My Brush With Barack and Hillary

See all those people holding their cameras in the air? I bet they got pictures that look about the same as this one. Our cell phone masterpiece was taken right after Barack Obama finished his speech this a.m. in New York. He and Hillary were up there shaking hands while some country tune (which I just learned is called "Only in America" by Brooks & Dunn. Thanks, internets!) blasted the rest of us out of the ballroom.

It was quite impressive to see a couple thousand people lined up inside the Hilton at an hour I would officially call "ungodly" (FYI: Walking in heels before coffee? Not recommended).
Barack Obama's half sister Maya Soetoro-Ng got the party started by introducing Hillary, who informed the crowd that Barack had just told her that she looked "kind of rested." And good news! Hillary says she's started exercising, too. She joked that while Barack got up early every morning on the campaign trail to work out, she got up every morning to have her hair done. Oh, did I mention this was a "women's breakfast"?

The hairdo line was a hit, as was Barack's candor when it came to talking about how he's seen the women in his life juggle work and family life--struggling to find balance and sometimes even questioning their own abilities. He acknowledged his own "complicity" in this unfair structure, and pledged his support for paid family leave and equal pay for equal work. He also made it clear that he desperately needs Hillary Clinton and Bill, too (although I think I might have seen him wince a little when mentioning Bill's name).

Of course the not-so-subtle subtext here is that he's asking supporters to help relieve Hillary's campaign debt. But money talk aside, I admit I got a little misty-eyed when he talked about the precedent she has set for girls: "Because of what Hillary accomplished, my daughters and yours look at themselves a little differently today. They’re dreaming a little bigger and setting their sights a little higher today.”