First, he would be skipping school to go hear her, and second, his grandmother would be taking him.
OK, he asked if they could go listen - but Naida Lefthand knew she didn't have much of a choice.
The Lefthands - Payton's 9-year-old sister Lauren came, too - arrived by noon, early enough to secure front-row seats during Clinton's outdoor appearance at Salish Kootenai College.
Lauren even got to ask the former first lady a question after her speech - what would she do in her first 100 days as president? - while Payton was content to listen.
He wanted to be here, he said, “because Hillary might become the first woman to be a president.”
She's given scant chance of even being the Democratic nominee in 2008 by the national media, but Clinton's appearance in Pablo underscored not only her fight-to-the-finish campaign, but just how hard she and Sen. Barack Obama are battling for every last vote in Montana.
A week after Obama courted votes in Indian Country by visiting the Crow Reservation in eastern Montana, Clinton made similar pitches west of the Divide on the Flathead Reservation - the first leading presidential contender to ever do so, it was believed.
“I understand the obligation the United States government has to the tribes who represent the first peoples of the United States,” Clinton said to cheers.
The last presidential candidate to campaign on the Flathead Reservation was the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who visited Arlee in the 1990s.
There were, of course, plenty of Clinton supporters like Payton Lefthand in the crowd. Phillip Paul of Ronan, a tribal member and Clinton backer, said that even though she and Obama are saying things Native voters want to hear, there's still a huge difference between the two Democrats.
“Obama is inexperienced, he's young, he's been a senator for a year or two and he's shooting for the top already?” Paul said. “He's said a lot about the issues we care about, but he hasn't put anything on paper yet. Hillary has, and she has a record to back her up.”
Paul said he was not happy that CSKT Chairman James Steele Jr. had endorsed Obama, saying he felt tribal leaders should stay neutral in the race.
Steele, who attended Clinton's speech along with many council members, stressed that his endorsement of Obama was a personal one, and that tribal government rarely endorsed political candidates.
Obama's appearance on the Crow Reservation, and Clinton's visit to his people's, signaled that “the Democratic Party is reaching out to Native voters in unprecedented ways,” Steele said. “It's important, because Indian issues tend to get lost among the bigger issues of presidential politics. But this year Montana is important, and the Native vote is important.”
Tribal sovereignty and Indian health care are the two biggest issues for tribal members, Steele said, and both Obama and Clinton have taken strong stances that make them attractive to Indian voters.
So much so, that some in the crowd said they might not make a final decision until they step into the voting booth next Tuesday.
Francine Dupuis was one who fell into the block of undecided voters, and was still there after getting to question Clinton after her speech.
“I was looking for a stronger answer,” said Dupuis, a member of the CSKT gaming commission, after asking Clinton about the National Indian Gaming Commission.
“They've got to quit intruding into tribal sovereignty,” Dupuis said later.
Clinton said she viewed gaming as having “a great benefit to tribes,” and the federal agency that regulates Indian gaming should offer “enough flexibility as they can.”
But Dupuis liked Clinton's declaration that her administration would undo President Bush's education policies.
“The No Child Left Behind Act,” Dupuis said, “is leaving our children behind.”
Reuben Mathias, a tribal council member, had an opportunity to shake Clinton's hand after the speech, and said he used it to urge her to do more for “the poor and sick among us.”
“When I go to D.C., all I see are homeless people, mentally ill people living on the streets,” he said. “All I heard today was a lot about middle-class people. Nobody talks for the poor people living in the streets.”
He also thought Clinton made too many references to her husband Bill's administration in the 1990s.
“This is not about him, it's about her,” Mathias said.
Like Dupuis, however, Mathias said he wouldn't make a decision between Obama and Clinton until he stepped in the voting booth for Montana's primary.
“But I'm glad she made it here,” Mathias said. “Obama could have, but he didn't. We're in the middle of Pablo, and Hillary Clinton is walking around. That's pretty impressive.”
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