<p>None for me but S1 stood 15 feet away from Obama who was making a speech in Ohio last year.</p>
<p>Off-topic…I ran into Bill Bradley when he was a Knick in the lingerie dept of Bloomingdale’s. I was in HS and went to every Knick game I could - although Jerry Lucas was my favorite. Bradley was shopping with his wife and looked like he would rather be anywhere but there.</p>
<p>I’ve been lucky enough to have heard President Obama speak twice. Once when he was a Senator and once as President. The Presidential speech was insanely packed. </p>
<p>I also met Al Gore when he was Vice President and attended a concert for the Clinton Foundation last year, where he gave a short speech. </p>
<p>My mother’s boss, a Republican, met President Clinton and always talks about how great he was in person. He might have a little man-crush.</p>
<p>Two posts were just edited for comments referring to the current presidential election. Please try to confine comments to the sighting of famous people, without comment on the current presidential campaign race.</p>
<p>I saw Clinton when he spoke at the local community college in 1992. Dragged hte kids with me (they were under 2 at the time).</p>
<p>S1 saw George Bush in the Rose Garden in 2008.</p>
<p>I love all these stories.</p>
<p>I went to hear Obama at an early campaign rally. I managed to sneak backstage. I was able to shake hands with him, one on one. It was odd, and I told him to be careful. I couldn’t believe that security wasn’t better. I realized we were alone because everyone else had been herded to one spot for a photo op. I joined them, and, thus, we were pictured together in Rolling Stone!</p>
<p>Also saw Reagan at the 1984 GOP convention in Dallas when I was an intern. Met Lady Bird at a luncheon and saw her whole family at Christmastime while touring the LBJ Ranch. It was so cool to see them through the window of the family home, celebrating. And Lynda and one of her daughters were walking and waved at all of us gawking tourists. Oh, and had lunch with Mike Huckabee a couple of years before his first run for president, when he was just laying the groundwork.</p>
<p>To continue the Clinton charisma theme, I have several female friends who have met both Clinton and Henry Cisneros and swear that the, ahem, “charisma” just oozes out their pores. Wish I’d met them!</p>
<p>Close: I saw George McGovern (ok, wasn’t close) at a campaign rally and Nixon’s San Clemente motorcade, both in 1972, then the Bush motorcade leaving the White House last month after the portrait unveiling. I gotta get out more.</p>
<p>Another not too close- We used to hang with Ross Perot at our son’s basketball games in middle school. Ross’s grandsons went to school with my son. He is a lovely, nice man.</p>
<p>I saw JFK riding in an open limo in a motorcade up Park Avenue, when I was about 6 years old. I was with my father, at the southeast corner of 67th Street and Park Avenue by the 7th Regiment Armory, and he lifted me up so I could see. I remember that JFK’s hair looked like it was blazing red in the sunshine. </p>
<p>I also shook hands with Bobby Kennedy a couple of times when he was campaigning for the U.S. Senate. </p>
<p>I saw Jimmy Carter several years before he became President, when he gave a speech at the Yale Political Union. I remember almost nothing about it.</p>
<p>And I saw Gerald Ford from a distance, at one of the Bicentennial celebrations in 1976. </p>
<p>I met Dan Quayle once when he was Vice President; a friend of mine was on his staff.</p>
<p>And that’s it, I think.</p>
<p>I’ve seen plenty of non-political celebrities, but that’s for another thread!</p>
<p>PS: If I could count my father, he’s probably known just about every major Democratic office-holder and politician in New York in the last 60 years or so. I know he knew Eleanor Roosevelt, and I have a photo of him with Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p>My mother saw Adolf Hitler more than once when she was a child in Berlin, but that’s another story too.</p>
<p>I met John McCain a couple of times when he was running. I was surprised at how slightly built he was until I remembered that fighter pilots are usually not tall in order to fit into the cockpit.</p>
<p>I’ve seen Clinton and Obama. (And John Kerry. But I think most of us in that crowd were more impressed by Jon Bon Jovi than by John Kerry.) When Obama was a senator, I actually got to ask him a question at an event and get an answer…so can I claim to have “met” him, even though I was using a mike at the back of the room?</p>
<p>I just remembered I’ve also seen George H.W. Bush, at the Dartmouth graduation last year. He was given an honorary award. He sat in a wheelchair and didn’t get up.</p>
<p>I was also on a flight with Jenna Bush. It was the shuttle from DC to NY, where no seats are reserved. I kept trying to sit in one of the front rows and kept being told by several men that they were “saved” for someone already. I was really annoyed. Turns out it was for Jenna. What was really cool was that we had to sit on the runway for an hour before takeoff and i got to eavesdrop on a phone call she had with her mother.</p>
<p>shellfell, a Bill Bradley sighting! He used to walk on the beach on Long Beach Island every Labor Day weekend. (He was still a Senator at that time.) I finally figured that out after a couple of years and brought along a couple of photographs I had taken of the Knicks playing the Celtics in Boston Garden. (I took them while in college 20+ years earlier.) I saw him walking along the beach, grabbed the photos and showed them to him. He asked where I had gotten them and I told him I had taken the shots. I had one black and white I had enlarged which showed him at the top of his jump shot and asked him to autograph it for me, which he did. 
He asked if I had another copy of the photo that he could have and reluctantly I told him I did not. I was NOT going to give up the one I had taken and enlarged in my photography course in college. 
Now back to your regularly scheduled Presidential sightings!</p>
<p>I’ve heard both Clinton and Obama speak at graduations at the University of Michigan. Clinton was after he was President and Obama was during.</p>
<p>While waiting in line to enter the stadium with amazing security, I found myself standing next to Lloyd Carr. I was so impressed that even Lloyd Carr had to wait in line to enter Michigan Stadium. For those who don’t know, he was the Michigan Football Coach.</p>
<p>While walking into the stadium for a 2011 World Series game, a motorcade of black suburbans passed about 6’ from where we were on the curb. George W was leaning out the window smiling and waving. He looked years younger than when he left office. Being a former president is evidently a better gig than being a sitting president.</p>
<p>My husband had a private meeting w GW Bush regarding malpractice/tort reform. Thy walked together and were trailed by the Secret Service. Bush also called out my husband’s name and told an anecdote about him in a speech. H said that GWB was far more intelligent and articulate in a 1-1 setting than he is in speeches and crowds.</p>
<p>We also got a private tour of the WH and saw Air Force One land and the president and other key people get out, which was cool.</p>
<p>Oops -Marine One. The 3 helicopters swoop down and at the last minute, 2 fly away.</p>
<p>Wow, how could I forget. I was in a group of about 10 who interviewed GWB, and I was not at all impressed, which I guess is why I forgot about him. Others who had met him before agreed that he was off that day and normally was more impressive and engaging.</p>
<p>ETA: This was just as his presidential run was heating up.</p>
<p>My mother met Bill Clinton and reported the same thing that some reported above - when he talks to you, it feels like you’re the only person in the room. She also said Hillary Clinton is more fine-boned and petite and pretty in person.</p>
<p>Hillary and Madeline Albright were just at a Wellesley function; D was waiting in line when a limo pulls up and out steps Albright, just 10 feet away. D was so excited. She noted how short she was - they have that in common.</p>
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<p>I can believe it! Living the life of a former President has to be a bit like surviving a solo swim from Miami to Cuba through shark infested waters. It’s all gravy after that, and you’re grateful as heck to be alive!</p>