A NY Times reporter gives us a look at a Clinton event in Canada that had a unimpressive audience ….
The Clinton’s are doing a US and Canada tour…..
The crowds are shrinking….
Is the thrill gone?…..
I’m feeling something foreign, something I’ve never felt before. It takes me a moment to identify it.
I’m feeling sorry for the Clintons.
In the 27 years I’ve covered Bill and Hillary, I’ve experienced a range of emotions. They’ve dazzled me and they’ve disgusted me.
But now they’re mystifying me.
I’m looking around Scotiabank Arena, the home of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and it’s a depressing sight. It’s two-for-the-price-of-one in half the arena. The hockey rink is half curtained off, but even with that, organizers are scrambling at the last minute to cordon off more sections behind thick black curtains, they say due to a lack of sales. I paid $177 weeks in advance. (I passed on the pricey meet-and-greet option.) On the day of the event, some unsold tickets are slashed to single digits.
I get reassigned to another section as the Clintons’ audience space shrinks. But even with all the herding, I’m still looking at large swaths of empty seats — and I cringe at the thought that the Clintons will look out and see that, too. It was only four years ago, after all, that Canadians were clamoring to buy tickets to see the woman who seemed headed for history.
It’s a sad contrast with the sold-out boffo book tour of Michelle Obama, who’s getting a lot more personal for the premium prices. But introspection has never been within the Clintons’ range.
I can’t fathom why the Clintons would make like aging rock stars and go on a tour of Canada and the U.S. at a moment when Democrats are hoping to break the stranglehold of their cloistered, superannuated leadership and exult in a mosaic of exciting new faces.
Presumably, James, you wanted your headline to refer to “shrinking audiences” not to “shirking” ones (what duty or obligation are they shirking?)
Having seen Hillary in 1992 and Bill in 1996, I can’t see forking over cash just to hear and see them in an arena.
Before telephones, film, phonographic recording, radio, television and the Internet, Victorian speakers, controversialists, authors, poets, evangelists and scientists would often earn their bread or feather their nests by going on long paid speaking tours, sometimes as part of the “Chautauqua Circuit” or parallel tours organized by socialist or religious groups. The speakers would often make sure to include some items or turns of phrase intended to entertain the paying audience (who’d sometimes travelled great distances to be diverted and informed) as well as to enlighten it.
But that was in an utterly, completely different era.
Thanks, as usual, for the corrections….
I agree that media access to the Clinton’s IS MORE than enough….
Their time in active and up front Democratic affairs has subsided ….
They ARE an iconic political couple and will always get applause when they show up at place though…