Went to Kerry Town Hall Meeting in Lake Worth, FL 4/19

[seafan]

Beautiful April day to see our next President! Secret Service everywhere, sweating, immaculate. Up on the podium bounds John Kerry, in a suit jacket, which he promptly sheds down to a blue Oxford shirt and soft green tie. About 3000 turned out at the Palm Beach County Community College campus to see him.

Joe Lieberman stumps with him today and is his usual affable self with the crowd. He is absolutely behind Kerry, no doubt about it.

Kerry gives a brief address and then carries the mike out into the crowd for questions. This crowd of people is VERY well informed about what Bush is up to. Everyone I spoke with knew all about Bob Woodward's interview last night on 60 Minutes. People here are outraged to hear of Bush's deal with the Saudis to influence our elections via oil price manipulation. People here are also furious that Prince Bandar sports a ringside seat for our top secret Iraq War Plans, even before Colin Powell was told. Why is Bush showing Iraq War Plans to the same people who represent the home of 15 of the 19 hijackers who killed 3000 Americans?? This just freaks me out!


Kerry does a great job interacting with the crowd, answering questions frankly; he says Bush has a truth deficit as well as a budget deficit. He said that he already has legal teams in place nationwide to make sure we can vote without intimidation and with the ability to conduct paper recounts everywhere. (Sorry, no more details on this, but great to hear him speak of...)

A few shrill Bush supporters pranced about behind the crowd, waving crudely lettered signs, chanting, "Four more years! Four more years!" "Bor-ing, bor-ing, bor-ing....!", when Kerry spoke. Aggressive, willful ignorance. We outshouted them, then we just ignored them. There was a guy dressed in a gray fuzzy shark suit with Bush/Cheney stickers all over it. He didn't stay in our midst long.

Kerry recognized Florida Senators Bob Graham and Bill Nelson and Rep. Kendrick Meek in the crowd. Someone in the audience asked whether Bush's illegal shift of $700 million from the Afghanistan war budget, without Congress' approval, over to the secretive Iraq War Plans in November, 2001, would constitute an impeachable offense. Senator Graham jumped out of his seat and grabbed the mike. He pointedly asked, "Do you think Tom Delay will start impeachment proceedings?" Senator Graham then stated, "You know, there are a LOT worse things than impeachment. Being REMOVED from office is much worse." And the crowd erupted in cheers!


A great day for a Kerry/Graham/Nelson/Lieberman rally! Just wanted to share.



:toast:

[livetohike]

1. Thanks seafan!

It's good to hear some positive news from the rally.

[LynzM]

2. Sounds like it was awesome!

Nice to hear some encouraging, cheerful news! We need that once in a while! :bounce:

[RoyGBiv]

3. Interesting

This is a good phrase: "truth deficit"

Needs to be repeated over and over.

Graham's comments really point to the problem with this whole mess: Tom Delay and is drones.

Randi Rhodes went off on a serious rant earlier saying something like "Isn't there one damn Republican..." with enough courage and decency to stand up and say that this is wrong?

Apparently not.

But, I must also say it would be nice if a Democratic rep would use his time to bring the point up. No, nothing official would happen, but it would get the comments out there and on the record and put the Repubs in Congress in a position of having to defend themselves against approving of a President's criminal actions for the sake of party loyalty.

[onehandle]

4. Kerry does great with audience questions....

I've been to two rallies.

Can you imagine Bush taking an unscripted question? LOL!

If I run into a Bush plant/disrupter at one of these events, I'm going to pepper spray the bastard. Ok, maybe not. But I will not sit still for this sh*t.

[JI7]

6. he sure does

part of his promise to the people should be he will hold public town hall meetings regularly with the people while president.

[Gothmog]

5. Sounds like a great event

Thanks for the update. I was not aware that Lieberman was out stumping for Kerry. That makes be feel better about Joe.

[Crewleader]

7. Thanks seafan for that excellent reporting!

:hi:

[MaineDem]

8. Great report!

Thanks for taking the time to go and for reporting back to us here.

Excellent reading. :)

[TSIAS]

9. Good report

I was there as well. Since the crowd was so large, I was standing in the overflow zone.

The highlight of my day was the protestors calling me a "jackass" because I was wearing my Democratic donkey logo shirt. :)

[blm]

10. heheh...and your reply?

I would LOVE the chance to get into it with those goons.