In November 1992–right before the election of William Jefferson Clinton–Richard & I were invited to a rally at Navy Pier in Chicago… It was called “Cook County Young Democrats Welcome Hillary & Tipper” (or something like that)…
So I sent in our reservation forms, and sometime that morning, I bought myself one of those big pieces of oak tag–so 20th Century–and I plastered it with pix of HRC with the words HILLARY’S AUXILIARY scrawled in huge letters in the middle.
Then we left for Navy Pier really early, so we would be in the front… and we were!
Speaker, Speaker, Speaker… and I am waving my sign. And some of the speakers see me and they say “Hillary’s Auxiliary?” I like that!” (As I remember it, Maggie Daley and Carol Mosley Braun noticed me right away.)
And then Tipper Gore came to podium. She gave me a smile and she waved!!
And then finally, finally HRC came on to the stage… and I waved and I waved… But her eyes were glued to the middle of the huge ballroom–which was stuffed to the gills by that point–so she never saw me…
I knew I could have pushed my sign higher to get her attention, but I didn’t want to distract her. (Yes, it’s true. Stump speaking isn’t HRC’s best skill, but I think she is much better at it now… Remember, this was ’92…) 
And then she came down from the podium to work the line… and I was just about to shake her hand when someone–a guy–pushed in between us. But we locked eyes and gave each other “V for Victory” fingers… And then she was gone…
As we began heading back home, someone from the campaign came up to me all excited: “Can we have that sign???” Me: Sure!!! And that was that…
There are no pictures of any of this. There were no SmartPhones in 1992; there was no Facebook in 1992; it never occurred to me way back in 1992 to take what we would now call “a selfie.” So you will just have to trust me on all this… And if you don’t know if you can trust me then you all know that you can definitely trust Richard (the “calm” before and after my “storm”) who is an understated “man of integrity” in every way.
Now it is 2015 and a wave of craziness is washing over our planet. So I am officially declaring that now and forever, Jan Lisa Huttner is a member of HILLARY’S AUXILIARY 🙂
9/12/15: Breakfast with beloved husband Richard Bayard Miller at Qathra (our favorite Brooklyn cafe.) Photo by our neighbor Favio.
All HillaryWear on this page is by Tara Thralls.
