The meeting between Senator Hillary Clinton & the Rutgers basketball team, which had been postponed twice because of weather & the Virginia Tech shootings, finally went on yesterday. Unfortunately a meeting between Clinton, the coach, assistant coach and what was supposed to be some of the players didn’t entirely work out. The players opted instead to goto study hall to prepare for upcoming exams as well as cited ‘fatigue” with the issue as a reason for not attending.

Clinton did speak with a crowd of about 700 students where she talked about the issue and asked them to take a pledge of some kind.

In my editorial opinion?

First off the Sen. got herself in a bit of a bind. It seemed rather opportunist to setup the meeting in the first place but OK she is a sitting Senator, former First Lady, was much maligned in her life over her gender and so the meeting made some sense. Also it would have been a good chance for the girls to stand with a powerful female role-model.

But these things need to happen pretty quick in order to work. If she had been on a plane and in the gym with the girls within 24 or 48 hours, as difficult as that may have been, it would have been a great photo op and gotten a lot of positive attention.

As the Imus story dragged on though it seemed more and more all of the Democratic candidates who came out against him were warping it into a campaign message. At this point, well after Imus had been fired and the girls have moved on, it was just too late. Canceling the event though wasn’t an option either. If she cancelled then it REALLY would have seemed like an opportunist campaign stunt.

At the end of the day neither Clinton nor the girls were really served by her visit and it just became a rather worthless endeavor.

In addition, enough with the pledges. Every politician in every campaign year comes up with these “pledges” for people to live by. Frankly and this is a VERY big MY OPINION moment, the reason you know pledges don’t work is because politicians use them to monitor themselves and each other.

Politicians like Ms. Clinton constantly “pledge” to do something. Usually they do the complete opposite. So why should any of us sign them? Like a New Years resolution we undoubtedly have no intention of following them either. Wouldn’t we save a lot of time and energy by just doing what we planned on and end up doing in the end, which is nothing?

The campaign would be better served if Clinton never offered up or signed another pledge for the rest of the way.