Manchester, NH. 11/5/05 Democratic GOTV Rally (With Kerry)

[TayTay]

DynamicDem and I went to the Get Out the Vote Rally at the Manchester, NH Democratic Party headquarters this morning. It was a lot of fun. Very informal and focused both on the specific situation in that lovely city and on national issues and how they are affecting smaller cities. It was a good time!

I met DD at around 9:00 am (hey, it's an easy ride for me to Manchester, 30 minutes or so, and I'm there. So I could bear the relatively early Sat morning cuz of that.) We talked for awhile and sort of got to know each other. (Every time I meet someone from this group, we just start talking. It's so great. Conversations that just flow, without gaps and without awkward pauses. I can't help feeling how rare and nice that it. I felt like I've been blessed or something to have such amazing luck with meeting people. You folks are so nice.)

The meeting room at the NH Dem HQ was fairly small. I would say there were about 100-125 people there. (Warning: I can't verify crowd estimates. I'd say that was about the number, more or less, plus all the candidates on stage for various city offices.)

There were about a dozen folks who assembled on stage to start the Rally. They were all going for various offices in the city, from City Council to School Committee. They ranged from the nice young woman who spoke about being born in the Queen City and moving away. She lived in Boston for a while and thought she would never go back to Manchester. (That city was in decay, as were so many middle sized NE cities up till the last decade or so.) But she had moved back and decided to cement the relationship with her home town by running for public office. I enjoyed her speech and her history. And I'm very glad to see women stepping up and running for office. (Very glad.)

The crowd on the stage, ahm, kind of looked like Manchester. 3 or 4 female candidates, one AA candidate, union guys, one fellow whose day job was working at the post office and such. These were, with a few exceptions, your garden variety Democratic working-class folks.

[Island Blue]

1. Did Senator Kerry speak?

We need hot junior senator details. (Please!) It's been a rough day here. I enjoyed your report though.

[TayTay]

2. Introducing Sen. Kerry

The nice young lady running for School Committee brought out Sen. Kerry to a rousing set of cheers. (Keh-ree, Keh-ree, Keh-ree!) That was great. (I love those people who can do those big whistles, like the ones you thing should order up a cab. Of course, they are much louder in a fairly small room, but I love them.)

I think this was, in part, like old-home week for the Senator and the rest of the folks up there. Sen. Kerry said hi! to a host of folks, including Lou D'Allesandro a state Sen. and Jeanne Shaheen, former Gov of NH. (And lots of other folks who got hugs and smiles later on.)

[k j]

4. That's the face...

of humanity, hope, integrity and courage. Thank you for posting. :-)

[Island Blue]

6. Thanks for posting!

Wow, you got to see him twice in a week. How cool!

[TayTay]

16. Yeah, I hope my Mom doesn't find out.

Oh, so you can find the time to see a Senator twice in one week, but you can't come and see me. Nice! What am I, chopped liver? You can't find the time to come and visit your Mom, but you can find time to go out and follow other people around? Maybe I should run for something, then maybe my own daughter will come and see me.

Ahm, that's partly why I am not going to Boston tomorrow to see the new Dem Party HQ and hang out with the Mass Dems and plot grassroots stuff. Dear Lord, thrice in 8 days might constitute the beginnings of stalking. Oh Dear! And it gives ammunition to my Mom to complain about lack of visits.

Sigh! I have to go visit my Mom next weekend or the weekend after that. (Cuz next weekend I am in Burlington, VT to check out UVM for my son.)

Yeah, Mom is like that. Only with Catholic guilt. (Was it something I said? Are you mad at me? Did I do something? No Mom, I was just, ahm, busy. Really.)

[TayTay]

7. Nice speech. It was very loose and relaxed.

Sen. Kerry started with a joke. He looked at Mayor Baines and said, (paraphrase) "In a few days we will learn the answer to who is going to win one of the biggest contests of the year, the Patriots or the Colts on Monday Night Football." Okay, Iliked it. Everyone laguhed.

Sen. Kerry spoke about the need to elect and re-elect in Mayor Baines' case, good Democrats to the middle-sized cities in America. This is particularly important in the Republican era and with what the Repub agenda is in Washington. Democrats can hold the line and make sure that middle and lower income people are taken care of in their local schools, in the quality of their cities and so forth. All of that is under assault with the extreme budget cuts of the Repubs.

The Mayor, brought his grandson up on stage. He announced him, indicated his great pride in this little cutie-pie and in his daughter and her formerly Repub husband, then looked at his grandson and shouted his last thought, "And he's a Democrat!" LOL! Like the poor child has a chance to become Repub! (I don't think so.)



The front of the little guy's tee shirt says, 'Vote for Grampa, Bob Baines, for Mayor!' LOL! Awwwwwwwwh
All politics is not only local, sometimes it's family.

[ray of light]

8. That is so sweet, tay tay!

Sadly, that little baby is going to be paying off the deficit for the rest of his life. Might make a great campaign t'shirt.

Maybe it could say,

"Seeking Job now. Must pay off trillians of dollars of Republican spending."

[k j]

9. Hoping against hope...

he finds his way to rural Missouri.

[ray of light]

3. TayTay

Are they promoting messages of hope to inspire people to "Rock the Vote"?

[TayTay]

17. Yes, and to remind people of who takes care of them

and who doesn't. NH has a long history of being anti-tax. The Repub candidate has this as his tag line. 'Cut Taxes.' The current Mayor is trying to get people to read his opponents message as 'Cut Services' cuz that's what would happen with an irresponsible tax cut at this time.

That's a tough sell anywhere, never mind NH. People are hurting. Gas prices are up, home heating fuel is going up and so forth. It's hard to remind people that the money you save on a tax cut means less money for good schools and such.

[ray of light]

19. hmm...what if they frame it as, "$50 Tax cut to you=20% less for Grandma"

Would that work you think?

[TayTay]

20. DD should answer as she has lived in NH.

I think that a lot of people know that taxes have been cut to the bone. The big tax issue in NH (a state without an income or sales tax, btw) is the property tax. That is the source of funding for all the services. They are very, very high. But the loss of services would be horrible. It will be interesting to see the results there on Tuesday night. I hope sanity prevails.

[ray of light]

21. Me too.

I have been canvassing where I live and it's downright depressing to hear the old Republican spin on why people are poor!

[ray of light]

5. Do you have the equivalent of what we have here?

It's called "Women's Progressive Activists" and it's an organization to involve people in grassroots but also to promote women's issues and women candidates.

[TayTay]

10. The rest of the speech was also good

and would be familiar in terms of the points made to anyone who reads this group regularly. Sen. Kerry spoke about the Bush Admin and how they are the Katrina Administration. He reiterated the part of his Brown speech that mentioned how "Michael Brown is to FEMA as Donald Rumsfeld is to planning in Iraq" and so forth. (I really like this btw. It's very effective. The crowd was really into this litany of woe that the Repubs are on the national scene. The cheers on this built and built to the end of the list of idiots that Bush has appointed and tolerated in his failed Admin. Very nicely done.)

The Senator also brought up the topic of how this Administration talks about being Christian, but their agenda is not in line with someone who says they follow the teachings of Christianity. Again paraphrased, 'I am a Christian, I am a Catholic and I don't remember Jesus Christ talking about cutting funding for the poor, cutting food stamps and aid on home heating fuel. I was talking with Jim Wallis the other day, who wrote a book you should all read called God and Politics and he said that if you removed from the Bible all the phrases that deal with poverty and helping the poor, the book would be a shambles.' This was, again, extremely well-received with lots of heads shaking in agreement.

The Senator finished up with words of praise for Mayor Baines and an exhortation for people to get out and work to get him re-elected. (I don't know if these folks are old friends, but it sure was a nice relaxed and fun speech, with big bear hugs.)

[TayTay]

11. I'm not going to go into a lot of details about the Mayor's

good speech, as it is local to Manchester. But he was a great speaker and very warm and motivating. He asked that all the kids in the audience come up on stage. I don't know about you, but I am just taken with kids. I just am. I love the see them at rallies because, ahm, they re the future and the reason that you put up with all the crap and annoyance. It's for someone, or in this case, a lot of little someones.

Anyway, Senator Kerry was in the back of the stage and all the little kids were in front of him. It was a really great pic. (I didn't get that really great pic, cuz everytime I go to get a pick, someone pops in front of my camera view. Sigh!)

[TayTay]

13. There was this one little kid, who was just adorable.

He was about 4 or 5 years old and he was directly in front of the Senator. Someone had given him a good sized laminated sign that read, "Kids for Democracy.' He kept trying to figure out where to hold the sign. He would hold it up, then turn it over, put it down, pick it up,wave it around and stuff.

Then he got bored with the sign and decided to look at the tall gentleman behind him. He bent his head way back to look at the Senator. Honest-to-God that was so lovely. He kept trying to figure out why this guy was getting a lot of attention and if he could bend his neck far enough back to see him. (I just loved this little kid.)

[TayTay]

14. Okay, I'm nearly done.

(I'm a slow picture editor. So sue me.) As DD said, the Senator stuck around for awhile and signed some autographs, hugged a bunch of folks that he recognized and seemed to be quite happy to be there. It was a great rally! I had fun. And I can phone bank on Monday night. (Why not? It's for a good Dem.)



I would have gotten an autograph, but there were kids there. I can't cut in line or interfere with kids. I just can't. I want kids involved in the political process. I am not able to get in the way of them and a known public official. Not going to happen. Sorry.

[TayTay]

15. One last pic. Yeah, I love baby pics.

Well, I know who Manchester will be running for Mayor in 2036.



LOL! I asked Mrs. Mayor Baines if I could take a pic of the back of this little tyke's shirt. NH Dems Rock! I love them.

[_dynamicdems]

12. It was good to see Senator Kerry again and to meet TayTay

For people who have never before met, TayTay and I had a lot to talk about. LOL!

It was great to see Senator Kerry without a tie! (I suspect he was happy about not having to wear a tie as well...especially on his "day off.") The crew on the stage was, as TayTay said, an assembly of working-class Dems. They were people you would pass on the street and never think of as "elected officials." I doubt you would get that impression at a Guinta (the Republican candidate) rally.

I found it difficult to take pictures because the room was so small and he was right there. It struck me that it was kinda rude to treat a Senator like a celeb, or as I put it to TayTay, like a "zoo animal." Not that I am usually afraid to ask for photos and get autographs (I love book signings) but I demurred from asking for an autograph, as well. I'm kicking myself on that one though. The crowd was small but the Senator still got mobbed and I suppose I felt a little pity for him. He does this day in and day out. I thought of that scene in Jesus Christ Superstarwhere JC is overwhelmed by the lepers begging to be cured. Okay, I admit I have a strange perspective on things sometimes.

When we left, there was a group of Guinta supporters with large signs camped out across the street. They got wind of the rally and just had to make their presence known: intimidate the enemy. Republicans never change their stripes; they just shed their skins. (My way of calling them serpents.)

Great day in all! TayTay and I are both volunteering to help the Guinta campaign for a few hours each. And she doesn't even live in NH. Now that's right neighborly! Hey, we wouldn't have gone blue in 2004 if it weren't for our neighbors to the south. This race is close so please think good thoughts for Mayor Baines and his fellow Dem candidates. Good bunch of people.

[karynnj]

22. Thank you Tay Tay and dynamicdems

Nice posts and pictures. His commitment is overwhelming. (Tay Tay your comments on your mom are precious. It's cool you could have seen Kerry 3 times this week - he might start recognizing you.)

[jillan]

18. We need to learn a lesson from Kerry.

While we're all getting all pissy and frustrated about this weekends
DU wars -
Kerry just keeps on going.
Campaigning, winning hearts, speaking the truth.

Thanks TayTay and DD for your great reporting.