Thursday, October 28, 2004
Rallying the Promised Land
Today The Mrs. and I volunteered to help out at John Kerry’s Madison rally. It’s a tradition for the Democratic presidential candidate to appear here the week before the election, and with Wisconsin so critical this year, it’s doubly important. Bill Clinton reportedly set the attendance record with 40,000 during one of his appearances, and Al Gore packed ’em in on the Capitol Square in 2000. This rally has been moved, however, so the stage is four blocks from the square at the intersection of West Washington Avenue and Bassett Street, and the throng will assemble back up Wash to the Square. Bassett is a street steeped in history; along with Mifflin Street, which intersects it a couple of blocks away, Bassett was the beating heart of the counterculture 1960s in Madison. To this day, the Union Cab drivers still call Bassett “the Ho Chi Minh Trail.”
8:00AM: We arrive at the volunteer rendezvous area at West Washington and Henry. Most of the volunteers seem to be between the ages of 35 and 70, and we wait in knots for the campaign staffers in charge of the particular areas to which each of us was assigned last night. When they arrive, they are all between the ages of 21 and 22.
8:15AM: The Mrs. and I, assigned to sign distribution, learn the identity of the staffer in charge of sign distribution. She calls her group over to another part of the staging area, where we wait.
8:30AM: “Sign people, follow me!” We take off down West Washington Avenue toward the main stage. We are herded through the security checkpoint, where we must remove all campaign buttons and the contents of our pockets. The Secret Service confiscates the apples The Mrs. was carrying, presumably because unauthorized fruit presents a security concern.
8:35AM: After going through security, we spy a line of portable toilets. It occurs to me that thanks to the Secret Service, these are the most secure toilets I will ever have the opportunity to use, so I partake.
8:40AM: We follow our leader to a spot just behind the main stage, where we begin waiting anew.
8:50AM: A guy in a Boston Red Sox hat comes toward us. “There’s a happy Red Sox fan,” I say aloud. “I’m still inebriated,” he says, and I believe he could be telling the truth. It turns out he’s part of the national advance team.
9:15AM: “Sign people, follow me!” We take off back up West Washington Avenue about one-half block to a spot behind the media risers and next to the portable toilets. Upon arrival, we wait some more.
9:30AM: Finally, we get a job to do. We are sent back down West Washington Avenue to get boxes of signs. There are approximately 12 or 15 sign volunteers and 8,000 signs, which we will distribute later on. As we’re returning to our spot behind the risers, a blues band takes the stage. We wait yet again.
9:40AM: It occurs to me that the spot we’re in is a pretty good one. There are three levels of ticketing for the event: red and blue, which require a trip through security and get you down front, and white, which does not require security screening but puts you farther back. Next to the media risers, we are on the edge of the red area, maybe 150 feet from the stage.
9:45AM: The Mrs. strikes up a conversation with a guy in an Ohio State University baseball cap and sweatshirt. It turns out he is in charge of the giant video screen positioned halfway back up West Washington Avenue for the convenience of the attendees at the back of the crowd. The Mrs., still pissed off at the woman who cut in front of her in line last night for the last spot with the press volunteers, ends up being asked to run the camera for the giant video screen. This gets her not only a seat on the media risers but a spot where she can sit down.
9:50AM: We were told last night at the volunteer meeting that there were no bad jobs, but I’m not so sure after I notice there is a volunteer whose job it is to staff the portable toilets. There seems to be some distinction between the two toilets on the left and the three on the right, and he is directing people into one or the other, but I can’t figure out what the distinction is.
10:00AM: I notice one of the other sign distributors eating an apple. “How’d you get that projectile in here?” I ask. “The Secret Service said it was OK,” he says. I decide that the agent who screened The Mrs. must not have had time for breakfast.
10:15AM: We are told to begin unboxing the signs--Firefighters for Kerry/Edwards, Teachers for Kerry/Edwards, Environmentalists for Kerry/Edwards (which look homemade), Women for Kerry/Edwards, and so on. At the bottom of one box, we find a stack of Women for Kerry T-shirts, which some of the women in the group begin to put on. A campaign staffer we haven’t seen before comes blazing over and, in a tone that skates the ragged edge between brisk and rude, orders the women to remove the T-shirts. We never see the staffer again.
10:30AM: I notice the national advance man in charge of the entire event, who spoke to us at the volunteer meeting last night, as he walks through the crowd talking on a headset phone. From the half-smile on his face, I can tell that one of two things is true: he is either extremely happy about the way things are going, or he’s so sleepy he can’t remember which city he’s in.
10:35AM: All tickets to the event say “no signs,” but I notice that an exception has been made for a guy carrying a sign that says “I Have 2 Sons in Iraq--Please Help.” He looks a little like a guy I went to high school with, but I can’t tell for sure. He soon attracts a horde of reporters.
10:45AM: The blues band wraps up and Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz takes the stage. He speaks briefly, then introduces a woman just back from Iraq to lead the Pledge of Allegiance. Cieslewicz is the first in a parade of dignitaries of ever-increasing importance. He introduces Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, who introduces three female statewide officeholders and our representative in Congress, Tammy Baldwin. Tammy introduces Senator Herb Kohl, who introduces Senator Russ Feingold.
11:00AM: While Kohl is speaking, we get the go-ahead to begin distributing our signs. One sign is very light. A whole stack of them is pretty heavy, and my stack of outsized Firefighters for Kerry signs is the heaviest of all. People are reluctant to take my signs, and they keep telling me, “I’m not a firefighter.” I think to myself, “I know, just take the damn thing, these are heavy.” I drop the stack at least twice.
11:15AM: Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters comes on. He’s decorously acoustic, but I don’t see much of him, as I am continuing to schlep signs through the throng. Everybody in the front section who wants a sign has one by this point, but the Secret Service won’t let us cross the barricade to reach the signless people behind it. I walk the perimeter, trying to find people without signs, and drop my stack at least two more times.
11:30AM: Grohl concludes his between-song remarks about Kerry by saying, “That’s my stump speech. I can’t run for office because I did inhale.”
11:55AM: I return to a spot at the end of the press risers, figuring that I have handed out enough signs.
12:05PM: Grohl finishes. For over an hour, the program has moved along swiftly, but now it stops dead. After a while, Bruce Springsteen’s roadie comes out and begins setting up the Boss’s microphone. What follows is 20 minutes of classically excruciating pre-concert “check, one-two, check, one-two.”
12:15PM: The woman standing next to me notices sharpshooters atop the high-rise condo building halfway back up West Wash.
12:20PM: John Nichols, editorial page editor of the Capitol Times and columnist for The Nation, squeezes by me on his way to a spot on the risers. I am tempted to ask him how come he never responds to my story pitches, but I desist.
12:30PM: Wisconsin Public Radio reporter Shamane Mills squeezes by me on her way to the portable toilets. I know it’s her because I read her name tag. Her identity comes as a minor surprise to me. Although she sounds on the air like a large black woman, she is in fact a petite white woman.
12:45PM: West Washington Avenue is lined with old houses, once the home to Madison’s elite, now divided and subdivided into student apartments. The balconies are crowded, all except for one that is curiously empty. “Maybe the people who live there are Bush supporters,” the woman next to me has said. Sure enough, a Bush/Cheney sign appears on the empty balcony. A guy climbs up from the balcony below and removes it to general cheers.
12:50PM: The throng is restless, as nothing has been happening for a very long time. Then suddenly, “Ladies and gentlemen, Governor Jim Doyle and Bruce Springsteen!” and the place goes up for grabs. We can’t see anything for a moment because of all the signs waving in front of us. Doyle quiets the crowd and announces that there are 80,000 people at the rally, which astounds everyone. He then begins his introduction, in which he attempts to work in as many Springsteen song titles as possible. Springsteen, standing next to him in black shirt and jeans, harmonica around his neck and guitar in hand, seems to wince at each one. Finally Doyle is done and Bruce steps forward. “I think this is the last time Governor Doyle is going to be my opening act,” he says quietly, and kicks into “The Promised Land.” I start calling friends on my cell phone to give them a taste of the show, and I am not alone.
12:55PM: Springsteen speaks, again very softly, about the reponsibility of citizens in a democracy and why he’s appearing for Kerry. The crowd is dead quiet, as quiet as 80,000 people can be. For years I have heard of Springsteen’s charisma, but today I understand it. You can’t take your eyes off of him. He starts playing “No Surrender,” the Kerry campaign’s theme song.
1:00PM: When he’s finished with “No Surrender,” Springsteen says simply, “And now, the next president of the United States, John Kerry.” Although we’ve just heard the acoustic version of “No Surrender,” the full E-Street Band version blasts over the PA as Kerry comes to the stage. Bedlam ensues.
1:05PM: Kerry begins to speak. He says that in addition to the 80,000 who can see him, 20,000 more people are listening from side streets. He mentions the 8-and-0 Badgers and the World Series-winning Red Sox, and reminds us that getting out the vote will be critical. He lands on each of the themes we’ve heard him talk about in the debates and in other speeches. It occurs to me that he’s improved drastically as a campaigner in the last six weeks or so, having learned how to play the crowd, how to sell a line, how to be passionate and dignified at the same time. Although he has notes and occasionally refers to them, most of the time he walks the stage like a guy just talking.
1:40PM: “Thank you, and God bless you all!” “No Surrender” erupts from the PA again, and cannons on either side of the street begin blasting red, white, and blue confetti over the scene in front of the stage. As I wonder where you go to rent something like that, Kerry jumps off the stage and begins working the crowd.
1:50PM: The Mrs. finishes up her camera-operator responsibilities and we’re done. We head back up West Washington Avenue, which has cleared surprisingly quickly given the size of the crowd. At the top of West Wash near the Capitol Square, four Nader supporters try to get noticed, but largely fail.
2:45PM: The Mrs. and I sit in a bar on State Street waiting for our lunch order. After a long silence she says, “I’m nervous about this one,” and she’s not talking about lunch. “So am I,” I say. Kerry says this is the most important election of our lifetimes, but I’d go further and say it’s the most important one since the Civil War era, and there are less than five days to go. No one knows if this appearance will make a difference in Wisconsin--the 100,000 in attendance are most likely already converted (although certainly a few thousand came to hear Bruce). The spectacle was staged largely for the benefit of those watching on television both here and in the other 10 swing states, in case those undecided voters we keep hearing about are still out there. I have decided they’re mythical, like unicorns. What we have to do now is make sure the whole 100,000 casts a ballot on Tuesday, and brings their friends.
Note: This is the 600th post on the Daily Aneurysm since I went on Blogspot just over a year ago. (I really should get a second hobby.) Thanks to all who have read them.
(Edited to add link to Salon story summarizing Springsteen's comments.)
Today The Mrs. and I volunteered to help out at John Kerry’s Madison rally. It’s a tradition for the Democratic presidential candidate to appear here the week before the election, and with Wisconsin so critical this year, it’s doubly important. Bill Clinton reportedly set the attendance record with 40,000 during one of his appearances, and Al Gore packed ’em in on the Capitol Square in 2000. This rally has been moved, however, so the stage is four blocks from the square at the intersection of West Washington Avenue and Bassett Street, and the throng will assemble back up Wash to the Square. Bassett is a street steeped in history; along with Mifflin Street, which intersects it a couple of blocks away, Bassett was the beating heart of the counterculture 1960s in Madison. To this day, the Union Cab drivers still call Bassett “the Ho Chi Minh Trail.”
8:00AM: We arrive at the volunteer rendezvous area at West Washington and Henry. Most of the volunteers seem to be between the ages of 35 and 70, and we wait in knots for the campaign staffers in charge of the particular areas to which each of us was assigned last night. When they arrive, they are all between the ages of 21 and 22.
8:15AM: The Mrs. and I, assigned to sign distribution, learn the identity of the staffer in charge of sign distribution. She calls her group over to another part of the staging area, where we wait.
8:30AM: “Sign people, follow me!” We take off down West Washington Avenue toward the main stage. We are herded through the security checkpoint, where we must remove all campaign buttons and the contents of our pockets. The Secret Service confiscates the apples The Mrs. was carrying, presumably because unauthorized fruit presents a security concern.
8:35AM: After going through security, we spy a line of portable toilets. It occurs to me that thanks to the Secret Service, these are the most secure toilets I will ever have the opportunity to use, so I partake.
8:40AM: We follow our leader to a spot just behind the main stage, where we begin waiting anew.
8:50AM: A guy in a Boston Red Sox hat comes toward us. “There’s a happy Red Sox fan,” I say aloud. “I’m still inebriated,” he says, and I believe he could be telling the truth. It turns out he’s part of the national advance team.
9:15AM: “Sign people, follow me!” We take off back up West Washington Avenue about one-half block to a spot behind the media risers and next to the portable toilets. Upon arrival, we wait some more.
9:30AM: Finally, we get a job to do. We are sent back down West Washington Avenue to get boxes of signs. There are approximately 12 or 15 sign volunteers and 8,000 signs, which we will distribute later on. As we’re returning to our spot behind the risers, a blues band takes the stage. We wait yet again.
9:40AM: It occurs to me that the spot we’re in is a pretty good one. There are three levels of ticketing for the event: red and blue, which require a trip through security and get you down front, and white, which does not require security screening but puts you farther back. Next to the media risers, we are on the edge of the red area, maybe 150 feet from the stage.
9:45AM: The Mrs. strikes up a conversation with a guy in an Ohio State University baseball cap and sweatshirt. It turns out he is in charge of the giant video screen positioned halfway back up West Washington Avenue for the convenience of the attendees at the back of the crowd. The Mrs., still pissed off at the woman who cut in front of her in line last night for the last spot with the press volunteers, ends up being asked to run the camera for the giant video screen. This gets her not only a seat on the media risers but a spot where she can sit down.
9:50AM: We were told last night at the volunteer meeting that there were no bad jobs, but I’m not so sure after I notice there is a volunteer whose job it is to staff the portable toilets. There seems to be some distinction between the two toilets on the left and the three on the right, and he is directing people into one or the other, but I can’t figure out what the distinction is.
10:00AM: I notice one of the other sign distributors eating an apple. “How’d you get that projectile in here?” I ask. “The Secret Service said it was OK,” he says. I decide that the agent who screened The Mrs. must not have had time for breakfast.
10:15AM: We are told to begin unboxing the signs--Firefighters for Kerry/Edwards, Teachers for Kerry/Edwards, Environmentalists for Kerry/Edwards (which look homemade), Women for Kerry/Edwards, and so on. At the bottom of one box, we find a stack of Women for Kerry T-shirts, which some of the women in the group begin to put on. A campaign staffer we haven’t seen before comes blazing over and, in a tone that skates the ragged edge between brisk and rude, orders the women to remove the T-shirts. We never see the staffer again.
10:30AM: I notice the national advance man in charge of the entire event, who spoke to us at the volunteer meeting last night, as he walks through the crowd talking on a headset phone. From the half-smile on his face, I can tell that one of two things is true: he is either extremely happy about the way things are going, or he’s so sleepy he can’t remember which city he’s in.
10:35AM: All tickets to the event say “no signs,” but I notice that an exception has been made for a guy carrying a sign that says “I Have 2 Sons in Iraq--Please Help.” He looks a little like a guy I went to high school with, but I can’t tell for sure. He soon attracts a horde of reporters.
10:45AM: The blues band wraps up and Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz takes the stage. He speaks briefly, then introduces a woman just back from Iraq to lead the Pledge of Allegiance. Cieslewicz is the first in a parade of dignitaries of ever-increasing importance. He introduces Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, who introduces three female statewide officeholders and our representative in Congress, Tammy Baldwin. Tammy introduces Senator Herb Kohl, who introduces Senator Russ Feingold.
11:00AM: While Kohl is speaking, we get the go-ahead to begin distributing our signs. One sign is very light. A whole stack of them is pretty heavy, and my stack of outsized Firefighters for Kerry signs is the heaviest of all. People are reluctant to take my signs, and they keep telling me, “I’m not a firefighter.” I think to myself, “I know, just take the damn thing, these are heavy.” I drop the stack at least twice.
11:15AM: Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters comes on. He’s decorously acoustic, but I don’t see much of him, as I am continuing to schlep signs through the throng. Everybody in the front section who wants a sign has one by this point, but the Secret Service won’t let us cross the barricade to reach the signless people behind it. I walk the perimeter, trying to find people without signs, and drop my stack at least two more times.
11:30AM: Grohl concludes his between-song remarks about Kerry by saying, “That’s my stump speech. I can’t run for office because I did inhale.”
11:55AM: I return to a spot at the end of the press risers, figuring that I have handed out enough signs.
12:05PM: Grohl finishes. For over an hour, the program has moved along swiftly, but now it stops dead. After a while, Bruce Springsteen’s roadie comes out and begins setting up the Boss’s microphone. What follows is 20 minutes of classically excruciating pre-concert “check, one-two, check, one-two.”
12:15PM: The woman standing next to me notices sharpshooters atop the high-rise condo building halfway back up West Wash.
12:20PM: John Nichols, editorial page editor of the Capitol Times and columnist for The Nation, squeezes by me on his way to a spot on the risers. I am tempted to ask him how come he never responds to my story pitches, but I desist.
12:30PM: Wisconsin Public Radio reporter Shamane Mills squeezes by me on her way to the portable toilets. I know it’s her because I read her name tag. Her identity comes as a minor surprise to me. Although she sounds on the air like a large black woman, she is in fact a petite white woman.
12:45PM: West Washington Avenue is lined with old houses, once the home to Madison’s elite, now divided and subdivided into student apartments. The balconies are crowded, all except for one that is curiously empty. “Maybe the people who live there are Bush supporters,” the woman next to me has said. Sure enough, a Bush/Cheney sign appears on the empty balcony. A guy climbs up from the balcony below and removes it to general cheers.
12:50PM: The throng is restless, as nothing has been happening for a very long time. Then suddenly, “Ladies and gentlemen, Governor Jim Doyle and Bruce Springsteen!” and the place goes up for grabs. We can’t see anything for a moment because of all the signs waving in front of us. Doyle quiets the crowd and announces that there are 80,000 people at the rally, which astounds everyone. He then begins his introduction, in which he attempts to work in as many Springsteen song titles as possible. Springsteen, standing next to him in black shirt and jeans, harmonica around his neck and guitar in hand, seems to wince at each one. Finally Doyle is done and Bruce steps forward. “I think this is the last time Governor Doyle is going to be my opening act,” he says quietly, and kicks into “The Promised Land.” I start calling friends on my cell phone to give them a taste of the show, and I am not alone.
12:55PM: Springsteen speaks, again very softly, about the reponsibility of citizens in a democracy and why he’s appearing for Kerry. The crowd is dead quiet, as quiet as 80,000 people can be. For years I have heard of Springsteen’s charisma, but today I understand it. You can’t take your eyes off of him. He starts playing “No Surrender,” the Kerry campaign’s theme song.
1:00PM: When he’s finished with “No Surrender,” Springsteen says simply, “And now, the next president of the United States, John Kerry.” Although we’ve just heard the acoustic version of “No Surrender,” the full E-Street Band version blasts over the PA as Kerry comes to the stage. Bedlam ensues.
1:05PM: Kerry begins to speak. He says that in addition to the 80,000 who can see him, 20,000 more people are listening from side streets. He mentions the 8-and-0 Badgers and the World Series-winning Red Sox, and reminds us that getting out the vote will be critical. He lands on each of the themes we’ve heard him talk about in the debates and in other speeches. It occurs to me that he’s improved drastically as a campaigner in the last six weeks or so, having learned how to play the crowd, how to sell a line, how to be passionate and dignified at the same time. Although he has notes and occasionally refers to them, most of the time he walks the stage like a guy just talking.
1:40PM: “Thank you, and God bless you all!” “No Surrender” erupts from the PA again, and cannons on either side of the street begin blasting red, white, and blue confetti over the scene in front of the stage. As I wonder where you go to rent something like that, Kerry jumps off the stage and begins working the crowd.
1:50PM: The Mrs. finishes up her camera-operator responsibilities and we’re done. We head back up West Washington Avenue, which has cleared surprisingly quickly given the size of the crowd. At the top of West Wash near the Capitol Square, four Nader supporters try to get noticed, but largely fail.
2:45PM: The Mrs. and I sit in a bar on State Street waiting for our lunch order. After a long silence she says, “I’m nervous about this one,” and she’s not talking about lunch. “So am I,” I say. Kerry says this is the most important election of our lifetimes, but I’d go further and say it’s the most important one since the Civil War era, and there are less than five days to go. No one knows if this appearance will make a difference in Wisconsin--the 100,000 in attendance are most likely already converted (although certainly a few thousand came to hear Bruce). The spectacle was staged largely for the benefit of those watching on television both here and in the other 10 swing states, in case those undecided voters we keep hearing about are still out there. I have decided they’re mythical, like unicorns. What we have to do now is make sure the whole 100,000 casts a ballot on Tuesday, and brings their friends.
Note: This is the 600th post on the Daily Aneurysm since I went on Blogspot just over a year ago. (I really should get a second hobby.) Thanks to all who have read them.
(Edited to add link to Salon story summarizing Springsteen's comments.)
