Political appearances you'll never forget...

The night I stood in a park to listen to RFK Sr. a few days before he was murdered.

Shaking hands with Bill Clinton before he was elected.

Missing a chance when I was a kid to see JFK ... choosing instead to see a Three Stooges movie. (true!)

On the GOP side, seeing Nixon, Reagan, Burt Ward, Tony Martin and others at a massive GOP rally in California in '68.

Missing W make a joke about "hanging" to Coretta Scott King during a dedication ceremony in honour of her late husband at the White House.

But I'll never forget seeing the tape of it:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020121-1.html

Seeing Jennifer Granholm and John Cherry just after they became Governor and Lieutenant Governor.

A couple of Kerry/Edwards debate parties (Granholm's husband was at one of them)

I was with a house full of Yippees for a month preparing for the inaugural parade. Our Madison, Wisconsin chapter brought down 13,000 dead rats, and when Nixswine passed, we let him have it. Made network news that night.

ewww.

theater of the absurd. huge protests outside both for and against him, cops everywhere plus private security, screaming and yelling all over. inside the audtitorium holding 2000 people, steamy sweat, tension like a film of the hitler rallies, the faithful and protestors all crammed together like cattle in the death chute, and finally,

george wallace himself preening and pimping on the podium, strutting and waving and demagoging. tell the protestors to love it or leave, and the faithful to take it back.

hysteria and turmoil, with the new american sieg heils and suddenly, he was gone.

the subdued and drained crowd or mob, take your pick, slowly emerging into the night air and blessed quiet.

Msongs
www.msongs.com
batik & digital art
mugs and shirts

John Kerry in Boston, 12/11/2005.
John Kerry in Boston, 4/22/2006.

Al Gore in Philadelphia, ??/2000, got to shake his hand. (sorry bout the date, I remember everything else about it clearly!)

May 19, 2001 in Washington DC. Of course everyone here knows what that was, and you were there, right?

I was working for a cargo transportation company at LAX in the late 1980's and drove out of work a second before the vice president's motorcade left from a private airfield across the street. The LAPD wouldn't let me turn off and kept waving me to move forward. I was scared to death I was going to be arrested. Instead, I got waved all the way from LAX to Beverly Hills and made the trip in record time because they kept me ahead of the motorcade and the police escorts. Too bad that was not where I wanted to go.

As a kid, my Mom took me to a Democratic rally in our city, here in Michigan. There were candidates running for several things here, and the headliner, Sen. Robert Kennedy of New York. It was fun and wonderful, and I count it as one of the highlights of my life. Just to show you what era it was--I think it was 1966--if you remember Kennedy's "long hair," which was kind of getting blown around in the breeze outside, somebody in the crowd called out, "Hey Bobby, where's your guitar?" Like a Beatle, which was what everything was compared to then. A wonderful era, horribly cut short.

Kalamazoo. What surprised me was that he was much shorter than I had expected, probably because he had such a large personality. I also saw Nixon at WMU around that time because we attended all those kinds of things, but strangely, I don't remember anything about that. But Bobby is burned in my mind.

Makes me want to root for the Penguin, the Joker, the Riddler, and Catwoman! :puke:

Yeah, he was there with Tricky Dick, Ronnie Rayguns, I think Max Rafferty (superintendent of public instruction) and all the big California Repubs were there. They even had girls in Nixon cheerleader outfits!

Seeing JFK give a campaign speech in Hartford Ct.....immense crowd...beautiful fall day.

Busing down with 19 busloads of peoplr, from Union Square in NYC to protest the coronation of * in 2000
There were more cops and military than there were supporters or protestors. Washington DC was an armed camp. They actively worked to break up the groups of protestors. * and the dick never left there dark windowed limos...scared way back in Jan 2001. There were guys with rifles on the roof corners of every single building...and multiple rows of them up and down Connecticut Avenue, in front of and behind the crowds. Such a different scene than when Clinton and Gore walked the route and shook hands etc.

Being in Nashville on election night 2000...seeing all the TV monitors in the convention center posting the e x a c t same numbers and wondering. We went up to hill for the Gore gathering about 10pm..and hearing that Fla had been taken away. I had to drive bach to Chattanooga where I was giving a week long class for my company.

About 3 weeks later, I was in Austin, taking a class for a week. I was working online about 8pm when they announced on TV that Harris refused to let the vote count continue and * would be out at the state capitol to make a statement. I left my laptop dialed in...got in my rental car...found the capitol building about 4 miles from my Hotel...and joined a group of about 12 protestors in one corner - about 300 * supporters were on the other side of the lawn. This group of 12 had a banner they'd made that said COUNT THE VOTE. The crowd of 300 moved over in front of us and were U G L Y. They shouted at us and wagged W fingers in our faces. VERY nasty group of people. A line of Texas Rangers finally stepped in front of us and faced them down. They moved back over to the other side and *'s limo pulled up. We couldn't see him to protest....he's so short that everyone else hid him from sight. EVERY guy in his group was taller than him. hahaha