I drove out Dixie Highway to talk to voters who'd gathered in the gym of Butler Traditional High School to see the former president and, by extension, support his wife.

They came in three categories. One was represented by a lady of uncertain age from a small county in eastern Kentucky. You know her type from the pictures: a visage lined deep with care and too many cigarettes, a smile-through-it-all smile: a survivor in the guerilla war of life. "I'm with Hillary 'cause there is no quit in her," she said. "She's not a quitter and neither am I." Clinton is a symbol to voters such as these and, in that sense, you can't possible ask her to drop out of the race until the last dog dies.

Greg Wagner, who is in the real-estate business in the area, embodied the second category. He wore a bright blue University of Kentucky jacket and cap. His support for Clinton was cold-eyed and somewhat resigned. He was a Democrat and simply saw no way that America would ever elect Obama to the White House. It was just too heavy a lift. Obama's failures in some other states bothered him deeply. "I would hope that he could win in the fall, but how?" Wagner said. He assumed that primary failures were a signal of weakness in the fall. "How can we win the White House without Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida? I just don't see it."

Carl Bensinger, a local lawyer who wore a business suit and black overcoat to ward off the rain, defined the third category. He was for Clinton because she was the most experienced. But he thought that either she or Obama would be able to unite the party at the Democrats' convention in Denver. Obama could, he said, win those swing states of Pennsylvania and Ohio. "Concern about the economy trumps everything else," he said. "That's how we win."
I wanted to see the former president again—I have caught his act a couple of times this season—but his plane was two hours late getting out of New York. I had to hustle off to business of my own: I have a new book to sell. But I saw the lawyer later at my book signing at Carmichael's, the city's homey and superbly stocked independent bookstore. "Clinton was very good," Bensinger reported. He sounded a bit wistful, as if to say: too bad it wasn't Bill Clinton running for a third term.

The next morning, the former president's picture made the front page of The Courier-Journal. BILL CLINTON RALLIES SUPPORT IN LOUISVILLE the headline said.

Well, let's see. Let's watch the returns from Louisville and surrounding Jefferson County. And don't forget Shively.

© 2008