difficult as an elected official because you don’t want to tell someone crying no, but…

The final speaker at the Platform Committee testimony was Pam Simon. Pam spoke about guns as she is now one of the members of Everytown for Gun Safety after surviving the shooting in Tucson. One of the things that stuck out to me were her remarks about how fast the shooting was. She said he killed and injured 19 people in fifteen seconds. She also described how ordinary of a day it was for her and her friends on staff — she expected to go with Gabe Zimmerman to help him pick out a place for him to hold his wedding.  She is a nice lady. (We sat next to each other for a little bit and I promised to take pictures of her speaking.)

Conclusion

It took a very long five plus hours to hear everything (started at 2:05, finished at 7:45) but it was interesting to observe. This is part of people having a say in how their country is run. Even though almost no one reads the actual documents anymore, they do stand as a collected statement of where a great deal of Americans are at.  It gives us a chance to give a voice to the voiceless beyond merely voting.  And we got to do it in air conditioning!

Anyway, Nevada had its primary on June 14th and there were some surprising results for Nevada 03 and 04.

Nevada 03

Going into the primary there was the colorful Michele Fiore v two establishment politicians.  Assemblywoman Fiore has frequently gotten some national press from her various stunts for attention such as when she took a very controversial photo with her family for her Christmas card. For those who are not fans of guns, the fact that the only people not armed were the carried toddlers, was definitely upsetting. The child in the middle is five years old and carrying a Walther P22.

However she lost with only 18% of the vote while Danny Tarkanian got about 31% making him the winner of the primary.  He is facing (and already attacking) Democrat Jacky Rosen who won her race with a comfortable 62% of the vote.

Nevada 04

This race was of particular interest because it was one of the down-ticket races that Senator Sanders endorsed a candidate in. There were three top Democratic candidates but it was mainly between Lucy Flores (endorsed by Sanders) and Ruben Kihuen who was endorsed by Senator Harry Reid.  Kihuen was also endorsed by the local culinary union which is fairly strong in the state but particularly in the district. There has been speculation on Twitter that Susie Lee being in the race led to Lucy Flores losing. Lee captured 21% of the vote and Flores, 26%. Regardless, Kihuen won the primary with 40% of the vote.

He now will face Representative Cresent Hardy and is already eagerly tying him to Donald Trump.

US Senate

I haven’t talked about the Senate race yet because I was focused on the House. But with Senator Harry Reid retiring, it is going to be a major battle for the Democrats to hold on to the Senate seat.

The two expected winners of their respective primaries: Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto and Republican Joe Heck caused no surprises as both won.

Catherine Cortez Masto would be the first Latina woman to serve as a US Senator. She served as the Nevada Attorney General and while she had something of a rocky time as the Attorney General, time heals all wounds.  She is endorsed by outgoing Harry Reid but I am not sure if she has been endorsed by the powerful (and active) culinary union that pushed Kihuen to victory in Nevada 04.

Joe Heck is a doctor/executive, former Army general, and current US Representative. In what may be a bad move, he has endorsed Donald Trump. This will give political observers a chance to see if embracing Trump hurts or helps someone.  Considering Trump’s sinking numbers: I think it will hurt him.  He is otherwise not a remarkable Republican officeholder.

November Outcome

In Nevada 03, Rosen seems to be a quiet campaigner while Tarkanian is ready to go against her.  How this will play out is anyone’s guess. She may decide to let him act like a bully while she simply continues to talk to voters. Meanwhile, in Nevada 04, Kihuen is going to take the fight to Hardy and push him hard.

For the Senate, it is also anyone’s guess.  The last polling that was done was back in December. The two candidates were evenly split with a lot of undecideds. So it depends on how they campaign against one another and how the very top of the ticket plays out.

Fittingly since this is the third in this series, I decided on Nevada’s third congressional district (NV-03).  This one is marked as a toss up by most observers. The incumbent, Joe Heck, is attempting to move up to the Senate to take the spot that Harry Reid has occupied for ages.

The district equally divided. It has had a Republican Representative since 2010, even while twice voting for Obama. With an open seat, it really is anyone’s guess how NV-03 will go in November.

The primaries have been packed. Seven Republicans are running: Kerry Bowers, Michele Fiore, Sami Khal, Andy Matthews, Michael Roberson, Danny Tarkanian, and Annette Teijeiro. And six Democrats are too: Barry Michaels, Jacky Rosen, Jesse Sbaih, Steven Schiffman, Alex Singer and Neil Waite. What’s more, there is an Independent American Party candidate: Warren Markowitz.

The Democrats and Republicans are both pushing hard to get this seat. Both national party organizations have invested directly into several campaigns.

Republicans in NV-03

The Republican candidates of particular note are Michele Fiore, Michael Roberson, and Danny Tarkanian.  All three are experienced campaigners.  Michele Fiore and Michael Roberson are former state legislators. And Danny Tarkanian ran in the 4th District.

Of the three, Assemblywoman Michele Fiore is the one who is best known. She’s gotten national attention for her love of guns, her outrage inducing statements, and her role in the Oregon Malheur National Wildlife Refuge stand-off.  She is something of a libertarian — supporting marriage equality and cannabis legalization.

Michael Roberson has served as both Majority Leader and Minority Leader in the Nevada State Senate since 2010.  He is a fairly conventional candidate and has raised the most money. He’s a member of the Republican Young Guns.

The third candidate, Danny Tarkanian, was the Republican nominee in the 4th Congressional District race in 2012. But he lost badly to Democrat Steven Horsford in the general election. He is also a member of the Young Guns.

Democrats in NV-03

Of them, the top candidate from the establishment is Jacky Rosen. She is the president of Congregation Ner Tamid, and was personally recruited by Harry Reid to run. In addition, Rosen has the support of the Democrats’ Red to Blue program as well as Emily’s List.

But Jacky Rosen has a serious challenger in Jesse Sbaih. He is generously self-funded, and is the first to have his ads up.  Sbaih has an interesting backstory. He immigrated from Jordan with his family when he was 11 years old. Since then, he has become a very successful attorney. He’s also married to a physician with whom he has three children. He has been in the news, claiming that Harry Reid told him to not run because he is Muslim and that a Muslim couldn’t win in that district.

Outlook in NV-03

Since this is a fairly evenly split district, it is unclear who will win the primaries (next Tuesday). The Democratic primary has been quiet. The Republican primary, however, has been very contentious. Jon Ralston has been reporting on the various efforts from both sides. It looks like Roberson is benefiting from establishment support with a lot of SuperPac money.

Ultimately, if the establishment candidates win their primaries, the general election will be close. The April straw poll showed that it was almost exactly split between Rosen and Roberson.  So it will be an interesting race to watch in November.

Up next in our series of Congressional Races is another Arizona race that is rated as a Leans Republican in the Cook Political Report. Arizona’s second Congressional District[1] is known for the tragic reason of the assassination attempt on Gabby Giffords that took place on 8 January 2011. After a year of attempting to recover, she resigned and a special election was held. The replacement race was won by Ron Barber who was another victim of the mass shooting. Ron won the first race in 2012 barely by 2,454 votes but then lost in 2014 by 161 votes. If anyone ever says your vote doesn’t count, it is races like these that prove them wrong.

So currently, incumbent Representative Martha McSally is considered a vulnerable candidate so she is part of the NRCC’s Patriots Program.

Martha McSally is a former fighter pilot and was apparently the first to be acknowledged having flown in combat. She was a Colonel in the Air Force and so is a bit on the militaristic side. She also has various degrees that she got from places like the liberal enclave of the US Air Force War College and (oddly enough) Harvard.) She serves mostly on armed forces committees and has been doing a ton of outreach in the district.

On the Democratic Side

On the Democratic side there are two candidates: former state representatives Victoria Steele and Matt Heinz.

Representative Steele is Native American (she is of the Seneca tribe) and she was a news anchor for years in the Tucson region. She was first elected to the State House in 2012 and won re-election in 2014. She has the backing of Raul Grijalva, who has served in a neighboring district for years. She has the support of most of the activists in the area but she hasn’t been able to do much fundraising.

Rep. Heinz is a medical doctor from the Tucson region. He has been able to do a lot more fundraising compared to Representative Steele, but from what I remember, the activists were not too happy with him running against Barber in 2012. I have met him a few times back when we all had hope (around the end of 2008) and he seemed like a decent enough person, if a little overeager at times. I do remember he fidgets more than I do and I am constantly fidgeting.

I may have met Representative Steele once, I don’t remember because I wasn’t going to many meetings for the longest time.

It is a difficult thing to say how this race will go. The DCCC is not really interested at the moment since it isn’t on the list of races that are being supported but if Steele wins, Emily’s List might come out for her. If Heinz wins, there might be solid LGBT support. Martha McSally is considered a strong contender because she is very visible in the district and has been making the right moves. (According to one source I consulted “she is everywhere.”) So it is likely that the district will stay Republican. But as I discussed last time, the mess at the top of the ticket can have an impact.

The thing about this is that you can have a razor thin margin at first and transform it later as Al Franken showed with his race. So as Martha McSally has been doing a lot of outreach, it won’t matter if the entire state goes blue for the Senate and president, it will keep her in Congress. Voters in that district are very used to having a lot of access to their congressional representatives and that is what matters overall.

[1] Giffords was actually the representative of the 8th district. These things change over time. It’s the same area.

I am always harping on Frank ignoring the House and Senate races and he challenged me to write up something on the House races the national media is ignoring due to the massive oxygen suck that is the Presidential race. You would think that the national media and pundits would just say, “Clinton is going to win the Presidency and now for something interest,” but you would be wrong. So for the next six months we are going to get one billion stories about how Clinton is not going to win, well maybe, but really, Trump is going to somehow pull it off because the national media is filled with overpaid addlepated… Okay, okay, I will stop.

First up on the list is my hometown Arizona 1. This is a seat currently held by Representative Ann Kirkpatrick. What is interesting about her is that she was one of the people to lose in the 2010 electoral bloodbath after she voted for the Affordable Care Act and had to endure the gauntlet of hate that most Democratic politicians had to deal with during the fight to get healthcare. She later fought her way back into Congress in 2012, one of the few to do so. She won re-election even though the district is rated as R-leaning. Now she has set her sights on McCain and because of the unique situation this year for Republicans, she is polling incredibly well against him.

I have no idea how that race will play out.

Ann Kirkpatrick Tries to Move Up Leaving Arizona 1 Open

So with Ann Kirkpatrick looking to move on up to the Senate, the House seat is open. That being the case, the usual cast of characters on the Republican side has shown up to run for the seat: Paul Babeu, Ken Bennett, David Gowan, Gary Kiehne, Wendy Rogers, Carlyle Begay, and Thomas Vearl Whipple.

All Those Republicans

Paul Babeu is a current Sheriff in Pinal County who was outed as gay during the 2012 congressional race by an ex-lover who happened to be here as an undocumented immigrant. I have met his brother but I haven’t met him since there has been little reason I would.

Ken Bennett is the former Secretary of State of Arizona (person in charge of elections and some of the paperwork for businesses among other things) and he ran for governor losing to Doug Doucey in the Republican primary. He is receiving some support from the NRCC Young Guns Program. Ironic since neither him nor Gary Kiehne are under 50.

Wendy Rogers is actually interesting from a personal aspect-she lived in my district and ran against my former State senator David Schipira. She then ran for Congress in 2012 and 2014, losing to Kyrsten Sinema the second time in what is billed by the political punditry/polling companies as a toss up seat but is really Democratic.

Carlyle Begay is the only other one of note in my opinion since he was appointed to office as a Democrat, won re-election then switched to being a Republican. Now he is running for Congress when people really don’t like party hoppers.

Gary Kiehne is getting national level support but he doesn’t have the history that Ken Bennett has.

I suspect it will be Ken Bennett who pulls off the win of the Republican primary. He doesn’t have as much money as some of the others (Gary Kiehne has the most) but he does have higher name ID for the district.

On the Democratic side there are three: James Maloney, Tom O’Halleran and Miguel Olivas.

Of the three, only Maloney has not run for office in any capacity.

On the Democratic Side

Ann Kirkpatrick leaves the door open for Tom O’Halleran. He is very interesting because he was a Republican, then independent, and finally he has become a Democrat. He also has served in office before as a Republican so he knows how to campaign and he almost beat one of the Republicans that show up in the news periodically to make the rest of us living here in AZ cringe: Sylvia Allen. I also view O’Hallaran as serious since I am getting his fundraising email messages so he has bought some list I am on and he has the highest amount of the three. He also has a lot of support from the dreaded establishment including outgoing Kirkpatrick and the national Democratic Party.

I think he will probably win the primary.

The General Election

On to the General: it is unclear who will win if it is a Bennett v O’Hallaran match up. Both are experienced campaigners with long histories in most of the district. Which means what is going on at the top of the ticket might have an impact on it staying in the Democratic column.

On one hand, this isn’t as interesting since it won’t flip the House but on the other, with the mess at the top of the ticket, it is one of those races that it is likely to stay Dem instead of being flipped.

This election looks better for the Democrats in Arizona than I would have thought, with Ann Kirkpatrick having a real change in the Senate.

Next time we will look at AZ-02. That one is a pick up possibility.

[The following article is written by Elizabeth Rogers especially for Frankly Curious. I’ve been to a total of two political rallies: both with Jesse Jackson. Let me just say that you have not seen Jackson until you’ve seen him live. At one rally, I saw him in a church in Portland. I was following along with a journalist I knew who worked for SF Weekly. I totally had a crush on her. But Jackson was amazing. Anyway, that is the past and this is the present. Enjoy! -FM]

One of the fun things about being an American is our political rallies. And so on the 21st I went off to what is probably my seventh millionth rally and saw Hillary Clinton along with a local all-star lineup speak at my high school alma matter-Carl Hayden Community High School. This was impressive since no one goes to Hayden because it is a west side ghetto school.

So first things first! The waiting in line. One hallmark of going to a political rally is having to stand around endlessly in line or in a group wondering when things were going to start happening. In Arizona, this can and almost did cause heat exhaustion. I was stuck in the sun portion for about two and a half hours, as the temperature slowly rose to 94 degrees. Cue nearly falling over and becoming so shaky that my photos are, well, not exactly Ansel Adams quality.

The second thing is that events like this attract odd types — Frank will hopefully write about one so I will leave that.

It did attract this van that drove around for a while. Rocky De Le Fuete is one of the perennial candidates who never goes anywhere on the ballot. Just the same, he did manage to get 95 votes in the New Hampshire primary, which put him in 8th place out of 28. Who says we have no candidates to choose from?!

There were also protesters who were Trump supporters including one who was armed because that is what you want around a high school. One of the women waiting in line with me was a teacher and she kept asking the police to arrest him as he was right across the street, but they didn’t do anything.

When we got inside, the gym had room for something like 500 people. No one goes to sporting events at Hayden so they never really needed to have space for that many people. Unfortunately because of how much space the media took up we couldn’t use the much more comfortable and spacious auditorium. So here are some of the people that were comfortably gathered, waiting for the big event:

The all-star lineup of local people started with Arizona State Representative Lela Alston. Then we had Dolores Huerta. [Co-founder of the National Farm Workers Association (later: United Farm Workers) with César Chávez.] Next up was my friend, Representative Ruben Gallego who is one of the most energetic campaigners out there and yes, he does so even when he wins his primary. I cannot wait to see where he wants to go politically.

Next up was Tom Perez, who is our current Labor Secretary. He gave an amazing stem-winder of a campaign speech. I actually wondered if his voice was going to hold up.

After him, Mark Kelly escorted his wife on stage, former Representative Gabby Giffords. The crowd, already hyped up, went nuts when she started to speak. She isn’t back 100% and she never will be but she is really well loved.

Finally the actual person to introduce Clinton was Gila River Indian Community’s Governor, Stephen Lewis.

Clinton Finally Arrives at Her Rally!

Then Clinton came out and did her standard stump speech. It was about 15 minutes long. What struck me as significant is that Clinton is a great deal like me in one aspect. I hate giving speeches. I talk too fast and I get nervous and forget where I am in my speeches. But I love one on one. So after she finished talking, she spent way more time walking along the line and taking photos, shaking hands and looking like she was having a blast just being one on one with people. Probably because you can be yourself in a way that you can’t be in a speech. Especially with someone with her history of being attacked for saying pretty much anything. (Although I probably will agree with the regulars on the AIPAC conference.)

That is why she works the room after those debates instead of running off to her next event. It looks like this is the fun part of campaigning for her. Yes there are fun parts and people don’t always find them to be the same thing. Some candidates love giving speeches; Trump loves the sound of his own voice. Some like fundraising… Okay no; no one likes fundraising.

After the rally my mother, sister and I made our slow way back to Mom’s house — we were exhausted after all of the excitement and standing in the sun. That was my adventure with the Clinton Rally. And I didn’t even get a decent picture of her!

Afterword

Here is a picture of Hillary Clinton by Gage Skidmore. It was taken at a town hall meeting at Hillside Middle School in Manchester, NH. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.