Hillary draws big UCSB crowd

 

More than 1,000 people, mostly students, crowded UCSB’s Recreation Center Jan. 17 and listened to hear democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton paint a rosy picture of the America of the future. In little more than half an hour she delivered a speech that was long on conclusions but short on details, how, as president, she would take the country from here to there.

In an impromptu appearance announced only the day before, the New York Democrat addressed her vision for the future with a standard stump speech that included vague plans to end the war in Iraq, mitigate America’s immigration crises and discourage job outsourcing. In the hour-long visit, which included a 20-minute question-and-answer period, she also stressed the need for universal health care and educational reform, though she offered no concrete plan for achieving either.

 

Clinton’s UCSB visit was the last stop in a swath cut through part of Southern California from Compton, where she promised better conditions for black Americans, through Northridge, where she spoke to an audience at the Cal State campus.

The Golden State’s college campuses are important venues for candidates as the clock winds down toward Super Tuesday, Feb. 5, when 24 states, including California, will hold primaries. Fifty-two percent of pledged Democratic convention delegates will be chosen in those primaries. 

“I’m thrilled to be back here; being in Santa Barbara is a great way to end this day,” she said.

“Every election is about the future,” she said. “… In 25 years I hope we’ll be in a more peaceful and prosperous world, where people feel like they have a stake in their own future … so that we are determined that together we can tackle whatever problems humanity faces.

 

“I don’t think this election is about me or any other candidate,” she said. “I think we’re instruments of what Americans want to see reflected from the leadership of our country.”

Though Clinton promised to begin to remove the troops from Iraq within 60 days of her inauguration, she did not present any specific plan to achieve her optimistic estimate of removing one to two brigades every month after taking office. 

“It begins by ending the war in Iraq and bringing our troops home as quickly and responsibly as possible,” she said.

 

Pacing the platform centered in the middle of the room, Clinton voiced opposition to amnesty for illegal immigrants, but vehemently stressed the U.S.’s need to adopt a reformed immigration policy.

Calling the Bush administration’s leadership “incompetent, insensitive and indifferent,” Clinton criticized the past seven years of presidential leadership and claimed that it accepted a defeatist attitude towards global warming, failing educational programs and a “dysfunctional” health care system.

“… (It’s) turned us into a ‘can’t do’ nation,” she said.

She outlined a “tougher” comprehensive immigration reform that included cracking down on employers who employ illegal immigrants, providing more federal help to cities and counties that foot the bill for immigration enforcement, and helping Central and South American countries generate more jobs and healthier economies.

 

Saying that some of her peers accuse her of “being too practical,” Clinton criticized the proposal to send all of the illegal immigrants home, but made it clear that if she became president, illegal immigrants would be required to adhere to a list of conditions; pay a fine for entering country illegally; pay back-taxes over time; agree to learn English; and proceed with the citizenship application process legally.

According to Clinton, these steps will level the economic playing field and remove a lot of what she said is the legitimate concern people have that illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from people who are here legally.

Clinton presented a three-tiered platform to discourage outsourcing, which included discontinuing tax benefits to companies that move operations overseas and enforcing existing trade agreements, while critically looking at future agreements and creating an expanding job force – something for which she offered no specifics.

It’s important that the U.S. save existing jobs and create new ones every 10-15 years, she said, while asserting that combating global warming and generating clean energy would create a growing job market.

 

Some students, undecided which presidential candidate they were going to vote for, attended the speech hoping to determine which candidate should get their votes.

“This election is really important. It’s going to be interesting,” said UCSB senior Monica Gutierrez, who waited in line for nearly five hours to hear Clinton speak. “I am undecided, but that’s why I’m here.”

UCSB Chancellor Henry T. Yang was impressed with the studentbody turnout and called Clinton’s speech educational.

“This is a great opportunity for students to witness a democratic election in action,” he said.

Clinton took some questions from the audience and used her answers to compare herself to U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who currently holds a slight edge in delegate count over Clinton, 36-30.

 

“I have enormous regard and admiration for [Obama] as a person, as a leader, as someone who has really provoked an incredible response around the country … but I see the presidency differently than he does,” she said. “The president needs to be enough of a hands-on leader … there is not so much of a contradiction between experience and change … you have to have the experience to make enough of a change.”