dispatches from quilt city

My Morning with Hillary

As most of you know, I am currently a research intern at Hillary for President and, let me just say, today was a great day to be an intern! This morning all of the Senate and campaign interns got to go to the Hill to have our pictures taken and have round table discussion with Senator Clinton.

(Ok, I'm going to try desperately hard to tell you what happened without going into groupie mode. But, I'm not making any promises.)

I met Senator Clinton almost four years ago during her book tour and, at the time, I told her I hoped she would be the first female president and when she was I wanted to work for her. So, when we all lined up to get our individual pictures taken, I deliberately positioned myself towards the end of the line so I could have a little bit of time to remind her of our first meeting. (I know none of ya'll are surprised I didn't fall in line!) ;)

I told her what I had said and she exclaimed, "And, now you are working for me! That's great!" She asked me where we had met, as we walked towards the conference room. I told her and we chatted a bit. It was awesome!

Then, she sat down with all of us for some Q&A. She thanked us for our hard work and said she didn't want to talk at us, but really wanted to engage in some dialog. My fellow intern beat me to the first question. The campaign interns are actually a pretty spunky bunch and we asked a majority of the questions!

She asked her about how she planned to reach out to young people. Another friend asked what was the pivotal moment that really sparked her passion for politics. Of course, one of the Senate interns asked her about Iran, even though asking her about issues like that is completely stupid. It's on the website, dude! I really think he just wanted her to see how smart he was. Like she's going to stop the meeting and say, "You've got a great handling of the issue! Would you like to join my policy team?" Puh-leeze.

Another intern asked her a great question about how she deals with all the media attention and scrutiny. She gave out a sigh and gave a really wonderful answer. She said it has taken her 35 years to really learn how to deal with it and that in the beginning she would read every story and get really upset at all the false information. However, now, she said, "I take criticism seriously, but never personally." I think that is pretty good advice no matter who you are, to be honest.

Of course, I asked her a question. I told her I was going to ask her the same question I asked her husband which is what is her number one piece of advice for someone considering public office. She said you really have to know yourself and why you're doing it because it is an incredibly difficult job. She said she knows other politicians who really seem to hate what they do and interacting with people and she doesn't know how they do it. She said her driving passion is to help people achieve their dreams and make this country better and so she really has a passion for what she does, which makes everything easier.

All in all, we spent about a half an hour with her, which is pretty incredibly when you realize she probably could have raised $50,000 or so in that amount of time. ;)

When I met her before and saw her speak a couple months ago, I was incredibly impressed, obviously, but I didn't really get to interact with her or watch her interact with others. I have to say, after today, I really understand why people say she is the most famous person no one knows.

She is incredibly smart and really, really funny. Most importantly, she is so genuine and sincere. I think Bill really gets all the good press about his people skills and ability to connect, but she has that same gift. She really is listening to you. I never felt like her mind was somewhere else (and in all honesty, who could blame her if it was) or that she was rehearsed or calculating. She just wanted to interact with us and give us something in return for all the time we dedicate to her.

I know I'm even more dedicated after today. :)