Watch a video of Hillary Clinton at Salish Kootenai College in PabloClinton read the sign aloud, “Native Vote. It Counts,” and with a wide grin added her own touch: “It counts more than ever.”
Clinton's appearance on the Flathead Indian Reservation was greeted with a crowd of some 1,200 supporters, who chanted “Hill-a-ry, Hill-a-ry”, when the New York senator stepped onto a small platform at the start of a town hall-style rally.
Before launching into her agenda on universal health care, creating a clean energy economy, improving education opportunities for all, and weaning America from Big Oil, Clinton received several gifts from her campus host, college President Joe McDonald, including a beaded necklace and a pair of moccasins sewn by a tribal elder.
“You have gone a million miles for American Indian people, so here's a pair of moccasin to help you on your journey,” said McDonald, who introduced Clinton as the “next president of the United States.”
Both Clinton and her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, have been courting Montana's Native voters in advance of the nation's final primary here next Tuesday.
Obama spoke last week on the Crow reservation. South Dakota, another state with a large Native population, also holds its primary Tuesday.
Clinton told the Pablo crowd that, as president, she would make Indian Country issues a priority by restoring the practices her husband, former President Bill Clinton, put into action when he was the nation's commander in chief in the 1990s.
Under Bill Clinton, more than 1,000 American Indian schoolteachers were recruited to teach in public schools, and more money went into Indian Health Services and to create economic opportunity in Indian Country, she said.
“We were moving forward - not fast enough, but with discernable progress, much of which has either stalled or gone backward (during the current administration),” Clinton said, adding: “We need a president next January who understands the obligation the United States government has to the tribes that represent the first peoples of the United States.”
To the crowd's thundering cheers, Clinton made several promises she said she would uphold as president.
“We must fund the Indian Health Services. We must create a position at a high level in the government for the administrator of the Indian Health Services at the assistant secretary of state level, so that person has the clout and visibility in Washington to work with me as president to make the changes that are necessary,” she said.
“We must return to what was the case in the Clinton White House in the 1990s - we will have a representative of Indian Country inside the White House working with the president every single day. That's what we did in the '90s. George Bush eliminated that; I will return it so those issues are the highest priority in the White House and in the president's office.”
Clinton said her first order of business is to help increase employment and create more opportunities for small business on reservations, and that her clean-energy agenda fits hand-in-glove with that push.
There are great opportunities for clean-energy business, particularly wind energy on Indian lands from North Dakota to south Texas, she said, a region she called “the Saudi Arabia of wind.”
“There is a lot I want to do with you, and it fits into my larger agenda,” she said.
Creating renewable energy across Indian Country and the nation will not only mean millions of new jobs, she said, but will help America free itself from dependency on foreign oil, foreign countries that control oil, from OPEC, and from price-gouging energy speculators who are adding anywhere from $20 to $55 per barrel and should be investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice, she said.
“Oil is now $135 a barrel, and you know the price of diesel and gas are going up,” Clinton said. “We have to have a commitment and leader that recognizes we can have a stronger economy, strong national security and we can better protect the environment if we have an energy policy that turns away from our dependency on foreign oil and away from dependency on a carbon-based fuel system and instead moves to wind, and solar and geothermal and biofeul and clean coal.”
When the crowd stopped cheering, Clinton said she is optimistic such a change is more than conceivable - it's doable.
Taking a swipe at President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, Clinton remarked that “I am convinced that with the right leadership we can do this. We haven't had it for seven years, and we won't have it until the two oilmen leave the White House.”
Although her comments got the expected response - laughter - Clinton explained she's the person to usher in the America's new energy era.
“I have been speaking out and working on this for years,” she said. “I have a record of standing up to the oil companies and taking them on because if we don't take them on we will never make these changes.
“We can produce all the ethanol we want, but we will not get it into your cars unless the oil companies are forced to put the tanks in the gas stations.”
The energy revolution won't happen unless America and it's leader become serious about changing its relationship with oil companies, she said. In the only comment Clinton made in her 60-minute talk that was directed at Obama, Clinton said America had a chance in 2005 to wean itself from oil.
It was time to see where each of America's politicians stood on the issue, Clinton said. “I voted against the oil companies with the Dick Cheney energy bill; my opponent voted for it.”
Clinton asserted there “is no reason” for America to continue on its current path, and expressed her dismay with how the current Republican administration is managing the fuel crisis.
“You know very well that our president, President Bush, went to Saudi Arabia last week and begged the Saudis to increase oil production and lower the price,” Clinton said.
“I was embarrassed,” she lamented. “That is not an energy policy, and the president of the United States should not be going to Saudi Arabia and holding hands with the king of Saudi Arabia.
“When I am president you will not catch me holding hands with the Saudis,” Clinton quipped. “I will be holding them accountable.”
Reporter Betsy Cohen can be reached at 523-5253 or at bcohen@missoulian.com.
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