"bill c. is in starbucks."

Jan 25, 2008 at 12:43 AM
2 comments

..and that's the text i received at 10:30pm tonight from my dog hans. and so we dropped everything we were doing and ran to starbucks to meet (former) President Bill Clinton.

Somehow, I ended up standing on a chair in the very middle of the room. Strategically, that put me right in Bill's line of vision. and so i went for it. wearing my giant orange "i vote for darfur" button (and my semi-subtle obama pin), i raised my hand to ask the former president of the United States a question.

I ended up saying something along these lines--"After the Rwanda genocide that happened during your administration, there was a lot of talk about never letting something atrocious like what happened in Rwanda happen again. Now, the same thing is happening again in Darfur. But Senator Obama is the only one who has signed the resolution that the Darfur Action Committee has been asking every candidate to sign for the past six months. Why hasn't Hillary signed it and what will she do about Darfur if she is president?"

He was a little taken aback, to be honest. He apologized to the crowd for not knowing anything about the said resolution and begrudgingly explained that he had no idea why his wife had not signed. He went on to talk for a brief second about her policies towards Sudan, claiming that she was the first democrat to call Darfur a genocide. (WRONG: That was Russ Feingold. Two thumbs up for him.) He proceeded to talk about all the great things he did in terms of foreign policy when he was president. He noted that he was "embarrassed" that he had not heard of the resolution and moved on to the next question.

A little later (it was moving in on midnight here), we decided to leave. Bill noticed I left and said "can you get me a copy of that resolution?" the crowd turned to look at me, and I ended up saying (TO BILL CLINTON!) in my most calm and collected voice, "okay, I'll get you one soon."

Long story short, we went and printed it. And I wrote Bill Clinton a letter. And we went back to give it to him (not without first speaking on the phone to Barack's Iowa policy advisor, Karen Richardson).

Obama signed

So, we end up hanging out outside in the freezing cold waiting for him to come out to his car. When he exits starbucks and makes his way up the line, shaking hands, he recognizes me and stops for a little chat. I hand him the papers and an "i vote for darfur" button, explaining that this proposal has been made readily available to all of the candidates and that Senator Obama was still the only one who has signed.

Bill and the resolution

Mid conversation with me, I think he began to notice that everyone around him was wearing a bright orange button. He told us about an organization that someone had started in Texas to help with world hunger and explained different aspects of his foreign policy that benefited African countries, noting that currently, neither the U.S. or the AU have enough troops to end this genocide that is occuring in Darfur. We took a bunch of pictures, and he wanted to talk to Matt too, because he had asked what exactly the former president meant when he called Barack Obama's candidacy a "fairytale".

Bill with matt and i

I talked to him for a few more minutes and it was great. I RRREEAAALLLYYY like Bill Clinton. Now, if he can just get his wife, the actual candidate, to sign this resolution, that would be just great.