I went to the Hillary Clinton rally at East High School in Des Moines today. By the time I got there an hour and a half early it was already filling up. The media section was massive, taking up an entire wall and a half of the gymnasium. I would estimate about 30-40 news cameras showed up.

The approach to the event was a bit different than what I had expected. Hillary’s current slogan is “Let the Conversation Begin,” which is more or less what she ended up doing with the audience for an hour and a half. Leonard Boswell helped give the introduction and Hillary took the stage in the center of the gym, with audience surrounding her 360 degrees.

I was pleased to see that she didn’t really stump too much. Basically she gave a ten-minute introduction and then opened the session up to Q & A. Because her answers were fairly long, there were only about eight or so questions, but there was a pretty wide variety of issues. A decent number were on education issues. She got a veterans-issue question and a question on foster care. Basically she came out in support of more consistent rules on foster-family care from state-to-state.

Hillary also got hit up by a high school student on global warming, which she managed to spin into an ethanol endorsement.

Noticeably absent was any questioning on Iraq. I would have thought that one of the most visible issues of the decade would have had at least one solid question, but it didn’t happen.

I’ve been pretty lukewarm towards Hillary for a while, but she did seem rather personable and decent at this rally. That helped my perception of her. I still don’t think I am 100% behind her on most things, and as it stands now I won’t likely caucus for her, but this rally did help my perception of her a great deal.