Chatty Crowd Forces Clinton to Cut Speech Short [View All]

[JimGinPA]

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/04/14/politics/fromtheroad/entry4014458.shtml

PHILADELPHIA -- Hillary Clinton was forced to cut her normal stump speech short when a chatty and meddlesome crowd kept her from grasping their attention. Clinton, who was addressing the Philadelphia County Democratic Party's Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, spoke for just over five minutes, despite having the press arrive almost two hours beforehand.

The crowd never settled down during her remarks. A spokesman for Clinton denied that she cut the speech short, and told reporters that Clinton was advised by her Pennsylvania team to deliver “a short speech" given the set up of the event.

In previous party dinners, most recently in Butte, Mt., Clinton spoke for almost an hour to a crowd that seemed to be paying attention. The aide said this was a “different type” of J-J Dinner, primarily because people were not seated at tables, and were “milling around” the banquet hall.

Whether or not Clinton’s reception at the dinner had anything to do with her recent attacks on Barack Obama remains unclear. Clinton has never delivered a formal speech in such a short amount of time. The most recent abbreviated speech was back on February 15 when Clinton spoke to a crowd at a Lockheed Martin plant in Akron, Ohio. The speech lasted for just 12 minutes, with the first applause line coming 11 minutes into the speech.