My wife and I went to two Clark events in Atlanta...

onehandle

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Fri Nov-07-03 09:00 PM
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My wife and I went to two Clark events in Atlanta...

We went to a fundraiser on Thursday night, and a rally this morning.

Good crowd at the fundraiser. About 300-400 people came to the pub/event facility at Piedmont Park. His address to the crowd was short, but effective. Some things he said (as I can recall, not direct quotes): He started by admitting up front, "I was a Republican". He went on to list the many things wrong with the GOP, and what he admired about Democrats. "I could have been the world's loneliest Republican, or become a Democrat."

"In his campaign, Bush said that he 'knew how to handle a surplus'. That's one promise he kept." He said that Bush, "will take credit, but not responsibility." General Clark is "deeply offended by what Bush is doing to the country." He made a funny military analogy about, "campaign logistics and refueling for New Hampshire" (their need for cash). Our donation gives us "C-Company" status, which is the fundraising arm of the campaign. We each got a cute pin with a Bold C and four stars. That means we get to sit at President Clark's table at one of the inauguration parties in 2005. Ha ha.

The next morning there was a High-Roller fundraiser. $250 minimum. Hopefully it was packed.

The rally later in the morning was on the campus of Georgia Tech, just a couple of blocks from my office. Warning bells went up for me when I heard this. Tech is enemy territory. Clinton and Gore have both been harassed there. I was right. Outside of the building were eight or so Bush supporters (Do representatives of the campaign show up for other candidates' events? Are they scared of Clark?). Not just Freeper types. These were clean-cut young men. Tech has an on-campus Bush support organization. They were not abusive, however. Quiet as we filed past them. The event was in a small auditorium and was totally filled and overflowing by the time we got there. I estimate around 1000 or so. The crowd went wild when Clark entered. I don't know if the assholes, uh...Bush supporters said anything to him outside. He started by telling us about visiting the family of one of the Chinook tragedy's victims. Very moving. Then he spoke in depth about why Iraq was a mistake. He told us how he would handle foreign policy (Too much detail to cover, but it was excellent stuff). One key thing he said was, "The military should Not be doing nation-building." He talked about how he would have the appropriate experts working on this. "Scientifically." He talked about how Iraqi oil belonged to the Iraqi people. He said that Iraq needs to rule itself as soon as possible, not be ruled by an American administrator.

At the end of his speech, he took a couple of questions. The first one was from a Bushie who was "incognito". I could not hear the question exactly, but it was about how Clark would handle the war against terrorism. Clark said that he would fight terrorists themselves to make American more secure. Bush is fighting states, not terrorists. He went on to say that he would cancel the Patriot Acts, and would investigate what Bush has been using it for (The crowd went nuts over this). It was a long and effective answer to the ass's question. The other question was about Education. Many details that escape my memory except: "He was a strong believer in public education" (Big round of applause!) and that he did not like the "no child left behind" program. He explained his problems with the failed program and what he would do instead.

Big energetic crowd. Very exciting.

Here are some grainy pictures taken with the mediocre digital camera built into my new phone.

General Clark at the fundraiser. (A night event, pretty dark)

Here are two shots of the overflowing crowd, outside the morning rally.

Likely suspects who you would expect to be holding a Bush banner. CBS was interviewing one of them, of course.

On the way out, I noticed that one of them had a hand lettered sign reading, "Vote Clark. Who says integrity is mandatory." I HAD to say something to him. I said, "Integrity! Are you kidding? A Four Star General vs. Fourteen Months AWOL. I can't WAIT until the debates!". His response, an audible sneer as he turned away.