Michael: Here is something that I am ashamed of as a resident of Massachusetts. It is unbelievable how people can be controlled by the media. Clinton charms Salem crowds
By TOM DALTON
News staff
SALEM -- Shortly before 5 p.m. yesterday, Bill Clinton rode through Vinnin Square in a black sedan and entered the city of Salem.
It must have seemed like a time machine.
For the next five hours, there was no mention of presidential pardons, no talk of Washington scandals, and not even a question about the $100,000 fee he was paid to speak at Salem State College last night.
This was a non-stop Clinton love fest from his first wave to delirious Collins Middle School students huddled in the cold outside the Hawthorne Hotel, to his final goodbye to hundreds of adoring adults who paid up to $125 to attend a private reception at the O'Keefe Sports Complex.
Monday might have been March 26, 2001, but it seemed more like 1993, the start of a first term in the White House, and a time when William Jefferson Clinton could do no wrong.
Of course, Clinton's aides helped make sure it was a successful visit. There was no press conference, post-speech questions from the audience were screened in advance, and the spontaneous moments were few and far between.
Clinton had hoped to take an impromptu tour of downtown Salem in the afternoon, but had to cancel it because he was running behind schedule, according to a source close to the Clinton entourage.
The Clinton charm was in evidence from the moment the convoy of Secret Service, state and Salem police vehicles and motorcycles pulled into the parking lot behind the Hawthorne Hotel. Clinton hopped out of the back seat and walked right over to a crowd on Essex Street.
Greeting his fans
The tight security that had been imposed -- a strip of yellow police tape kept onlookers nearly 100 feet from the hotel -- broke down the minute Clinton waved, smiled and started walking toward the cheering fans.
As he pumped hands and smiled, Clinton spotted a little girl pressed against a woman's side. "Honey, how you doing?" he asked, looking straight into the eyes of 9-year-old Savahna Reardon of Salem. When she didn't respond, he bent down and asked, "Honey, you OK?" She answered with a big smile.
After spending about five minutes with the crowd on Essex Street, Clinton, wearing only a sport coat and surrounded by a pack of Secret Service agents, headed back across the parking lot toward a screaming group of Collins Middle School students on the Salem Common side of the hotel.
"I shook his hand," screamed Sonia Severino, an eighth-grader. "I'm never going to wash my hand again." Then she smiled at a friend and said, "Yeah, right."
As excited as the students were, teacher Ina Resnikoff may have outdone them. "He said, 'Thank you for being a teacher,'" said the Collins language arts teacher, as she jumped up and down.
Of course, it wasn't all bouquets for the ex-president yesterday. As Clinton headed inside the hotel to eat dinner with 130 invited guests, two boys walked in front of the hotel holding homemade protest signs.
Ian Merry, an eighth-grader at St. John's School in Beverly, held a sign reading: "Bill Clinton Was A Great President And Elvis Lives." His friend, Conor Maguire, walked alongside with another sign.
"They asked if they could protest," explained Betsy Merry, Ian's mother, "and I said, 'As long as you're well-dressed and polite."
Back inside the hotel, Clinton charmed the staff when he toured the kitchen before dinner and posed for photos. He even had his picture taken with many of the police officers assigned to hotel duty.
Crowd of 3,700
Just after 8 p.m., Clinton entered Rockett Arena at Salem State and was greeted enthusiastically by the crowd of 3,700 -- even though many had stood outside in the snow for an hour waiting to pass through metal detectors. Many spectators agreed this was probably the tightest security in the 19-year history of the Salem State College Series.
Certainly the youngest member of the audience was Hannah Butler of Wakefield, who, according to her father Chris, was born the day before Clinton's speech. He brought her into the O'Keefe Center, wrapped completely in a blue suit, ferried in a baby carrier.
"She's a big Bill Clinton fan," said her mother, Lisa. After having bought their ticket, she realized her pregnancy might cause her to miss Clinton's appearance. "I thought I wasn't going to make it."
Even so, she was reluctant to tell her story to a newspaper last night. "My doctor is going to kill me," she laughed as she headed for the metal detector.
When Clinton and Salem State President Nancy Harrington mounted the podium, the crowd rose to its feet and applauded. Clinton got a big laugh when he mentioned the Salem Witch Trials, hinted at his own troubles inside the Beltway, and said, "I have sort of identified with those witches a time or two."
After the 45-minute speech, Clinton was whisked to a private meeting with about 30 Salem State journalism and political science students. From there, he went around the corner and into the gymnasium for a wine and cheese reception with 700 adults.
The crowd, which stood shoulder-to-shoulder behind ropes for a chance to shake Clinton's hand or snap a photo, seemed more excited than the students.
"I did it," said Jerilyn Willig, a first-grade teacher at Shore Country Day in Beverly, who was one of the lucky ones to shake Clinton's hand. "This will be something exciting to tell my students."
"When I got up there, he wouldn't stop talking," said a beaming Marion Winfrey, a member of the Salem Board of Health. "A couple of young men asked him about the (Bush) tax cut, and he started talking about why it wouldn't work."
"I'd vote for him again," said Winfrey's 84-year-old mother, Florece, a New York City resident who said she voted twice for Clinton for president and once for Hilary Clinton for senator. "I think he's wonderful."
"He was very cordial; he was cool," said Chris Hayes, a junior at St. John's Prep, who came with his buddy, Mike Pray, a fellow Prep student and the son of Salem State Police Chief Brian Pray.
"I love that man," said Roxanne Papp, who came all the way from New Hampshire to see Clinton. "He was great. ... Monica, who cares?" |
