TEA PARTY REPORT
I just got back from our local Tea Party, and offer the following impressions and pictures.
My impressions:
Beautiful weather for a Tea Party. The planners must have be blessed, or else extremely lucky as our weather has been crappy for weeks.
The crowd was made up of people like me, all ages, and lots of children. I didn't see a whole lot of Black people but I saw Oriental people and the crowd was truly multi-racial. I estimate about 2500 people attended. Idaho Governor Butch Otter spoke before we got there. There was another speaker whose name I did not get, and a third speaker, Shelly Short, who is our local state representative.
I thought it was notable that a governor from a neighboring state attended, but our own governor did not. Of course, I did not expect her to attend, since she is an Obamaphile and thinks winning an election with the best one out of three vote counts is fair.
The speaker I heard gave a motivational talk encouraging people to get active and retake the government from those now in power.
Shelly Short, whom I met at a candidate's night when she was running for the office she won, is a tiny little thing--aptly named. She gave a tall speech, however. Among other things, she pointed out that our state has a requirement that measures to raise taxes must receive a 2/3 majority vote. All the Democrats voted to raise taxes, but they were still three votes short and the Republicans refused. She related how a Democrat whined to her that it was unfair for the minority to control the majority.
The crowd itself was orderly. There weren't as many signs as last year's Tea Party had, but I think the crowd was larger. The signs were hard hitting, but last year's signs were more aggressively worded.
The city had removed all the trash receptacles, but I saw NOT ONE SINGLE PIECE OF TRASH on the ground. Fortunately, the city forgot one trash can on the trail leading to the Tea Party site, and my very intelligent Obama-hating dog chose to take a dump about a hundred feet before we got to it. My very intelligent and lovely wife had plastic sacks, which I used to pick up the poo and put in the trash can. I also sprinkled a little dirt on the poo spot I couldn't pick up.
I had a weather eye out for Tea Party imposters and miscreants, but saw none. There were some young hooligans riding bikes and doing wheelies along the trail as we left, but I don't know whether they were at the Tea Party.
The only incident was when we first got there. My dog Daisy behaved very well, but just as we arrived a huge rottweiler burst out of the crowd and went for her, knocking down the young woman on the other end of the leash and dragging her several feet. My dog ignored both. Somebody who was more kindly than I helped the young woman up. I thought she should get a smaller dog, one that wasn't as big as she was.
There were a number of dogs at the Tea Party. One waded into the water right in front of us and drank from the river. When he got out, he gave his owner a nice cooling shower.
Here are the pictures. I'll put our Tea Party site up against any in the country.
Tea Party Crowd, Spokane, WA 15 April 2010
Speaker's Stand on Floating Stage, Tea Party, Spokane, WA 15 April 2010
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