Grass Roots Political Activity

In 1998 and 1999, I had a website, hillary4president.org and a petition grass roots initiative, started at the July 1998 150th anniversary of the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, NY, to help stop the Clinton impeachment and …to help stop the destruction of Hillary. (That web address URL is now owned by somebody who doesn’t like Hillary, so the gibberish there now is not my compendium of essays and commentary written during the 98/99 period.) I stepped away from the amateur Mr. Smith Goes to Washington political activity (I had literally moved to Washington in 1998 and lived on Capital Hill) in spring 1999 after the impeachment was defeated and when mainstream politicos and media were feeling comfortable again talking about Hillary again in positive ways as a potential candidate (for Senate and eventually President) instead of as inmate.

I’m not a dem, by the way. I’m an independent American. I supported Perot in 1992, in just a minimal way, signed up as charter member of his third party and gave a few bucks, when I felt things were running out of balance in one way. I supported Gingrich and Haley Barbour and GOP in 1994, again in just a minimal sign-something and be-on-a-list and make some small financial contributions periodically way, when I felt things were running out of balance in another way. And then I supported the Clintons and the dems in 1998 and 1999 in an entirely different way, by going to Washington and working full time on the problem, mainly following the media and responding on my website, when I felt things needed adjusting in a different way.

That was early in the web’s history. It was 1998 and the web really only got practical to use at all and then only by techies in 1995. No wikipedia and easy google and such. There were only a few political websites at the time: Matt Drudge’s Drudge Report , salon.com, and my no frills hillary4president.org commentaries.

Anyway, I was a small player in a big world, but I like to think I played a small supporting role in making Hillary’s post-1998 career possible. Bill and Hillary had a manuscript copy of my 1998 book on TOC as did James Carville. The Federal Election Commission knew me as the guy who created the People for American Leadership political committee in support of a grass roots call for Hillary to run for president in 2000.

Cool that this [announcement in the news about her running in 2016] comes out on Valentine’s Day. At Seneca Falls, on the sun-drenched high school football field where Hillary was to be guest speaker, I brought shiny silver balloons for my Hillary For President petition signature collecting table that were painted pink and said, “It’s a Girl!” *♥

[The announcement was online at http://usa.greekreporter.com/2013/02/11/exclusive-hillary-clinton-will-run-for-president-in-2016-confirmed/ ]