Gov. Sarah Palin was in downtown Pittsburgh Friday night for a private fundraiser. It cost $1,000 just to get in the door, $10,000 for a photo with Palin, and $25,000 to sit at a table with her.
There's three minutes of video of the event at YouTube here (embedding now disabled). While local pols including State Rep. Mike Turzai, former US Rep and current congresscritter wannabe Melissa Hart, Congressman Tim Murphy, and Allegheny County Republican Party Chair Jim Roddey attended, even the arch conservative Richard Mellon Scaife-owned Tribune Review admitted that there were more folks outside protesting Palin than inside the fundraiser.
The real noise was made on Friday by the hundreds who showed up to greet the Governor with cheers for Barack Obama.
I'll quote Joy a Democracy for Pittsburgh member:
About 400 people helped keep the number of protesters constantly above 200 for several hours....The numbers included at least two official (and I believe permit-holding) groups, plus a groundswell of...just...people.
It was the perfect protest. We did not try to silence Palin in any way. No roads or sidewalks were blocked. We just testified, with a wide range of signs, that she does not speak for hockey moms, for soccer moms, for working moms, for working people, for middle class people, for fair-minded rich people, for people who care about the environment or animals, for people who care about affordable healthcare, and for people who care about the health and the future of Pittsburgh and Pittsburghers. And, in the case of DFP, that putting lipstick on George Bush and Dick Cheney does not make 4 more years of the same witless policies more attractive...that pit-bull-headedness is more of the same current bull-headedness.
I counted four McCain/Palin supporters in the crowd.
Here's a video from Keystone Progress (they also made this video of Palin's recent visit to an Irish Pub in Philadelphia):
(You can see me at about 1:05 in behind the "Bubba" sign)
Another video from local blogger Schultz at technology + politics:
Pictures from Friday:
technology + politics
and at flickr here, here and here.
Media Coverage:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Story, Video
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
KDKA
WTAE
WPXI
2 Political Junkies: Here, Here and Here
technology + politics
The Burgh Report
The Pittsburgh Comet