The Scene

The schmidtster (jean schmidt) for Congress campaign kick-off, 6:00-8:00 p.m., Montgomery Inn, 9440 Montgomery Road.

It was a windy and rainy day, almost dreary, as befitted the campaign kickoff for the schmidtster. I'd been standing most of the time by the front door to the restaurant, but a schmidtster supporter made a point of parking a big SUV in front of me (see the picture above), as soon as the law allowed at 6 p.m. sharp. It was fun, in a weird way, to see how happy that made him. No matter, there were lots of good spots to stand nearby.

I arrived in plenty of time to greet some of hoi polloi (albeit generally well-heeled) who came to applaud the great disaster. The pestilence of dishonor, the jingoist cheerleader, our schmidty representative, chose to slip in the back of the restaurant, so for once she didn't have to face my opinion.

The sign was very well received by many, with many people saying "thank you" and "yes!" and "I'm with you!" and other types of agreement aplenty. There was some negative reaction, of course. One fellow asked, as he drove slowly past, why didn't I find a better way to spend my time. I simply mirrored his question, then thought, "Here I am exercising my right to free speech in a somewhat free society, spending my time protesting deception, illegal war, and crimes against humanity. Give me a second... I can surely find a better use of my time."

As I said, most of the traffic was interested and positive. I think I saw only one flipped bird (an old man in a back seat, and maybe he was just holding his hand that way). Given the affluence of the area, I was gratified to see the strong support the anti-war, anti-bush, anti-cheney, and anti-schmidt messages received.

At one point a man came up to me, identified himself as a reporter for the local paper, and asked me a few questions. He did take my card, though he didn't bother to quote me in his writeup. He also did not mention any of the schmidtsters negatives coming into the campaign, but he did at least mention I was there, and describe one of the signs I had with me. See the Enquirer article for that.

More fun later,

Ray

Written March 14, 2006