Mr. Bartcop -
I was at the Kerry rally in Madison, WI on Thursday,
Oct. 28. I was expecting a very large crowd - maybe 50,000 - but
this was ridiculous.
The 80,000 number is reasonable. The assistant
fire chief actually said there were another 20,000 on side streets.
I managed to score some good tickets by attending
a Veterans for Kerry event a couple days before. I'm not a veteran,
although many
members of my family (dad, uncles, etc.) are.
At the vets event, a number of Iraq veterans spoke, including two women.
Their stories
were, in a word, harrowing. They all said
the military needs a new commander-in-chief - John Kerry.
So back to the rally: I took half the day
off work, and was about 15 rows behind and to the right of the stage, which
was sort of in-the-round.
I got there nearly four (4) hours before Kerry
spoke, and there were already thousands of people there, including in the
cheap seats
(they had access to a huge video screen and speakers
were all around).
While waiting, we heard I believe every single
Democratic elected official in the state of Wisconsin. We heard a
local band,
then Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters did a few
songs. There was a lot of downtime and not much elbow room among
79,999
of my closest Cheesehead friends standing shoulder
to shoulder.
The crowd filled 4 blocks of W. Washington Ave.
which leads uphill to the State Capitol. And side streets, and sidewalks,
were filled.
Three-story houses - mostly lived in by university
students - along both sides of the avenue were packed with people on the
porches,
hanging out of windows, stoops. We were
worried the porches were going to collapse. These folks went nuts
when Kerry waved up at them.
Right before Springsteen came out, they did a
final soundcheck of the mikes. In my area we were having difficulties
hearing vocals
previously, so we were chanting "We can't hear"
over and over, and finally one of the tech guys saw us and realized what
we were saying.
I yelled at the top of my lungs, "We need more
cowbell!" which got a big laugh from the crowd.
Finally, when Springsteen came out, he was brilliant.
I've never seen him live, and too bad he only did two songs
- "Promised Land" and "No Surrender." It
was stunning, goose-bump time. He had a guitar and a harmonica, and
his voice.
Both songs were acoustically perfect and musically
brilliant. The crowd was virtually silent.
It was unforgettable. It was a beautiful
autumn day and - believe this - yellow and red leaves actually slowly fell
from the trees
as Bruce sang. Between the songs, Bruce gave
an eloquent, quiet, endorsement of Kerry. He said Kerry has "lived
our history."
He talked about healing the sick, housing the
homeless, about a deeper patriotism that rises from facing the hard truths
about
the good and bad. The man was a revelation.
Then he launched into a reflective, acoustic
version of "No Surrender" which was just beautiful. I swore he was
channeling 1960s
Bob Dylan - in his voice, his guitar and harmonica
playing, and in his words. Immediately after the song, he introduced
the next president,
John Kerry, and the crowd went nuts.
Kerry gave a strong speech - without notes and
without a radio receiver and wire. He hit the right messages, the
right tones.
He said a year ago (when I was supporting Dean
by the way), someone told him, "You don't have a chance to be president.
You'll become president when the Red Sox win
the World Series." Kerry raised his hands and hardly had to say anything.
There you have it.
He also scored points with the crowd by mentioning
the undefeated Badger football team and by saying his late-night campaigning
reminds him of college: "Lots of beer".
He was in the right place to say that, and ought to know. He's sampled
Wisconsin beer
several times in recent appearances in our state.
Kerry blasted Bush for "The buck stops anywhere
but here." He blasted Bush on the missing weapons. Kerry also
said he
would always fight to defend America, but would
restore integrity and honesty to the White House. (Bam!)
He talked about health care and how it is not
only morally right and a health issue, but also an ECONOMIC issue.
Right-on!
He talked about how "the troops are doing their
job, but their commander-in-chief is not doing his job." He talked
about protecting
the environment, protecting our freedom and rights,
educating our children, and restoring America's reputation in the world.
He spoke forcefully, clearly, and looked as presidential
as any non-president (including Bush) that I've ever seen speak.
He said he could
feel it in the air, we're going to win, we're
going to have new leadership in Washington that fights for ordinary working
people.
He finished his not-too-long speech perfectly,
the confetti even went off at exactly the right time (Bush can't even get
that right),
and Kerry worked the crowd for a long time after
his speech. I didn't get quite close enough to shake his hand, but
then again
I already did that before when I got him to sign
my copy of his book, "A Call To Service" when he was here prepping for
the
debates which he won handily. It must've
been the Wisconsin beer that helped.
I'll try to send photos when I get 'em developed
and scanned.