In my last diary I posted the front page from the October 13th issue of the Forum of Fargo(ND)-Moorhead(MN), which featured a poll showing Barack Obama leading John McCain in North Dakota by 45%-43%. Well, a smaller article featured on the front page that day announced the news that Todd Palin would be paying a visit to Moorhead, MN on Friday, October 17th. Faced with that bit of news, I determined that I would organize a Pro-Obama rally to counter Palin's appearance as soon as the details (place and time) were made available.
It wasn't until Wednesday that the details finally came out: Palin would be appearing at the Scheel's sporting goods store in downtown Moorhead at 2:00 p.m. to make a few comments and sign autographs.
This didn't give me much time to organize, but the info came out just in time for me to be able to get the word out on Wednesday at the local college campus' big debate watch party which my family attended with about 250 other people. I was able to make contact with the president of the college Democrats, and he said he'd help get the word out on campus.
My wife, 10 year-old son and I headed out early so we could arrive at the site to scope out the scene and talk to security personnel to see where we could safely gather without needlessly causing any problems. I approached an officer, and he said that there were no restrictions - we were allowed to assemble on the public sidewalk that borders the sporting goods store where Palin would be speaking.
We had 2 of our big Obama yard signs, as well as my "Veterans for Obama" sign, so we went right ahead and started our Pro-Obama rally early, just the 3 of us, as a few early birds were arriving for the Palin event.
Two older McCain supporters (Air Force vets) saw my "Veterans for Obama" sign , and they came over to say hi. My wife's yard sign had a "Read my lipstick, I'm voting Democrat" bumper sticker affixed to the front, and the old vets thought it was funny. It gave me hope that maybe the McCain-Palin supporters at this rally would be civil.
The first sign that things could possibly get ugly was when we heard a story from a couple of the college kids that arrived. They had parked in a bar's parking lot, not far from the Palin event. They said that this guy approached them because he saw they had signs, and he asked them if they had any McCain-Palin signs! When they showed him what kind of signs they had, the guy began to walk away and said, "Oh, so you guys are nigger-lovers!" As you can imagine, the students were taken aback.
For the most part, our rally was a real positive experience. Most of the people that passed us on their way to attend Palin's appearance just tried to ignore us. The local newspaper said that anywhere between 200-400 people attended the Palin event, but I was keeping an approximate count, and I came up with a number closer to 100-150.
We had about 35-40 people show up for our Obama rally - lots of college kids, and we had plenty of signs. We were able to stretch the length of the sidewalk alongside the sporting goods store facing the busy street that passes by the store. While Todd Palin was speaking to the crowd gathered inside the store, we were receiving hundreds of friendly honks and thumbs up outside the store. This was the best part of the day - everyone in our group was so happy and positive! It was a real celebration!
Things began to change after the crowd inside the event started filing out. One fella came up and called us a bunch of socialists, and said that Obama wanted to raise our taxes. He would have nothing to do with the fact that Obama's plan will cut taxes to people making less than $200,000 a year. We stopped trying to engage him in intelligent discourse, but he decided to be a pest and kept yelling "Obama will raise your taxes, Obama will raise your taxes!" We just ignored him and kept holding our Obama signs, waving to the friendly cars passing by. Eventually he wandered away.
The most hateful exchange that I experienced came from local conservative radio talk show host Scott Hennen (who has frequently filled in for Sean Hannity). On his way to his van after leaving the Palin event he apparently felt it was noble to shout "Baby-killers! You guys are baby-killers!"
That wasn't enough for Hennen. He then felt he had to attack my 10 year-old son, who was wearing an Obama t-shirt festooned with Obama buttons. He yelled at him, "Where are your parents? That's child abuse!" Hennen's face was contorted, and his voice was just full of hate and anger. For some reason I had expected better from a local radio personality, but I realized I was terribly mistaken in Hennen's case.
Then came the vitriolic, belligerent, angry lady who said she was a Christian. Her one and only issue was her opposition to abortion. She was going off on one of the college kids and so I approached to try to see if I could calm things down. She asked me if I wanted to talk about God, and I said, "Sure, I'm a born-again Christian." She looked at my "Veterans for Obama" sign and said "No you're not, you're holding that sign." (Tho' offended by her judgmental attitude, I decided to fight fire with calmness and reason).
I then tried to explain to her how Obama's policies would actually be more favorable towards potentially reducing the number of abortions in America, that no one is really pro-abortion, and I referred her to the Matthew 25 Network, which clearly lists all the info regarding Obama's plan. She would have none of it.
When I tried to go into some detail about Obama's abortion-reduction policies (such as paid maternity leave to make sure families won't lose their employment and much needed income from having a child, expanded adoption tax credits, etc.) she kept interrupting and yelling before I could finish, saying, "That won't work, he's not going to do anything, you don't have an answer." Seeing that this lady was not going to listen to anything except outlawing abortion, I decided to walk away.
By that time, though, many of the people in our group had gathered around to see this woman who was yelling so loudly. Several tried to reason with her with the same results. When my wife tried to tell her about all of the social programs Obama would like to put into place to help expectant mothers, she said, "Well, that's socialism!" My wife responded, "Jesus was a socialist!", and the lady responded, "You just called Obama Jesus!" My wife, of course, was totally flabbergasted and taken aback by the woman's charge, and responded, "No, I didn't, I said "Jesus was a socialist!" The lady tried then tried to argue that Jesus was NOT a socialist. My wife, not being at all the confrontational type, just let the lady rant, and eventually walked away.
Several of the college kids were not at all used to being called socialists or being accused of being non-Christian for supporting Obama, and that's why some of them continued to talk to her. She was totally inflexible, so they all ended up just walking away too, and finally the loud lady left, and we went back to holding our signs and happily waving at the friendly honking cars passing by.
The event ended with a group of us going to a nearby coffee house to decompress and debrief. A few of the older ladies who had taken part in the Obama rally were already there, having left about 30 minutes before we decided to wrap things up, so we got to visit with them and get their impression of the event. They all agreed that it had been a very positive thing.
When I ordered my iced cappuccino I asked the server how business had been. She told me that it had ended up to be pretty good, but only because our group had decided to stop by. She told me that a group of people from the Palin event had come in earlier, but when they saw the server talking and being friendly with the ladies from our Pro-Obama rally, they'd turned around and walked out! I told her, "Well, you ended up with us!" And she smiled.
Here are some photos from our rally:
And this is me with my sign!
GO OBAMA!