Photos, MP3 and comments about John Kerry in Madison WI today (10/14/08)

[zulchzulu]

I got a text message today that mentioned that John Kerry was in town to talk about the upcoming election
and what needed to get down to get out the vote. I work very close to the Capital and decided to head over
to the event. I'd say there were about 400 people there for Obama and a dozen somewhat rude Students of
McCain/Palin.



At one point, the McCain kiddies decided to chant "USA! USA! USA!" to the crowd. So someone came up with the
brilliant idea to bring a pretty huge American flag over near them to block from view. Then we all chanted
"USA! USA! USA!" back at them. It was pretty humorous.



The Obama fans were more than students with a fairly decent cross section of people. It was good to see as opposed
to the white kiddies who were actually chanting Nixon's 1972 "Peace through strength!" to the crowd. Wow. I was busy
taking photographs and videotaped Kerry's speech (available as an MP3 below), otherwise I would have acted like I was a ROTC
signup guy looking for new soldiers for McCain's wars.



As goes many events, the proceedings started a little late, but the day was beautiful and the the crowd would engage in
different cheers while waiting.



Kerry's speech was preceded by talks by County Executive Kathleen Falk, U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin and Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz (known as Mayor Dave).

After Kerry finished, he headed back off and walked through the crowd (some protection was there) and walked right by me.
I got to shake his hand briefly. It wasn't the first time since I did a lot of work with him in 2004 and got to meet him several times.
He stopped several times to sign autographs and talked briefly to a couple Iraq War vets before he left.
I have nothing but the greatest respect for this fantastic statesman.













Here's the local coverage on the event:
http://www.madison.com/tct/news/top5/309539

MP3 (available 11:45 CST 10/14/08):
http://www.americatotherescue.com/images/101408/Kerry_Madison_101408.mp3 (21 minutes/128kbps)

[MadBadger]

1. I wanted to go...but I had class.

I'm not taking advantage of being able to vote early. I've only voted through absentee in NJ for as long as I could vote. For this election, I want to actually go to the polling place in Wisconsin this time.

[zulchzulu]

2. I was going to vote today...

...but I really want to feel the electricity of the day by voting on Election Day... early of course... so I can do a lot of GOTV up to when the party starts. I'll have a video of Kerry's speech on YouTube later that you can check out...

[ej510]

17. Vote early and then help get out the vote on nov. 4th.

[texpatriot2004]

3. K & R nm

[murielm99]

4. My daughter is somewhere in that crowd.

She lives in Madison now. She went to vote early today and ran into the crowd and Kerry. She spoke to him and told him that her little sister was one of his earliest supporters in Iowa when she was a student there in 2004. (Her sister has a shirt signed by Kerry).

She shook his hand and told him how much she respected him. She told me that the hecklers were drowned out by the enthusiastic crowd. That is so different from Kerry's campaign. The idiots did everything they could to be disruptive at Kerry rallies. All too often they succeeded.

[zulchzulu]

7. There was a great crowd and your daughter was in good company

Yeah, the College Repugs were rude, but that was no surprise. No one yelled at them or tried to scream nonsense at them... that's Obama supporters... we have class.

[blm]

15. The idiots had more power then thanks to corpmedia's fear of crossing Bush and Rove.

Bush's 'leadership' has now been more widely exposed as a miserable failure for all the world to see since 2005....and those failures hurt our country in huge ways consistently.

[mokawanis]

5. Sorry I missed it

tried to leave work early and couldn't get away.

[politicasista]

6. K & R

Thanks for the story and pics. :kick:

[saltpoint]

8. Great post, great photos -- and I like the way Obama supporters

handled the McCain-Palin protestors.

There are certain things that just aren't the Republicans' long suits. Critical thinking and democracy being two of them.

John Kerry looks terrific. I wish I could have heard that address in person and appreciate the link you provide.

What a lost opportunity for the nation not to have this man in the White House.

[zulchzulu]

11. OC! Yep...

John looked great, sounded great and will always be my President... as for the McCain Kids, I hope they learned something from his speech.

Hope all is groovin' where you are.

[saltpoint]

12. You're fighting the good fight. You were there for John Kerry in 04 and

you're there for Barack Obama in 08.

I'll join you in that wish for the McCain crazies, although with some of those folks, it's a long on-ramp.

[GalleryGod]

9. I've known Johnny for 36 years,now. Believe me if he was running for RE-Election

we wouldn't be in the quagmire we're in now!

[zulchzulu]

13. Um...

John was my first choice for 2008 until he got pilloried for that comment... so I went for Barack instead after JK dropped out...

[Hope And Change]

10. K & R!

[Starry Messenger]

14. k&r

Great pictures! Thank you. I can't wait to see your video.

[ProSense]

16. Great photos. n/t

[zulchzulu]

18. Glad you liked the photos... JK was right there in front of me...

He did have security around him, but it was amazing to see him up close again after the 2004 security that I saw back then. There were definitely some Secret Service that monitored the crowd but it wasn't over the top.