Once Upon A Time

Digby finds a 2008 Newsweek story containing this bit of history, about "the 1994 Reform Riders campaign, a nationwide bus tour designed to build support for President Clinton’s health-care reform agenda"—

The idea was to emulate the famous 1960's Freedom Rides but the campaign was plagued with protesters. In Portland, Ore., the route was blocked by an "angry anti-Clinton mob" who had their own bus, which was covered in red tape and dragged by a tow truck with a sign reading THIS IS CLINTON CARE. A plane bearing protest signs flew overhead. Hillary Clinton met the Reform Rider activists in Seattle where she delivered a speech on health care. The result was a mob scene. ...

Newsweek's article was based Carl Bernstein's book, Hillary Clinton, A Woman in Charge. The magazine quoted Bernstein here—

By the time the caravan had reached Seattle the threat of violence was constant. All week, talk radio hosts, both in the Northwest and on national broadcasts, implored their listeners to confront the Reform Riders to "show Hillary" their feelings about her. This "call to arms," as she described it, attracted menacing hordes, many of whom identified themselves as militia members, tax resisters and anti-abortion militants. She estimated that at least half of the 4,500 people in the audience of her Seattle speech were protesters. She agreed for the first time to wear a bulletproof vest. Rarely had she felt endangered, but this was different. During her speech, the catcalls, screaming, and heckling drowned out much of her remarks. When she left the stage and got into a limousine, hundreds of protesters surrounded the car. They were rabid with hatred. Several arrests were made by the Secret Service, which impounded two guns and a knife."

It's a story I missed, back in the day before bloggers tried filling in media blanks. But this MO is familiar from the 2010 "Tea Party" mobs threatening Congressional Democrats prior to the AACA vote.

The usual suspects had their mobs whipped up against their own self-interest, aided by special malevolence directed at the hated Hillary. As Digby says of Clinton facing the 1994 mobs, "She had to wear a bulletproof vest because people were trying to kill her --- over her health care plan."