SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Jason Wilfing had a
good excuse when he showed up late for work today at a South Bend sheet metal fabrication plant -- he was part of the stagecraft for the first of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's four stops in Indiana.
Clinton met Wilfing and as part of the carefully orchestrated event, they drove to a service station where news cameras awaited and she picked up the $63 tab for less than a full tank of gasoline ($3.76 per gallon) for a Ford F250 pickup truck on loan from Wilfing's boss for the event.
Later, at the sheet metal plant, she again called for a summer moratorium on the 18.4-cent-per-gallon federal tax on gasoline, an idea first proposed by Republican John McCain but opposed by her Democratic rival, Barack Obama, who has called it a political gimmick that will only provide a free half-tank of gasoline to most Americans and no solution to long-term energy problems
Clinton said she will sponsor legislation seeking a temporary tax on windfall profits by the oil companies as a way to offset the resulting loss of up to $10 billion in revenue to the fund that pays for highway construction and repairs across the country. She said the suspension of the tax would provide some short-term relief, particularly to truckers and farmers, and she called for an investigation of the root causes of the skyrocketing fuel prices as part of a longer-term fix.
Wilfing, a father of three from nearby Plymouth, is a member of Local 20 of the Sheet Metal Workers' Union, whose international was an early supporter of Clinton, and is an employee of Deluxe Sheet Metal Inc., whose owner, Kevin Smith, welcomed the candidate to the modern facility in an industrial park outside South Bend.
Wilfing's wife, Bobbie, met with Clinton and attended the news conference at the sheet metal plant. The couple lives on 10 acres and raises nine pigs and about 60 chickens. Now 34, she said she and her husband were never interested in politics until they followed the 2000 Florida recount controversy that resulted in the election of George W. Bush. They registered to vote shortly after that.
Of suddenly playing a bit part with her husband in a hotly contested fight for the Democratic nomination, Bobbie Wilfing said: "I'm a little nervous, but it's very exciting and it's an opportunity I would never have had otherwise."
NewsCenter 16 was the only station to speak with Clinton, and asked her
thoughts on Tuesday night's price jump of fifteen cents.
“This is a huge challenge to our country and it goes to whether you can pay at the gas pump or whether we're going to be in charge of our own energy future, so let's sound the alarm and do something about it,” said Clinton.
After paying in cash, Senator Clinton got a French vanilla cappuccino to-go.
The trip to the gas station was just part of Hillary's "commute" into work Wednesday morning.
The senator tagged along in a Deluxe Sheet Metal worker's pickup to get to Wednesday’s event.
After filling up at the Marathon, Hillary and her carpool mate hopped on the toll road, stopped to pay the toll, and headed west to the Blackthorn exit.
Then she went to the Deluxe Sheet Metal plant in South Bend. Clinton covered a lot of issues that hit very close to home, including gas prices, food prices and energy costs. She toured the plant and talked to some of the workers and their families for about an hour.
She touted her plans to reduce high gas prices, both short term and long term. It includes a suspension of the federal portion of gas taxes over the summer by requiring the oil companies to pay it, through a windfall profits tax.
"Some people say that's not a lot of money, well depends on what you do for a living and how far you drive to work," Clinton said. "If you're a trucker, that's a lot of money. If you're a farmer, that's a lot of money."
PORTAGE, IND. -- During a campaign rally here in western Indiana, the
president of the Sheet Metal Workers’ Union, Paul Gibson, said he supports Hillary Clinton because she has the strength to take on tough problems like NAFTA. Gibson characterized the strength necessary to be president as a person who has “testicular fortitude.” The pro- Hillary Clinton crowd began to laugh, as did Clinton who stood behind Gibson on the stage.
“If you’re thinking the next President of the United States should address and amend and convince people that here are the flaws with that law, and here’s what we’re supposed to do and it shouldn’t cause harm to either border,” said Gibson. “Well, you know what, then I truly believe that that is going to take an individual that has testicular fortitude, that’s exactly right, that’s what we got to have.”
Gibson told the crowd that he is fed up with people who exploit American workers. “I am sick and tired of these Gucci wearing, latte drinking, self-centered, egotistical people that have damaged our lifestyle,” he said to a standing ovation from the crowd. :eyes:
As a visibly startled Clinton took the stage, she said, “I think we are getting warmed up here.” Clinton went on to play some damage control on Gibson’s testicular comments saying, “I do think I have fortitude, women can have it as well as men!”
On rising gas prices, Clinton said she was shocked to learn that the price of a gallon of gas had gone up by twenty cents overnight in Indiana. “You can’t convince me it has anything to do with supply and demand,” Clinton said. “I don’t believe that.”
Hillary Clinton portrayed herself as a modern-day Teddy Roosevelt this morning, saying she’d build the political will to take on oil companies as president. (
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/04/30/963809.aspx)
“At the turn of the last century, Teddy Roosevelt took on the oil companies,” she said at the Deluxe Sheet Metal factory this morning. “We need a president who will take on the oil companies again, and I will do that. I will take away their tax subsidies. They don’t need them to make these outrageous profits.”
She also criticized McCain when asked about his statement that he’d use treasury funds to replace revenues the tax provides for the highway trust fund.
“I think that’s a typical Republican response: don’t pay for anything,” she said of McCain’s plan. “We haven’t paid for the war in Iraq; we haven’t paid for the tax cuts for the wealthy, so now we’re not going to pay to replenish the Highway Trust Fund. … He is just driving us deeper and deeper into deficit and debt.”
“I have no illusions about how difficult this would be, but you got to start somewhere,” she said. “Going after the oil companies, which we’re going to have to do in order take on our energy challenges and to get back into some balance in this country economically … means that we gotta start now to build the political momentum. I want this to be a voting issue. I hope people in Indiana and North Carolina on Tuesday will vote for me, because I’m willing to take on the oil companies.”
Clinton took a few questions from reporters after her remarks, but carefully dodged one about Obama’s comments yesterday distancing himself from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
“You know what? I wanted to call on somebody from Indiana,” she said, after hearing the start of the question. “I was looking for a hand from Indiana.”
In her
morning interview with the “Bob and Tom” show, Hillary Clinton described her commute to work with a sheet metal worker, her approach to rising gas prices, and her readiness to be Commander in Chief, .
Q: I’m curious Senator, on the campaign trail; exactly how much sleep are you getting each night?
Hillary: Not enough. The closer you get to – good morning! You know, I’m in a truck in Indiana, we just pulled up to the Indiana toll road booth, we just put gas in the truck. We’re trying to draw a lot of attention to how much more costly it is to do anything in life anymore, especially fill up your tank or drive to work. So I am with this wonderful young man, I am just saying hello to the tollbooth attendant, how are you today?
Tollbooth attendant: Good, how are you?
Hillary: Excellent, nice to meet you.
Tollbooth attendant: Nice to meet you!
Hillary: Thank you! She’s got a big smile on her face
Q: You still owe her a quarter, come on. They don’t care if you are a senator, Mrs. Clinton.
Hillary: You’re not supposed to tell anybody!
Q: I admire all of you candidates for putting up with them. I don’t know how you can even live your life with all of the constant criticism. And you’re taking on a big role – do you really think that when you wake up in the morning that you really want to do this, you want to be the president? Because it’s going to be a really tough thing to fix when you get in there, if you do get in there.
HRC: Boy, are you right. First of all, it’s the toughest job in the world anytime, it’s going to be especially tough given what we will inherit. We’ve got two wars, we’ve got an economy in trouble, we’ve got gas prices exploding. You go down the line and people are really wondering what happens next? Our country is not headed in the right direction. But I do get up everyday more determined than ever, because I meet somebody everyday like this wonderful young man and his family that I am driving to work with who get up everyday and they go into work and they deal with all of the challenges that they have. And sometimes it’s pretty daunting when I meet someone with a chronic illness or who has just lost their job and can’t find another one, and I just want to get in there and start cleaning it up and trying to get us to solve our problems again. So yeah, I’m fired up, I’m ready and I think people are ready.
Q: Senator Clinton, if you are, when you are elected president, do you think you are going to be even more under the microscope as president, since you’ll be the first female president, than if, say, John McCain were elected and had to take on all of these horrible issues that face our country?
Hillary: I’m sure that it will continue to be very high scrutiny, but it will be about the real challenges facing our country. People will be asking what am I doing to fix the economy or how am I getting us out of Iraq. That’s what we should be focusing on. But all the rest of it comes with the territory these days. I am used to it – if you can’t stand the heat, you’ve got to get out of the kitchen because as Harry Truman said, this is a pretty hot kitchen when you get to Washington, D.C., especially if you are the president.
But I hope that we can try to stay focused on what is really happening in people’s lives, like today with these gas prices. One of the reporters in South Bend, where I am, said that prices went up 20 cents overnight – this makes no sense to me. That’s why I want to go after the oil companies and their outrageous profits. And I want to go after OPEC, they are not a free market, they set the price, they determine how much supply there is. And I think we need a president who is willing to take on these tough fights again. And we really are going to have to pull our country together to make life better for middle class families because everybody I talk to in Indiana and North Carolina, around our country, is really feeling the stress.
Q: One last sort of semi-silly question. Do you get a chance to drive a car anymore? When is the last time you got to be by yourself and drive a while and think?
Hillary: No, I don’t because obviously I have Secret Service protection and I rarely even get to sit in the front seat. The best part of what I am doing right now is I am sitting in the front seat. You can’t imagine what that feels like.
Q: You’ve got to yell shotgun, Senator.
Hillary: I’m shotgun! I’m hoping to convince this wonderful young man that we’re going to drive by his work place; we’re going to go out and just drive around for a few hours.
Q: Senator, Thanks for your time, best of luck and I hope you find some cheap gas today. I don’t think you will. Good luck.
Hillary: I don’t think it’s going to happen. That’s why I am trying to get the oil companies to pay the gas tax for the summer. Let them have to bear the cost.
Q: Thanks for calling.
Hillary: Great to talk to you, bye bye.
Sen. Hillary Clinton as she campaigns at a union hall in Portage, Ind., Wednesday, April 30, 2008
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