DU'ers at Tacoma Rally Check In......

[physioex]

The rally was lots of fun. I wish there was more room for seating. Funny how the most attended event in Washington today probably got the least amount of space. I was able to see Kerry fairly well from my vantage...

[flamingyouth]

1. I was there in spirit!

Sounds like a smashing success, to put it mildly! :bounce:
:yourock:

[physioex]

2. Yea there were a few freepers outside.....

Most people were teasing and laughing at them. One said "Kerry is Scarry"....It could a have been organized a bit better as far as managing the crowds...

[flamingyouth]

3. "Kerry Is Scarry"

Like Bush doesn't cause millions of nightmares... LOL. I love the idea that Kerry is so frightening. I've never been so scared shitless as I have been these past four years.

[progressivebydesign]

9. My 12 year old stepdaughter was there!

She LOVED it! She cancelled an appointment to get contact lenses, in order to ateend. THat's BIG for her... she was furiously trying to get them before the start of 8th grade.. so, choosing Kerry over the contacts was HUGE for her. She made a great choice.

She and her friend were given "STEELWORKERS FOR KERRY" t-shirts. She got a pom-pom, and signs. She bought me an "ASSES OF EVIL" button with Bush & pals on it.

She was very impresed with Kerry. She thought the coolest thing about him was that Kerry didn't 'just make promises', he talked about his plan to make those things happen. She said that was really cool about him. She said she loves him because he's 'always smiling and happy', and that 'he looks so healthy and presidential!'. She enjoyed all the speakers, liked Wesley Clark.

The other thing that completely moved her was when the crowd was asked to raise a hand if they had a loved one serving in the military, she said it was a sea hands shooting up in the crowd. And, she was impresed by the amount of veterans there. She loved talking to the crowd around her, had a chance to meet lots of different types of people. I wish she was home today so she could watch the CSPAN coverage of the protest march in NYC...

I'm ordering her a "KIDS FOR KERRY" dogtag right now.. as a souvenir of her adventure. And.. gotta order my Women for Kerry dogtag, as well.

[Mrs. Overall]

4. I was there with my family!!

Went with my husband, eight year old son, and twelve year old daughter. It was fantastic, but tiring! Luckily we got there early enough to get seats (right below the "A Stronger America" sign), but we got there so early (8:30 am and Kerry didn't speak until after 1 pm) that we are absolutely exhausted tonight.

I loved hearing Wesley Clark, Jim Rassman, Garrison Keillor, and Patty Murray. I thought John Kerry was so inspiring to hear in person and I loved the straight forward and thoughtful strength of his message.

Great variety of people there, too. Lots of veterans were in the crowd!

My daughter kept saying on the way home, "John Kerry is just so much smarter than George Bush! I can listen to him and understand what he is talking about."

[physioex]

5. Essshhhh...

You got there at 8:30....LOL I got there at 11:30 and was standing in front of you guys. It must have been soo difficult having two kids and being there at 8:30 yesssshhh.. But did you notice the freepers out in front, everyone was taunting them and laughing at them bwahahhahaaha

[Mrs. Overall]

6. Yes, it was waaaay too early!

My kids are heroes tonight for having loads of patience and keeping the complaints of boredom to a minimum. We drove from the Kitsap Peninsula, so I wanted to be somewhat early, but it was ridiculous--I think I had in my mind that the speeches began at 9:30, but that was when the gates opened.

I couldn't believe the Bush people outside! I loved one of the signs:
"Bush/Blair is the Churchill of Today" as though a bushblair were a single entity!! I also saw one of them with a Bush/Jesus t-shirt.

I felt angrier on the way out, however, at the man holding the sign about Kerry committing treason. After hearing Kerry speak and being so inspired, I wanted to walk over and rip his sign.

Glad to know other Du'ers were near me!!

[lakemonster11]

7. It was a great, exhausting rally

We got there really early, too.

My brother was very entertained by the "Bush/Blair is the Churchill of Today" sign. I thought the most disturbing one was the "Bush is Worthy" sign. I did note that all but a couple of the pro-Bush signs seemed to have been made by the same person (not that there were more than a handful of Bush supporters there anyway, in contrast to the throng of people there to cheer Kerry on).

The treason sign made me sad. I felt like that man was probably a veteran who even now feels that his service is threatened by criticism of the Vietnam War and by the documentation of atrocities committed by some soldiers there. I personally find Kerry's antiwar leadership as a recently-returned Vietnam veteran to be incredibly thoughtful and courageous.

Oh, and by the way:
My brother, who hasn't been following things as closely as I have, is now firmly pro-Kerry, instead of just anti-Bush. He was especially impressed by the concern Kerry showed for those individuals who fainted and had to be carried off by EMTs.

[Mrs. Overall]

8. You are right about the treason sign....

I didn't express this in my post, but along with the anger I felt was a great deal of sadness and frustration. I guess that is how I react to many of the Republican tactics and ignorance--an initial anger and then a sense of sadness that they don't see the big picture nor how they have been used by Bush.

Glad to hear that you were at the rally! And glad to hear about your brother-in-law's attitude shift toward Kerry.

All the people fainting or needing EMT assistance was a little strange because there were so many. I counted at least eight times during his speech that Kerry needed to stop and ask the EMTs to assist someone in the crowd. I began to think it was right-wing plants who were trying to interrupt him, but that seems like a conspiracy theory! The weather was quite cool, so I know people weren't fainting from the heat.

Welcome to DU!!

[lakemonster11]

12. Dehydration

My guess is that they were fainting from dehydration. I noticed that a lot of people didn't have water with them. I made sure to bring water and food and even had a cooler full of water and gatorade in the car for the ride home, and I still felt dehydrated later that day.

[geniph]

13. They were locking their knees

I was standing right next to one of them, and directly in front of another (I was only four people back from the rail, and we were packed in like sardines, and HOT). The two I was near were definitely a case of not bending their knees; it's a characteristic slow collapse.

[newyawker99]

14. Hi lakemonster11!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Rev. Day-Bu]

10. I was there! Want pictures? I got 'em!

Yep, I made the trek down from Bellingham with a carpool of other local volunteers. My magic blue ticket got me in on the main floor. I took my digital camera and got about 85 photos. I've posted all of them on a website, along with my own brief summary of the events of the day, and links to all the news articles I could find about the Tacoma rally:

http://kerry-tacoma.daveward.net

The snarky comments accompanying the photos are all mine. ;)

(And please see my other post about this.)

Enjoy!

[geniph]

11. I was there, right smack-dab in front of Kerry

less than 20 feet from him, in fact. I originally had blue tickets, because we promised to doorbell for our quite wonderful representative, Geoff Simpson. I saw Geoff there and went over to say hi, and he got me red tickets. (THIS is why I'm willing to doorbell for this guy - not to mention that he contributed to my fundraiser to send me to Boston.)

John got to shake Kerry's hand! He'd put his Vietnam service ribbon on his Veterans for Kerry sign, and Kerry saw it and reached over the crowd to shake his hand. I tried to reach him, too, but there's times when being so short is a definite disadvantage!