“We’re going to take pictures,” Warren announced from the stage, shortly after invoking those trailblazers of yore. Here was a stealth weapon available to neither abolitionists nor suffragettes. “Someone will explain whether to go to that side or that side.”
For many of the hundreds of people who had turned out to hear Warren speak, this was the main event: a photo with the candidate. Quickly, a buzzing but orderly line began to snake across the gym, into the school’s hallway, and out the double doors into the street.
The selfie line has, by now, become a notorious feature of a Warren event—one that reflects the campaign’s savvy as well as the candidate's unique commitment and stamina: She stays as long as it takes to pose with every person who wants a picture. Sometimes the line is so long that this obligation requires hours of Warren’s time—as it did in Chicago in June, when over three thousand people took two and a half hours to shuffle through. “I don’t know how she does it after doing the speech and taking those questions, which is very hard,” said former Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid. “I’ve never known anyone to do that before. I know that when I finished my town halls, I just wanted to go home.”
Warren, however, told me that she finds the selfie line “energizing.” Earlier that day, as we chatted in her hotel, I asked her about these post-rally meet-and-greets. “The selfie line is the chance to have the direct touch,” she told me. “I get to hear from one person after another what they want me to hear. Anything! This is their chance, and they can tell me anything they want as they come through that selfie line. And it keeps me connected to people in a powerfully important way.”
Originally posted by Mikhailoh: Smart. Especially at this stage of the race.
For most folks that will firmly cement a personal connection to the candidate, which will, as it is shared, draw in their friends.
No kidding. I saw a tweet from a lawyer who took her adolescent daughter, and the adolescent daughter was star struck. The mother was deeply impressed with how Warren had treated her and how her daughter. That kind of thing has ripples through entire circles of contacts.
If it had been about political instincts, the story line could have been about Warren's summertime proposed legislation to strip soldiers of high government honors who killed American Indians.
