Newsday veteran Tom Demoretcky now lives in North Carolina. Hillary recently came to his parts to hold a rally in Hendersonville, known to locals as Hooterville. Demo files this report:
"Hillary came to Hooterville Friday and spoke to a crowd on Main Street. Just about everybody under 50 in Henderson County is a Republican. There are more independents than Democrats in the county. What was in the crowd was elderly Northerners. Very polite; Hillary said the same things she always does. Gov. Mike Easley was there; he endorsed her.
"So here's this crowd of geezers waiting for the Queen of Pantsuits, and over the microphone comes the voice of the advance man--he sounded about 14--trying to whip us up into a frenzy(didn't work. He offered three lucky parties a chance to meet the candidate. All we had to do is text message a certain number. I saw nobody working the cell phones. He said he would announce the winners in five minutes.
"I said to the gray-haired guy next to me. "If I want to send a text message I'm going to have to buy a cell phone. Then I'll probably buy a wristwatch. Then I won't be retired anymore. He liked it.
"Five minutes later, Frenzyman gets on the mike and announces that there was a problem with the telephones and he is going to pick the winners out of the crowd at random. Probably nobody called."