Good morning! Well, we made it into Rob Borssellinošs column in the Des
Moines Register. See next to last paragraph.
And I have had reports our banner, signs, and bags, were seen on CSPAN. More
reports soon, hopefully
Lyle
Columnists
Borsellino: Crowds, mud give illusion of surreal Woodstock
By ROB BORSELLINO
Register Columnist
09/14/2003
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A rainy Saturday afternoon, and I had a choice.
I could tuck in with a good book, a plate of brie and a baguette, listen to
some Norah Jones and think wonderful thoughts.
Or I could go out to the Tom Harkin steak fry, get wet, stand ankle deep in
mud in a rain-soaked field and listen to a half-dozen presidential
candidates call George W. Bush a schmuck - each in his or her own unique
way.
We were out of brie, so I decided to go for the rain and the rhetoric.
A half-hour after leaving the house I was stuck in a mile-long traffic jam
in downtown Indianola. I was sitting there dreaming of being home reading an
adventure novel eating Velveeta on white bread and listening to Vanilla Ice.
But I got through it and made it to the big event. I got out of the car,
slipped four or five times in the mud, made it past the front gate, and the
first thing I heard was music coming from the stage. It was a Johnny Cash
CD. Timely, but given the state of the Democratic Party you'd think they'd
want to go with someone who actually had a pulse and a heartbeat.
I kept walking, and I saw a massive crowd of people, press with cameras and
mics all trying to get close to Dick Gephardt. Or maybe it was Howard Dean
or Bob Graham or one of those. A few feet away was Carol Moseley Braun
standing with two women, both of them looking like they'd rather be sitting
somewhere warm and dry reading a good book. I grabbed the opportunity to
talk with a presidential candidate, and I asked Ms. Mosley Braun why - given
her terrible poll numbers - she was still in the race.
She assured me her poll numbers were excellent. She said she was one of the
leading candidates in the latest polls. I kept pushing, telling her that
wasn't the case. She kept pushing back, telling me I should look at the
latest numbers. She was pleasant, smiling. She was serious. She insisted she
was winning.
I started to tell her that in the polls I saw she was about as popular as
Saddam, and only a bit more popular than Gray Davis. But I caught myself. I
did not want to be disrespectful. After all, this woman is a former U.S.
senator, a former ambassador to New Zealand, and - if she's right - a
front-running candidate for president of the United States of America. She's
obviously brighter and better informed than I am. Besides, this race is
quite fluid, and since I hadn't listened to the news in almost 20 minutes, I
didn't want to push it. So I thanked her for her time and quietly trudged
away through the mud. I walked past a guy carrying a sign that said: "Need a
Bushectomy? Call Dr. Dean." There were other signs, but nothing else quite
that clever.
By now the show was starting. Joe Lieberman couldn't make it - the Sabbath -
so they found a stand-in. And they were real cunning. They found someone who
would not overshadow their guy. They found someone who was not quite as
dynamic and bubbly as Jumpin' Joe. They trotted out Iowa Attorney General
Tom Miller.
I decided to get out of the rain for a while. I wandered around and found a
barn-like structure tucked away in the corner of the field. It was blocked
off, but I managed to slip past security and, within seconds, I was about 15
feet way from Bill Clinton. And - more important - 10 feet away from Bill
Knapp. They were wrapping up a photo session - $2,500 to get your picture
taken with Clinton.
He was working the crowd, shaking and schmoozing, chittin' and chattin',
huggin' and pattin'. Most folks were giddy, smiling, excited to be that
close to a superstar.
But Dolores Wallace wasn't all that pleased. She got stuck in traffic,
missed the 10-minute photo-op window and now she was out a few thousand
dollars. I had a dozen questions I wanted to ask her, but a security guard
gently - but firmly - informed me that it was a restricted area and escorted
me back into the mud.
I got to the stage area just in time to hear Gordon Fischer - head of the
Iowa Democratic Party - make some inane crack about "blowing snot." He
thought he was being funny. The crowd thought it was pretty disgusting,
particularly those folks who were still eating their $30 steaks.
It was getting late. I decided to head out, and as I walked past the
mud-covered masses in the open field staring up at the stage, I was thinking
it looked like a surreal Woodstock. Or a wet Wadena.
But instead of free love, you got free duffel bags from the Clean Energy
Coalition and free T-shirts from the Iowa wing of Every Child Matters.
Instead of Country Joe and Jimi, you got Kucinich and Kerry.
And instead of Vietnam, you got Iraq.
Lyle R. Krewson
Sierra Club Conservation Organizer
6403 Aurora Avenue #3
Des Moines, IA 50322-2862
515/276-8947
515/238-7113 - cel
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