I met Bill Clinton... no pushups were done.

Today was mostly spent with Democrats.  We visited the local party headquarters and a lot of things were the same as in Australia.  Plenty of mess and plenty of half eaten snacks lying around.  They did have a lot of organisational tools that are a lot more sophisticated than what we have though.  They are able to take all the political information they have on voters and run that right into a map that prints off, ready to be doorknocked or called and then easily be fed back into the program.  Without registration information like they have here, I am stuck working with demographics and can't go house to house as precisely as they can.  But I did leave my card with a couple people who may have some ideas to exchange.

We had some time off in the middle of the day so I went to the hotel gym and managed an improvised workout.

TW: 10 heavy shoulder press, 10 heavy dumbell chest press on a stability ball, 10 heavy bicep curls - 10 rounds.  50 clean and press done from the knees rather than standing which meant no using the legs.  3 laps of pushup lake - 22:43

Complimentary hotel drinks were had before dinner, which was tapas and sangria based.  Then we went off to an election eve Democrat rally.  We had tickets to the VIP area on account of being Members of the Australian Parliament (we chose not to correct them.)



We all went.  Whether or not we agreed with everything that was said at each rally and each event, we all went and applauded at appropriate times.  One of my Labor friends was in the front row of a Republican rally and had to applaud along with the candidate's promise to wind back "Obamacare" which I am pretty sure he didn't agree with.

All the local and statewide candidates spoke and I got to hear the eccentric and vitriolic local Congressman who is very good at speaking to the rusted on Democrat faithful (which is more important here than in Australia) but who I suspect will still probably lose.  He was entertaining if nothing else.

The highlight was seeing former President Bill Clinton come out to support the party candidates for Senator and Governor.  He is a very impressive speaker.  He had a strong "get out the vote" message for the crowd and amused them all with his criticism of the tea party, claiming that he should be their poster boy.

After he spoke he came down and with his security detail close by (with some in the crowd including two right behind me just before he got to my area.)  He shook a few hands, including that of George McGovern, who ran for President unsuccessfully in 1972.



It was great to have McGovern there at the age of 88.  Whether or not I ever would have voted for the guy, I was impressed that he was still coming out to events.  I got his autograph.

I was close enough to Bill to shake his hand and say "Good to meet you Mr President."  There were plenty of jokes along the lines of "but you don't know where that hand has been" as we walked back to the hotel.

Unfortunately, the vigilance of the Secret Service prevented me from even attempting to do any pushups.