I was chatting with Geoff Ralston of the “education YC-like tech incubator” Imagine K12 (former Chief Product Officer at Yahoo) earlier today. He was all dressed up because he was going to a fundraiser later for President Obama, and he told me this interesting little anecdote about the last time he spoke with a president - Clinton. It was after a speaking event, and Clinton was standing in front of a screen with an American flag on it, talking with people and taking photographs. There was an enormous line of people waiting to talk with him, which formed a large U-shape. Geoff was near the far end of the U-shape, and observed that when somebody went up to talk with Clinton, one of two things would happen:

1. The person would go up, say something, and Clinton would smile, put his hand around them, and turn to the cameraman for a photo.
2. The person would go up, say something, and Clinton would fold his arms, think for a moment, and start talking with him. After a few seconds Clinton would put his arm around them and take the photo.

So Geoff had plenty of time to think about what he would say that would be interesting enough to get the President to think and talk further with him. When the time came (this was in the early days of the internet), Geoff said that the internet is going to change the world, and access to the internet for everybody must be protected, otherwise there won’t be equal opportunity.

What happened? This must have struck a chord, because Clinton folded his arms, thought for a moment, and started talking. And talking. And talking. And talking some more. Then he put his arm around Geoff, took a photo for the camera, and continued talking. And talking. And took another photo.

By the end, Geoff became pretty self-conscious because everybody was watching and waiting and Clinton had spent by far the longest amount of time on him.

So he’s got a record to uphold when he talks with Obama tonight at the fundraiser. Obama is in Palo Alto and gave a town hall meeting at Facebook.

Geoff told me he was planning to talk to Obama about how most of the problems he is facing are short-term, and the real, long-term, enduring legacy should be focusing on education. Cheers to that.