About 100 women, of all ages, around 15 men. Not bad for a weekday noon event.
Good energy. No speakers, just chants. Dozens of passersby in autos honked in support, no hecklers.
The first woman on the scene was a mother with her 3 year old in a stroller, with several vague signs. But she was a 'prolife' activist. Moved about the crowd, posted in different places. Trying to give the air that the rally was anti choice, but too many other clearly pro choice signs were all around her. And all the chants were loudly delivered and clearly on pro choice message. Some people didn't catch on, they just saw a mother who brought her kid and had some unclear signs, but the signs were from 'humanlife.org', 'the human life alliance'.
Some other clown thought he'd take advantage of the lull in chants to give a speech. He was listened to for a minute or two, then the crowd consensus was that he was not there for the rally's stated goal, and the crowd chanted prochoice slogans over him. Big santa clause looking biker with shades and a bright pink do rag, and a sign that said his wife was at work supporting him.
I went up to him after the rally and asked him about his shirt (an old NOW shirt.) He went from friendly conversation to accusing me of being a real establishment centrist. I told him I thought I was a progressive. By the end of our conversation, he was yelling that I was a republican. I told him his political rating scale slid fast.
I'm a Warren backer, but he was attacking Klobuchar for being a corporate sellout and conservative, which are both of course certainly lies. He actually confused Klobuchar with Tina Smith, kept insisting that Klobuchar replaced Franken and had put her name on no progressive legislation, and he told me the 'open secrets' site showed her dirty corporate contributors. I looked at opensecrets when I got home, and there was no earthshaking corporate malefactor contributing to Sen K., and she was way down the list in total contributions and outside contributions, in dollar amount rankings. So he was just a big lying chowderhead whose only job was to get away with the lies for those few minutes of our debate.
Those 2 were the only negative energy in the area. Public response was 100% positive, and the participants were energized and upbeat. The event wasn't really structured, which I was surprised at, since literally everbody and their mother e-mailed me to attend the event, NARAL, NOW, ultraviolet, Momsrising, ACLU, PFAW, Moveon, TrustWomen, Indivisible, etc.
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