It’s getting more and more crowded here at Temple University’s McGonigle Hall in the time leading up to the start. One side of the bleachers now is almost full of people, all of course carrying Hillary signs. The media pen has been full, with more reporters from more different places than I imagined even possible.

Everyone and their mother is on this story I suppose. Earlier I had thought there would be no wireless connection here, but someone has set up a network, aptly named “SoapBox.”

The “enclosure” I guess I could call it, the cordoned off area closest to the stage is full of middle aged people in IUPAT shirts. It stands for International Union of Painters and Allied Trades. There are some other union shirts around, and the crowd is distinctly not college aged. Lots of “ordinary folk,” parents with little kids, etc. There’s pre rally music of course. I don’t recognize it, and two Temple sophomores also performed for a while.

Once again, I have to comment on the timing. The fact that they put this rally here over spring break means to me that the Hillary campaign really is not making a huge effort to attract college students. To them Temple is just a convenient location.

One interesting metric for me is to count the number of home made signs versus campaign passed out signs. Right now I’ve seen three homemade signs. The rally hasn’t started yet, so that will likely grow.

Edit: 5:55pm

I know I’m just a lowly student journalist but this is the most cameras and video camera I’ve ever seen together in one place. And it’s a whole different feeling sitting on the other side of the tensa barrier. But it also makes you wonder at how much duplicated effort there is here. All of these cameras are essentially going to get the same shot because they’re all set up on the same platform.

Edit: 6:49pm

Clinton just told one of those little stories about healthcare about a woman with two diabetic daughters who couldn’t get insurance. Followed it up with this little tidbit. “We are not going to allow health insurance companies to discriminate against sick people!”

Edit: March 12th, 1:30pm

Video is now on our homepage, www.dailypennsylvanian.com

Direct link here.

Tags: campaign, clinton, Hillary, philadelphia, temple

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 at 4:42 pm and is filed under Pennsylvania Primary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.