Hillary's Ladies Of Leisure World
Working Overtime for Clinton At the Retirement Community

By Libby Copeland
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Barack Obama may have the youth, but Hillary Clinton has the good people of Leisure World, and by God, they vote.

"I'd trade my scarf for a Hillary button," says Lillian Wolf, 74, a Clinton fan, sitting in the lobby of a clubhouse after casting her vote in the next room. It's a Redskins scarf. "I mean, that's true love," Wolf says.

Leisure World of Maryland, the senior living community, is filled with love for Hillary. Hillary, Hillary, Hillary. Strangely, there are hardly any signs for her outside the polling station at Clubhouse One, but then again, says a tiny lady with fiery red hair, "Don't hafta be. Everybody knows."

They're lined up even before the polls open at 7, voters stretching down the hall and all the way back to the potted plants in the lobby. So prompt! ("We wanted a parking space," one of them says.) Mostly women. Mostly retired. Hillary, Hillary, Hillary. One of them says her friend here met Bill on Sunday, when he came to Leisure World to campaign for Hillary, and Bill touched the campaign button the friend had on, and now she won't wear it anymore because his fingerprint is on it.

And now they both stand in line to vote for Hillary.

Who says that ol' Clinton magic is gone?

This place is ground zero for Hillary love. It was here, in 1992, that the Hillary Rodham Clinton Support Network was formed -- to protect and defend "poor Hillary" when everyone was "bashing" her, says Lil Caulton, a charter member of the fan club.

Caulton, 80, is a Democratic precinct chairman, and while she doesn't officially endorse Clinton in that role, she will tell you if you ask: She loves her. Early yesterday morning, she sets up a table outside the polling station with all sorts of party literature, which she refers to, lovingly, as her "junk." It is bitterly cold and still dark. She has forgotten gloves and a hat, but she has somehow remembered her program from the 1993 presidential inauguration and an autographed copy of Hillary Clinton's autobiography ("To Lil with thanks").

"That and the lottery is gonna make me rich," Caulton says dryly.

A man comes over, gives Caulton a hug.

"How the hell are you?" he says.

"Did you vote?" Caulton asks.

He says he did. And "I hope everybody who heard Bill the other day will vote the right way."

Perhaps. Not a lot of Republicans here ("I had to sneak in," one John McCain voter says), though there are a number of Democrats who say they're voting for Barack Obama. Down the sidewalk from Caulton is a Leisure World couple campaigning for him with a handmade sign.

"It was a hard decision because I've been a feminist all my life," says Ruth Burgos-Sasscer. "He has a vision."

The people who love Hillary love her not for her vision but for her endurance. Obama -- they talk about him like he's a steak in need of more grill time. He's a "bright energetic young person," Caulton says, but he needs "a few more years of getting bashed about and learning the ropes." Who here at Leisure World, during the course of a good long life, hasn't been bashed about?

The highly personal criticisms of Clinton that you hear from folks elsewhere -- that she is too ambitious, that she stuck with her husband for the wrong reasons -- you don't hear that here. Instead what you hear about is her ability to keep her family together, her insistence on putting one foot in front of the other and getting everything done. Like a real woman.

"She's strong, she's a survivor, she's got a plan for everything," says Vivian Hirschberg, 82, who walks out of the Crystal Ballroom, where the voting is going on, carrying her oxygen tank in a black bag decorated with a Hillary sticker. And the marital troubles?

"We're married 64 years," Vivian says, putting her hand on her husband Hy's arm. "I hope he never cheated, but I don't know if I -- "

"Yes, you would, you like me too much," Hy interrupts.

"I don't think I would've kicked him out," she says. "He would've paid."

Hy tugs gently on the oxygen tubes descending from Vivian's nose. "Let's get out of here before you say any more," he says.

Over by the door, Wolf, in her Redskins scarf, sits with a friend after voting and they debate Hill and Bill and the way it's all gone down. They're sitting in green chairs next to the door, not far from the handwritten sign advertising the meal choices: Roast Beef, Roast Turkey With Dressing, Baked Salmon.

There's a lot to chew on. Clinton's not doing as well as her supporters had hoped. Lately, Obama has been cleaning her clock. Wolf says she loved Bill's speech the other night. Her friend, Amelia Jensen, 79, another Clinton supporter, says it was too long.

"Well, you always criticize," Wolf says.

Jensen says she saw Hillary's new ad.

"Of course, Obama has more dynamic ads," Wolf says.

"Poor Hillary," Jensen says. All that personal money -- $5 million! -- she had to put into her campaign. "She should just go on television and cry again. It was so effective."

"I don't think she had a really good campaign manager, that Patti," says Wolf, referring to recently resigned Patti Solis Doyle. "She needed somebody like that bald guy with the Republican wife . . . Jim Carville."

"I don't think it makes that big a difference," Jensen says.

"I think it makes a lot of difference," Wolf says.

A big strapping widower comes over and the talk turns to the popularity of single men at Leisure World. All those lovelorn ladies!

"You know how it is," Wolf says, "as soon as the wife passes away, they start with the casserole."

Somebody makes a Viagra joke and soon enough the ladies head off, and the widower, whose name is John Law, 80, is asked who he voted for.

Who do you think? he asks.

Obama?

You got it. Hillary, she's got too much baggage, Law says. Now Obama, on the other hand -- saw him on TV, making a speech. That's something fresh. "He would've had them storming the gates of hell," he says.