RFK, IU hoops invoked at Clinton event
Posted: Thursday, April 03, 2008 10:40 AM by Mark Murray
From NBC/NJ's Mike Memoli and NBC's Chuck Todd
BLOOMINGTON, IN -- Move over, "Rocky" analogies. At Indiana University yesterday, Hillary Clinton was compared to both Robert F. Kennedy and the school's basketball program at an event featuring former President Bill Clinton.
Speaking somewhere near center court at Assembly Hall, Bill Clinton outlined the four main reasons he said voters should pick his wife in the state's May 6 primary. The final reason -- that she is the "best change-maker," inspired Clinton to recall Kennedy's legacy, particularly the role he played after the death of Martin Luther King Jr. 40 years ago.
"When I was the age of a lot of you, I sat with tears in my eyes and watched Bobby Kennedy give that speech here in Indianapolis, when Martin Luther King was dead and I didn't know what in the living daylights had become of my country," he said. "Now, we got all these terrible problems, I know it, but you wanna talk about terrible, that was terrible." (FYI: The Clintons have to know they'll get fact-checked on statements like this. No doubt the former president knows the facts are on his side before he talks about a memory like this, but given the Bosnia incident, the press corps will trust but verify.)
Clinton said that he was a student at Georgetown in DC at the time of King's assassination. "The city exploded into flames and I turned my car into an ambulance and I took supplies to the African Americans that were burned out of their homes and were hiding in church basements," he recalled. "It was a long time ago. But I always thought America would have been a very different place if Robert Kennedy had lived, because he wanted to be the candidate of people who had hopes and dreams, and also the candidate of people who could barely keep body and soul together."
Clinton also said, as he has occasionally in the past, that there were "lots of interesting parallels" between the '68 presidential contest and the current race, casting his wife in the role of Kennedy. "Most of the blue-collar folks that knew they needed a president were for Kennedy. Most of the university students who wanted a feeling of change were for McCarthy, and they thought he had a purer position on the Vietnam War," he said.
Though he acknowledged some Kennedys, most notably Sen. Ted Kennedy, have endorsed Obama, he pointed to the support of RFK's "three most politically active children" for Hillary. "The Kennedy family's divided just like a lot of families," he said. "Jesse Jackson and his son, the congressman, are for Senator Obama. Jesse Jackson's wife and his son, the businessman, are for Hillary."
Speaking about the Iraq war earlier, Clinton said that he found the idea that there was a "massive difference" between Hillary and Obama on the war "one of the most curious things" in the race. "[It] requires a highly selective reading of the evidence," he said. "You gotta be highly selective and just sort of erase certain years from your fact base if you're gonna make that case."
Clinton arrived at Indiana University more than two hours late, as the former president has been doing more and more lately. "I thank you for waiting for me," he told the thousands who packed the venue. "I started late, and then everywhere we've been we've had these huge crowds, students coming out, schools. And I don't know how not to shake hands with people."
Clinton arrived on the campus the same day that the athletic program officially introduced Tom Crean as the new men's basketball coach. Clinton called himself "a total basketball fanatic" and said he was "glad to be on hallowed ground" on the court. He also met with Crean after the event.
Introducing Clinton, state Sen. Vi Simpson tied the Clintons to Hoosiers. "We've had a lot of winning teams here over the years -- teams who have come from behind, teams who have triumphed over adversity, teams who no matter how daunting the circumstances, have never given up. They've never surrendered," she said. "The Clintons, President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Clinton, have never stopped fighting. And they never will."
And signaling just that, Clinton spoke optimistically about his wife's chances in Indiana and other upcoming contests. He said there was a chance she could score "massive" wins in several. "I think there'll be a big question about why she shouldn't be the nominee if she has won most of the popular votes," he said.
