Well, well, well. Aren’t we just the cream of the crop? Seems as though Pennsylvania has now become pretty important in the nation’s primary presidential elections. Just yesterday, Scranton was graced with a visit from the Grande Dame herself, Hillary Clinton. She’s got quite a lead on her opponent in our state polls, so she might have given us a brush-off. Last week’s Rasmussen poll of Pennsylvania voters has her well ahead of her opponent, Barack Obama.

She’s not exactly a Home Girl, but Our Hillary has a fairly decent Scranton background. While never actually living here, she visited quite often as a young girl since her family has roots to the area. Her great grandparents came here as Welsh immigrants and her grandfather worked at the Scranton Lace Company. He and his wife, Hannah raised three boys here, including Hillary’s dad. Her father passed away in 1993 and for the funeral, Hillary returned to Scranton with her husband, Bill (Bill Who?). Hillary was actually christened here and the practice of returning to the Court Street United Methodist Church for family christenings continues to this day. As a small girl, she visited the family home on Diamond Street in Scranton and their cabin at Lake Winola.

(photo: S. John Wilkin Times Leader)

A former neighbor, 82-year-old Hazel Price, dug up an old home movie of Hillary as a small girl and the local press snatched it up lickety-split. Boy, I gotta tell you, she is just as cute as a little old button. She’s smiling and happy. We received a glimpse of a little girl who became THE woman who is such a force to be reckoned with in the political arena. No matter what your party affiliation, you have to admit this: she’s the gosh darn Queen Bee.

I didn’t intend to get caught up at all in the fact that she was coming to our area for a visit. The press had been reporting it for the past week and I listened with a passing interest. However, I must admit that on Monday, when the announcement was made that she was landing at our Avoca airport, I got a little giddy. I did! She stopped at Revello’s in Old Forge for Pizza. Revellos - voted Best Pizza in the NEPA area by the Electric City readers! How about this quote: ” If Old Forge is the Pizza Capital of the World, then Revello’s is it’s White House”. Now, how the heck did she know that? Well, I can’t say, but she ordered white pizza and stayed for an hour and a half. Pret-tty cool, if I don’t say so myself. The Secret Service had to have made an advance trip on Sunday to scope all this out. Wonder what they ate? Old Forge must have been the hopping place to be!

From there, she traveled to Scranton High School, where there was standing room only inside and huge crowds outside. My observation: lots and lots of women. There had to be three women for every man. All the muckety-mucks were on hand to greet her. In fact, the introductions were a little ridiculous. She was introduced by the Governor, who was introduced by the Liutenant Governor, who was introduced by the Mayor of Scranton who was introduced by the Mayor of Wilkes-Barre (would someone please teach this man how to say Scran-ton and Clin-ton? Kills me). Anyway, once she finally got the stage, I think she took full command of her audience! Her local location name-dropping was expert: “Shadow Brook for ice cream”, “Tunkhannock for special treats”, “Scranton Dry Goods Store to buy school clothes” … it was truly endearing.

Of course, she launched into the meat and potatoes of her “Pick Me” Speech. It’s her reason for being here: health care, Iraq, jobs and energy. I couldn’t help but wonder how many times she has spoken those words. It impressed me that she tailored the speech to us, the Northeastern Pennsylvania Club. It didn’t even feel rehearsed (wellllll, not totally rehearsed, anyway). I honestly felt she was well-prepared for the visit and genuinely happy to be here.

You know, all eyes are going to be on our state until we pull our levers (or I should say press our buttons) on April 22. The Mississippi primary is today and Obama is expected to clean house in the Magnolia State. There are only nine state primaries scheduled after ours and of those, our delegate count is highest. A primary link is listed below if you’re interested.

You know she’s coming back with Ed Rendell for the Scranton St. Patrick’s Day Parade! They can start drinking when the bars open at 9:00 am! I hope she goes to Farley’s or Tinks! Hey, I hope Obama comes, too! It’s kind of nice to be fussed over!

http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/primaries/republicanprimaries/index.html