Good afternoon, we’re at Wake Tech and will be live-blogging this.
12:08 – Raleigh mayor Nancy McFarlane is the first speaker, and she just choked up talking about what an important moment it is for her daughters and granddaughters. “Last night, she showed the world what it means to be presidential.”
12:11 – McFarlane offering a full-throated endorsement of Clinton right now. She endorsed her earlier this morning. “We need a president that will build bridges, not walls.”
12:14 – An HFA field organizer in Southeast Raleigh is speaking now. “Wake County is not only the tipping point for North Carolina, but the entire United States as well,” she says.
12:17 – Deborah Ross is speaking now.
12:18 – Ross represented this area when she was a state representative. “It has been a bright, bright jewel in this state and this county,” she says.
12:19 – “Washington just isn’t working for North Carolina,” Ross says. She introduces herself (name recognition is still a problem for her – she’s tied with Burr but 49% don’t have an opinion of her) and is now talking about the minimum wage and social security.
12:22 – “House Bill 2 has hurt our economy and good name,” Ross says. Calls it awful and discriminatory, and is now hitting Richard Burr for not trying to stop it from happening. “That is not leadership and we need a change.”
12:25 – Ross says we need to “expanding access to education and training,” to ensure “our workers are ready to compete in the 21st century.”
12:27 – Ross echoes the “build bridges instead of putting up walls” line.
12:27 – Ross just shouted out the Soil and Water Conservation District Supervisor race. Pretty sure that’s the first time that’s happened at a Clinton rally.
12:29 – Democratic Senate leader Dan Blue Jr. is up. “Fired up and ready to go!” he says.
12:31 – Blue says he met Clinton nearly 30 years ago at a Jefferson-Jackson Day event.
12:32 – Blue’s focus is on Clinton’s work on children and family issues. “More than two decades in trying to ensure that all Americans have the ability to be healthy.”
12:37 – Blue talks about HB 2 and Trump’s support of McCrory and the legislature. Jim Hunt, whom Blue calls one of Clinton’s biggest advocates in North Carolina, is up next. “Hillary rocked the house in New York last night…North Carolina is not a purple state, or a state that’s up for grabs, let’s rock this state like Hillary rocked New York last night.”
12:39 – Jim Hunt gets a huge pop. “Who do you think won the debate last night? Now it’s onto the big one.”
12:42 – People love Jim Hunt.
12:44 – Jim Hunt says Clinton’s plan will create more than 300,000 new jobs in North Carolina. Wonder if that’s going to get through the House.
12:46 – “What a selfish person Donald Trump is!” Hunt says, with audible disgust. It sounds like Donald Trump just spit on his sandwich.
12:47 – Hunt shouts out Roy Cooper as “our next education governor.”
12:47 – “She will be the best president America has ever had on early childhood education…she said, now listen to this, ‘Getting off to a good start should be every children’s birthright.’” (Hunt started Smart Start in North Carolina.)
12:51 – “You don’t have to be born rich, you all have a chance in America.” I would argue this.
12:55 – Short break until Clinton’s up.
1:17 – Seems like she’s about to come out.
1:22 – Maybe now? I dunno. Thanks for sticking with us through this incredible political analysis.
1:23 – A Wake Tech alumnus, Christine Bonaventure, is going to introduce her. She graduated from nursing school earlier this year. She says that at the height of a battle with depression in 2014, she started at Wake Tech with a $1,000 scholarship from the Cary Women’s Club. Talks about how Wake Tech helped her get a degree without going further into debt. She works as a nurse now.
1:27 – “These last few years have not be easy, but with the affordable college option Wake Tech has to offer…I was able to start over.” (Clinton’s college plan includes free community college tuition.)
1:32 – Clinton comes out. “Did anybody see that debate last night?” She says she came to Wake Tech eight years ago.
1:34 – “I was really proud of Christine.” Christine says, “I’m proud of you!”
1:37 – Clinton gives a nod to McFarlane, Ross, Blue, Hunt, and Linda Coleman.
1:38 – “Right here in North Carolina, the very mean-spirited and wrongheaded decision by your governor and legislature…” Lot of boos for HB 2. “I think the American dream is big enough for everybody.”
1:39 – They did “everything they did to make it harder” for people to vote, especially people of color, the elderly, and the young. “Some of that has been rolled back thankfully, because it’s so wrong, and I would argue unconstitutional.” So did the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.
1:40 – “We want everybody to exercise his or her right to vote to vote…I have won elections and lost elections. I know what the difference is. But I believe in what our founders established for us,” Clinton says. “The best way to reaffirm our commitment to that fundamental American value is to show up and vote.”
1:41 – Clinton says “you couldn’t have two more different visions of where we want to go in the future.” I guess you could if it was, like, Lamont Lilly vs. David Duke, but I see her point.
1:42 – “I do have this old-fashioned idea that if I’m asking for your vote, I should tell you what I want to do,” she says, digging Trump.
1:44 – Clinton talks about her mother growing up poor and never having food at school when she was a kid.
1:49 – “When you work hard, you should not still be in poverty at the end of the year…if you work full-time minimum wage, you will make $15,000 a year,” Clinton says. Clinton, like she’s being doing since the primary, calls for raising the national minimum wage and equal pay for women. (Clinton wants a $12 minimum wage; the Democratic platform and Bernie Sanders both want $15.)
1:53 – Clinton talks about Mark Cuban, who “is a real billionaire.” She’s trying to hit Trump on not being as rich as he says he is to get under his skin. Not sure it’s an effective argument to sway people who are barely scraping by, though.
1:55 – Says Cuban made his employees $300 million when he sold a company, but Trump screws his employees. This is demonstrably true.
1:55 – Clinton shouts out Bernie Sanders for working with her on the college plan, linked above.
1:57 – Clinton hits Trump for not paying federal taxes, and how he attacks the military, healthcare, and public education, but doesn’t contribute anything to it. “He said that makes him smart,” she says. That’s going to be in an ad or twenty.
2:00 – Says Trump bragged about rooting for the housing market to crash last night. He actually said, “That’s called business, by the way.”)
2:04 – Clinton starts talking about Charlotte and Tulsa, talking about restoring respect “from the law and communities they protect and for the law and the communities they protect.” Also, as she’s been doing for quite some time, she ties it in with gun violence.
2:06 – “This election is going to be close. They all are these days,” she says. Yeah, a little bit too close.
2:07 – “We want to prove who we are as Americans in this election.”
2:09 – Clinton ends with the line “Love trumps hate.”
