By Maureen Dowd, Opinion Columnist, Sunday Review, Dec. 2, 2018<\/p>\n
TORONTO \u2014 The snow is falling lightly.<\/p>\n
My thoughts are racing darkly.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m feeling something foreign, something I\u2019ve never felt before. It takes me a moment to identify it.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m feeling sorry for the Clintons.<\/p>\n
In the 27 years I\u2019ve covered Bill and Hillary, I\u2019ve experienced a range of emotions. They\u2019ve dazzled me and they\u2019ve disgusted me.<\/p>\n
But now they\u2019re mystifying me.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m looking around Scotiabank Arena, the home of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and it\u2019s a depressing sight. It\u2019s two-for-the-price-of-one in half the arena. The hockey rink is half curtained off, but even with that, organizers are scrambling at the last minute to cordon off more sections behind thick black curtains, they say due to a lack of sales. I paid $177 weeks in advance. (I passed on the pricey meet-and-greet option.) On the day of the event, some unsold tickets are slashed to single digits.<\/p>\n
I get reassigned to another section as the Clintons\u2019 audience space shrinks. But even with all the herding, I\u2019m still looking at large swaths of empty seats \u2014 and I cringe at the thought that the Clintons will look out and see that, too. It was only four years ago, after all, that Canadians were clamoring to buy tickets to see the woman who seemed headed for history.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n