Hillary Clinton in Bloomington Indiana Photo Summary

Hillary Clinton brought her campaign to Bloomington, Indiana this afternoon, Friday, April 25, 2008.

She appeared at Assembly Hall, which houses the court of the Indiana Hoosiers basketball program.

As with most such appearances here, a stage is set up on the floor, facing the west seats, and audience is admitted via the mezzanine into the west. Capacity of the hall is about 17,400, including the bleachers at north and south ends, which were retracted for this event. For events such as this, only the west half of the stands are seated, the east half is behind the stage.

I estimate the crowd that showed up was fewer than 3,000. I have included picture in the following photo essay showing the crowd taken at pretty much max capacity just before she arrived and began her speech.

I have been fortunate in the past to see speakers such as the Dalai Lama and Bill Gates speak in the hall, but always from the general audience off the floor. This time I was seated only three rows behind her on the platform behind the speakers dais.

This is pretty much an agnostic photo essay of a presidential campaign rally, I am not taking sides for the purpose of this essay. I have really enjoyed the diaries on events featuring photographs with good coverage of events, it helps those who don't get to see them get a really good idea of what it is like to attend a little bit of history.

That is the purpose of this diary. Photos follow.

I arrived early, about 6:50. No crowds, just police patrolling outside.

Doors locked. Security for this event was exceedingly tight. Athletics staff had received emails the previous day with detailed instructions on how the building would be locked down for the event. The doors to the south lobby had signs telling people to not even start lining up at the door before 8:00 am.

The first person showed up at 7:10. She used a folding chair to sit out by a tree across the drive from the south lobby entrance.

DividedWeFail.org pulled a truck advertising their website up about 10:30. They were immediately asked to move it by the authorities, or so it seemed to us watching from inside the building.

Clinton was scheduled to appear about 1:00. They began letting audience in at 11:00. I was able to be among the first, which resulted in my ending up on the bleachers behind the podium. This is a shot of the floor as we the crowd first started entering.

The next two photos are obligatory. This is Indiana, home of the Hoosiers. The first shot is of the five national championship banners which hang at the south end of the hall. The second are banners for various NIT, NCAA, Big Ten championships and honors the basketball program has earned over the years.

The next four shots pan from left to right and include all the five sections of seating in the west stands. I estimated ca. 400 people per section. Times five that's about 2,000. there were at least 250-350 on the floor, maybe 400 max, plus a small contingency in the handicapped section not shown, it is elevated and to the left of the first photo in this group. (The photos overlap slightly. There are five full sections.)

We wondered where the podium was, since only the empty dais was in front of us. Just minutes before Clinton appeared, a crew brought it out and set it up. I suppose this is an added security measure, but that is just a guess.

The sign to stage right came loose at the upper left corner about then. Someone came out with a stepladder and proceeded to repair it. With duct tape. This resulted in a round of jokes about how to fix America.

Finally Clinton arrived, about 2:00, entering from the right in the photos. A member of the crowd in the bleachers presented her with a bouquet of roses.

Baron Hill, my Democratic representative for IN-09, entered with Clinton, and did the honors of introducing her. He pointed out that it was sort of exciting for voters in Indiana to have a say in the primary process for the first time in about 40 years. The crowed expressed hearty agreement.

Then Clinton got down to business. Her speech was smooth, well-delivered, and passionate, I have to say. It lasted about 45 minutes.

At one point more than half way through, she brought up to Indiana University students, each of whom spoke for several minutes on the topic of the increasing cost of a college education, the need for more rational help with student loans, scholarships. The photo below is of the second student. Clinton used this to advocate more government support to insure young people could get out of college without being eternally in debt. The first of the student asked her to do something about the predatory credit card companies who now go after college students and let them run up thousands of dollars in debt.

It was difficult to get good shots since I was behind and at an angle, but here was one final decent one of her as she began concluding the speech. I will note here that her comments about Obama could hardly be even classified as attacks, and seemed altogether pretty mild. She did comment that his claim to not take money from oil companies was silly, since it was against the law for Congress to take money from oil companies. I have no idea regarding the accuracy of that. She also claimed he was raking in money in personal donations from oil company executives.

Then she stepped down and began working the crowed, starting to her left and working the entire perimeter back to the right. The crowed was allowed to closed in on the grates that held them back from the area surrounding the stage. She shook hands, signed autographs, let some pictures be taken of her with members of the audience.

By the way, I can report that the secret service does not like for you to stand on the chairs in the audience trying to get overhead shots past the crowd in this situation.

Finally, a shot back of the last remnants of the crowd surrounding Clinton, hoping to get that last autograph, or shake her hand, as she makes her way toward the exit behind and to the left of the big IU logo. At this point about 25 minutes or so had passed since she finished her speech and began working the audience.

Of course it would be nice if Obama's campaign could arrange for him to appear her, too, sort of round things out. Bill Clinton was here a few weeks ago. Then the Dave Matthews band supporting Obama. But I would really love to see Obama give his stump speech.

I would also be curious to see what sort of crowd Obama would draw here at Assembly Hall at this point in the campaign.

My wife and I are off to vote early tomorrow morning. One of the benefits of living in Bloomington, IN, which so strongly supports making it easy to exercise this most basic right.

We will be casting our votes for Obama.