Posted on 11/08/2007 7:08:28 AM PST by mware
Covering a presidential campaign can feel like this: Stop in one town, watch a candidate talk and shake a few hands, then move along to the town up the road.
There went Toledo, Iowa.
So that was Independence, Iowa?
The crowd back in Cedar Rapids sure was big.
It can be easy to see these scenes as photographs passed in a gallery, or a set of props neatly arranged for a candidate to make a pitch.
The reality is, these scenes are full of people with a story to tell not only of whom they may vote for, but of what drew them to a political event, or how a candidate may have touched them in a fleeting conversation.
On a recent trip to Iowa, I came across two women who clearly had stories to tell. One had a chance encounter with Hillary Clinton. The other sought out Barack Obama.
A Chance Encounter with Clinton
I followed Clinton during a recent bus tour across Iowa, when she and her entourage pulled into a Maid-Rite, a greasy spoon famous for its loose-meat sandwich. Clinton settled into a red stool at the counter, ate a sandwich, chatted with her waitress and then was on her way.
The scene gave Clinton perfect fodder for her next few stump speeches. Turns out her waitress was a single, working mom just the kind of voter Democrats are courting aggressively this year.
Clinton recalled the meeting for an audience up the road in Boone. "The woman waiting on us it was her first day," she said, adding, "She was a little nervous. Single mom, raised two boys, works at a nursing home and always has a second job."
If she's elected president, Clinton promised, people like her waitress will have it better.
The way Clinton eased the waitress into her rhetoric is something repeated day after day, by all the campaigns. But in the process, people like the waitress don't always have their stories told.
'Nobody Got Left a Tip'
"I wished I would have been asked first," the waitress, Anita Esterday, said of Clinton's decision to insert her in a speech, adding, "I wish she would have asked if she could talk about me later. I didn't like it when someone called me up and said Hillary Clinton is talking about you. It's like, what'd I do now? What's she saying?"
When I returned to the Maid-Rite a few weeks later, Esterday said the senator had caught her off guard. But once they got talking, she was honest with Clinton about her need to work two to three jobs.
"I've been doing it all my life. Why should it change now that I'm old?" Esterday said.
Esterday does not think Clinton got it. "I don't think she understood at all what I was saying," Esterday said, adding, "I mean, nobody got left a tip that day."
Clinton may have decided not to tip. She was also never given a bill her meal was on the house. Still, Esterday said Clinton might have left her something: "Maybe they don't carry money, I don't know."
Turns out the visit hurt Esterday in another way. The local paper ran photos of her with Clinton. She said her supervisor at the nursing home isn't a big Hillary Clinton fan, and she thinks that may be related to why her hours were almost totally cut.
Now, Esterday is looking for a different second job. Still, she said she's not upset that Clinton visited the restaurant.
"I got my 15 minutes of fame out of the world," Esterday said. "There you go. I got her autograph. That's something I'll treasure forever."
But as far as the attention she's received? "It hasn't helped me. It's made things worse."
Still, Esterday doesn't blame Clinton; she says she may even vote for the former first lady. She's also considering voting for Barack Obama.
Seeking Out Obama
Obama, in fact, passed through Iowa around the same time as Clinton. At an event in Independence, he asked if anyone had questions. A woman in the front row named Geri Punteney stood up. She said her brother was dying of cancer. When Punteney began to sob, Obama walked over to comfort her.
"I know what this feels like," Obama said.
Punteney recalled how her brother, who has stage 3 lymphoma and leukemia, had to work to keep his health insurance. Obama sympathized with the unfairness of the situation. All Americans, he said, should have access to health insurance something he said he's committed to doing as president.
"Tell your brother we're thinking of him," Obama said. "Maybe I'll write him a note before you leave today."
Esterday's encounter with Clinton was by chance; Punteney's with Obama, by choice. Yet both women considered these moments which observers may have dismissed as simply part of a busy campaign day to be complex and meaningful.
'He Just Seemed Sincere'
Punteney has faced much tragedy. One of her brothers was burned as a boy in a Fourth of July fireworks accident and later died. Her brother, as she told Obama, has late-stage cancer. Her father died recently. Her mother has not been well. Punteney said she cries a lot.
A few weeks ago, at the home in Oelwein, Iowa, she shares with her mother, Punteney said she'd been inspired to see Obama when he came to the area.
"I'd seen the commercials," she said. "And he just seemed sincere, like he's for people like my mom, my brother and me."
Many people feel politicians may not be the first place to turn when in dire need of help. But Punteney said she was confident Obama could do something to make her feel better.
"I never had anyone pay attention to me and my needs and he held my hand," she said.
I brought a tape recorder to Punteney's house and played her moment with Obama back for her and his suggestion that he'd write her brother a note. He never did.
"He didn't have time, I guess," she said. "I understand. You know, he was bombarded by so many people. But just knowing he knows that's more important than a note."
Indeed, Punteney seemed to get just what she wanted from Obama. She got noticed.
The hat was for you.
"UPDATE: The Clinton campaign contacted ABC News to assert that they did, contrary to Esterday's claim to NPR, pay $157 for food at Maid-Rite and left a $100 tip to be split among the staff.
Sensing the story was reaching the tipping point, ABC News' Eloise Harper contacted Brad Crawford, manager of Maid-Rite caught in the political mixer, who said the senator's staff did pay a tip but "it might have not been disbursed properly."
Really, won't people now see that you have no scar on your head and that your claims that Nixon put a chip in your head are just the rants of a crazed individual.
PS: Mail me a $1,000 and I'll Freep mail you the voice commands that will turn the chip in your head off. You'll like that wouldn't you?
You have been around here to long to be ranting like a DUmmie.
HRH indeed. Her arrogance shines through eveything she does.
And you'd know one because?
I heard the FDR paid his poker debts by check. Not many people cashed them in because they wanted to keep the check as proof they played poker with FDR
Well if there was any dna left, it might be interesting to test with some of those claims that he father a child by another woman.
Red according to the article the meal was FREE.
NPR Editor's Note: Since this story aired, Hillary Clinton's campaign contacted NPR to say that the campaign paid Maid-Rite a bill for $157 the day of Clinton's visit and left $100 in tip money. NPR contacted Maid-Rite manager Brad Crawford, who confirmed that a bill was paid and tip money was left.
I believe the lady. She did not get any tip, and the reporter said the meal was a freebe. Unless this reporter is working for Obama and doing a hit piece on Hillary, Hillarys team stiff the working woman again.
I would like to believe we dislike Hillary for the things she actually does, not the things we wish she did so we can talk badly about her. This story has been thoroughly debunked, which was not known at the time it was posted here, but is certainly known now. Some of the comments on this thread, well... let me just say it hurts our cause, and BADLY, for us to be seen as reactionary and gullible. Are we going to be Hillary’s secret weapon, against ourselves, during the general? Trumping up easily disproved stories, as I said, only damages our credibility. There are lots of real, disgusting things Hillary has done. We should focus on those.
So much for checking their sources.
I stand by my tag line.
That being said there are still lots of questions I have about this story.
“So much for checking their sources.”
Yeah... That’s my thought too... Whatever the real story may be, NPR has failed (as usual) to live up to any standard of journalistic integrity whatsoever.
My comment was posted to you since you started the thread, not in relation to any actual comments you made. I suppose I should have made it to “all” but I’m not entirely sure how.
You would think some curious reporter would want to hear what both these people have to say.
No offense taken my FRiend. Still, I sure would like to hear what the waitress has to say.
Hillary doesn’t learn from her mistakes.
Esterday said "nobody got tipped that day," and NPR should have checked with the Clinton campaign before the story aired to see if any tip was left and how it was done. We regret that this was not done. On Thursday, Esterday was sticking by her story.
"Why would I lie about not getting a tip?" she told NPR. She also maintained that her co-workers at the restaurant had not received tips.
A Clinton campaign staffer called on Esterday at the restaurant Thursday after the story aired. The staff member apologized to her and gave her a $20 bill, according to Esterday. The Clinton campaign confirmed that visit. The campaign also produced photocopies of receipts showing $157.46 was paid to Maid-Rite on a VISA card on Oct. 8 for meals consumed by the candidate's entourage. The tip was supposed to have been paid in cash, and the campaign insisted such a payment was made but has declined to make available a staff member who was present at Maid-Rite and left tip money.
Maid-Rite's manager, Brad Crawford, said Thursday that while he was not present at the restaurant on Oct. 8, he knew that a bill was paid by the campaign that day. He also said that he believed three of six servers working that day received tips from people he thought were working for or affiliated with the Clinton campaign.
Crawford said he didn't know if campaign staffers meant "for their tips to be distributed to everybody" or whether they were meant only for individual servers.
The manager said he can't say for sure if Esterday was tipped for serving Clinton and her guests, Christie Vilsack and Ruth Harkin. (Vilsack is the wife of former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack and Harkin is the wife of Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin). But Crawford said he believes Esterday's account that she received no tip.
"Where Hillary was sitting, there was no tip left," Crawford said.
The restaurant has a lunch counter, where Clinton and her guests were seated. Esterday and several other servers were working behind that counter. There are a dozen or so other booths and tables around the restaurant, and other servers were helping diners seated there.
Esterday, speaking to NPR from home later Thursday, said the Clinton campaign staffer who visited the diner apologized to her and said a $100 tip was left on a credit card the day of Clinton's visit. Esterday said the staff member said the money was meant to be shared.
"I explained to her that our credit card machine, you know, doesn't add on the tip," Esterday said. "And she said, 'Well, then, they left a $100 bill there.' And I said, 'Well, it didn't get divided up amongst us, because I had gotten nothing.'
"She just said, 'Well, there was one left,'" Esterday said. "She just kept repeating, 'There was one left.'
After the campaign staffer stopped at the diner Thursday, Esterday said, the $100 tip was a hot topic.
"Two others that had worked with me that day turned around and said, 'We didn't know about any $100 tip,' because they both turned around and said 'We didn't get a part of it.' And they didn't. So, it's like 'OK, where did it go?' That's the mystery question: Where did it go?"
Esterday said it would surprise her if money that was intended to be split among the staff was never shared.
"The ladies that were working that day have been working there for years some of them for 30 years, some of them for 25 years," Esterday said. "And I've known a lot of these ladies most of my life living here, too. And I can't imagine them pocketing it."
The campaign has made the the tip question the top feature on a new Web site it has created called "Fact Hub." Campaign spokesman Phil Singer said in a statement: "In the minute-to-minute media cycle we live in, we believe it is critical to correct the record in real time."
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