It was the seventh Farmers Market Obama table for this year and was an extremely windy and challenging spring day with lots of people from all over the globe walking along and choosing from all kinds of locally grown, baked, crafted and political flavors. The Obama table is one feature to many at what the New York Times mentioned "The Dane County Farmers' Market in Wisconsin is now recognized as the largest in the nation, and is still growing."
The night before the tabling, I made sure the weekly war scorecard was updated and visible.
Here's this week's ever growing sad news:
Weekly War ScorecardCost of Iraq Occupation:(running total):
$526,397,801,041
- $4,681 per household.
- $1,721 per person.
- $341.4 million per day
American Deaths:4,092
American Wounded:30,333
Iraqi Body Count:1,221,154
As of June 6, 2008 at 12:00AM
Sources:
www.iraqbodycount.net
www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths....
www.defenselink.mil
www.antiwar.com/casualties
www.costofwar.com
The day started off with a hot, humid day combined with a constant 20-knot wind with occasional gusts that would make anything not weighed down fly off into the crowd. A few other people who were on the Square doing tabling left due to it just being too hard to keep stuff intact.
The usual high-flying Obama sign was set for the high-wind configuration, which is weighed down as to not fly off into the crowd. For those who ever table in such conditions, it's critical to have everything weighed down with cool stones, weights or artful uses of bungie chords. To make the windy conditions even more demanding, swirling storm clouds and occasional rainy mist (which ended up later in the day as near-hurricane gusty rain and hail well after we were gone) made for a demanding day.
It was way too windy to have the Obama cut-out and I was doing the table by myself for a fair amount of the day. I had gotten an email from a BBC staffer in town last night who said there would be a camera crew coming by at around 10am...they showed up and did some interviewing, but the wind gusts made for difficult conditions. They were coming back in a couple weeks. On that note, if you know anyone who is doing grassroots Obama stuff that you think would make for an interesting story, PM me.
There was a lot of people who were joyous to be at the Obama table for the first time since Barack Obama was the declared nominee. Many people were relieved that it was now onto the General Election and all cannons now aimed at the farce candidacy of John McCain. Many discussed the speech McCain last Tuesday and how it was something that all Democrats should welcome. McCain is a lousy speaker who is trying to spin his way out of his voting record in 2007 where he supported Bush 95% of the time.
There were a couple Freeper types who do the usual cowardly antics when they walk by the table. Most notibly, one guy was yelling at me that I should move the Obama table next to the Planned Parenthood table since Obama was for "choice". His harried wife was trying to drag him away, but he kept yelling about "you baby killers!" and other nonsense. This guy is was what may be a classic McCain supporter that will approach the table with their vile, reptilian antics. Bring it, pops. :hi:
It was a reminder to me that if any Democrat plans on voting for McCain this fall, they are aligning themselves to ilk like this guy.
The Raging Grannies (
http://raginggrannies.madisonwi.us/) of Madison were singing nearby and I wanted to videotape them, but due to the extreme wind and working with the high demand from the crowd, it couldn't happen. They were very funny. There was another Freeper type that was trying to interrupt them and giving them the thumbs down until he was laughed off by a few of their fans.
About 200 bumperstickers and dozens of buttons were given away. What was VERY COOL were at least a dozen or so Hillary Clinton supporters who came by asking for information or wanting an Obama bumpersticker to replace their Clinton sticker. Very cool people. I gave them buttons as well as information on the local Madison Obama campaign office. True blue Democrats! It was really nice seeing unity forming right before my eyes. We all shook hands and knew the obvious conclusion that we are going to take McCain down in the General Election.
On that note, when I came back home slightly soggy and windblown, I watched Hillary Clinton's fantastic speech and she really made me proud to be a Democrat.
The winds of change are coming and we can handle it! Even on days where the wind can make it seem like it's better to stay inside, as the tune goes, we have the power.
Gobama!
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